Of Arms and the Law

Navigation
About Me
Contact Me
Archives
XML Feed
Home


Law Review Articles
Firearm Owner's Protection Act
Armed Citizens, Citizen Armies
2nd Amendment & Historiography
The Lecture Notes of St. George Tucker
Original Popular Understanding of the 14th Amendment
Originalism and its Tools


2nd Amendment Discussions

1982 Senate Judiciary Comm. Report
2004 Dept of Justice Report
US v. Emerson (5th Cir. 2001)

Click here to join the NRA (or renew your membership) online! Special discount: annual membership $25 (reg. $35) for a great magazine and benefits.

Recommended Websites
Ammo.com, deals on ammunition
Scopesfield: rifle scope guide
Ohioans for Concealed Carry
Clean Up ATF (heartburn for headquarters)
Concealed Carry Today
Knives Infinity, blades of all types
Buckeye Firearms Association
NFA Owners' Association
Leatherman Multi-tools And Knives
The Nuge Board
Dave Kopel
Steve Halbrook
Gunblog community
Dave Hardy
Bardwell's NFA Page
2nd Amendment Documentary
Clayton Cramer
Constitutional Classics
Law Reviews
NRA news online
Sporting Outdoors blog
Blogroll
Instapundit
Upland Feathers
Instapunk
Volokh Conspiracy
Alphecca
Gun Rights
Gun Trust Lawyer NFA blog
The Big Bore Chronicles
Good for the Country
Knife Rights.org
Geeks with Guns
Hugh Hewitt
How Appealing
Moorewatch
Moorelies
The Price of Liberty
Search
Email Subscription
Enter your email address:

Delivered by FeedBurner

 

Credits
Powered by Movable Type 6.8.8
Site Design by Sekimori

« Looks like it's working | Main | NFA weapons registry and studies of its flaws »

speaking of vigilantees....

Posted by David Hardy · 8 December 2007 11:43 AM

An article on the situation in a small Arizona town. There are some areas here where it basically is as it was on the frontier -- nearest law enforcement officer 60 miles away, and that's if you're lucky.

As one commenter on the previous thread noted, most of the western vigilanteeism represented a response to chaos. When a person or gang was too powerful to be taken care of by legal process, they were given a warning and unless they were fools, they got out of town, because it was notice that the citizenry were prepared for organized if illegal action against them. The custom was, I recall, 24 hours' written notice. Thus the Earps received notice in Tombstone, and left.

An interesting question springs into mind. Juries are required to be drawn from the vicinage, vicinity, of the offense. This is required, I'd assume, so that jurors know local conditions. Arizona counties are generally huge -- some are larger than Eastern states. In this case, this town is about 80 miles from Phoenix. Its conditions compared to Phoenix (an urban area with about 3 million population and a large police force) are as night and day. But Phoenix is the county seat, and in a trial held there the jury will almost certainly be 100% urban dwellers. Should someone in this town act in self-defense, might there be a case for arguing that the vicinage from which jurors should be taken should be the town, and not Phoenix nor the entire county?

My own county, Pima, has done something like that for misdemeanors. The county seat is Tucson in the east, but there is a JP court and judge out in Ajo, way to the west. It didn't make sense to require people to drive 100+ miles to contest a speeding ticket or misdemeanor or try a small claims case. So in a misdemeanor jury trial there, the jury would be drawn from Ajo, rather than Tucson.

· General con law

2 Comments | Leave a comment

Chris in Phx | December 10, 2007 12:34 PM | Reply

I am surprised that residents that felt the need to warn the deputy that they were going to start shooting to protect themselves. I am even more surprised they hadn't already called the SO to come pick up the bodies. After all we have a long tradition of firearms in this state and now with the castle doctrine to further back us up, they should not be having this problem (at least not after the first few perps assume room temp!)

Kenneth | March 16, 2008 11:13 PM | Reply

I am looking for the arguments in support of vigilanteeism. I'm an attorney, too, and the arguments against it are clear. Do you know of any written codification of the subject? In an age of outrageous recidivism and unchecked murder and crimes against children, a reexamination of law and order is mandatory.

Thank you.

Kenneth

Leave a comment