Law of Lynch

Certain a William Lynch (1736 - 1796), “patriot” of Virginia, decided “to reform” the way in which justice was applied in its area during the Prolégomène S of the Guerre of independence.

Justice of the Peace, it founded expeditious Procès sometimes leading to summary executions against the defenders of the British crown . It joined together the Cour, recruited the Juré S and governed the Exécution. When the court was to defer, the prisoner was carried out. The “law of Lynch” was spread in the territories of the American West and developed to with it until the establishment and the consolidation of the rule of law. Its expeditious methods and the miscarriage of justices were covered by the Supreme court. Lynch became then senator and died respected of all. Until 1911, in North Carolina one regarded these methods as beneficial.

The “law of Lynch” gave rise to the word lynching , towards 1837, which indicates a surge of racial hatred against the Indians, particularly in Nouvelle England in spite of the laws which protected them, as at the place of the blacks continued by Comités of vigilance , which will give rise to the Ku Klux Klan. In the South of the United States, the contempt of procedure rules included/understood as in favor of the criminals is reinforced by the hostility at the federal government.

Discussion on the origins

In spite of this recognized paternity with Charles or John or William Lynch or the origin of the name which could come from the county of Lynch Creek, one finds processes of expeditious justice similar to the XIXe century in Ireland and Russia, which consists in making into force undergo a minor sorrow with a suspect without examination of the facts in front of any Tribunal made up according to the procedure rules resulting from the Loi in the country.

Of no see an origin of this proceeded of exception in:

  • procedure known as Vehmgerichte of the German Moyen-âge ,
  • procedures known as Lydford law , law of the gibet or Halifax law , Cowper justice and Jeddart justice in Great Britain during the revolutionary period, which was characterized by the fact that part of the Communauté takes in hand the Justice and implements it according to its own interpretation in spite of the laws of the kingdom.

However, it is the sanction of Capital punishment by Pendaison and almost without judgment which retained such a denomination.

History

Of 1882 with 1951: 4.700 men, women and children - practically a person per week during eighty years - were thus victims of these practices to the the United States, perpetrated in the name of a not written law . Among those, two couples were assassinated the July 25th 1946 with Monroe, in the Comté of Walton, in Georgia. Their murderers escaped justice… Today, the descendants of lynched, gathered within an association, require accounts of their country in order to obtain repair.

Art

Literature

Victor Hugo, in the Poor wretches thus evokes it in connection with the Révolution of July:

The zeal sometimes went until the extermination. Such group of national guards constituted of its private authority council of war and judged and carried out in five minutes a captive insurrectionist. It is an improvisation of this kind which had killed Jean Prouvaire. Wild law of Lynch , that no party has the right to reproach the others, because it is applied by the République in America as by the Monarchie in Europe. This law of Lynch became complicated mistakes. One day of riot, a young poet, named Paul-Aime Garnier, was continued Royal Place, the bayonet with the kidneys, and did not escape that while taking refuge under the carriage door from number 6. One shouted: “In here still one of these Saint-Simonian S! ” and one wanted to kill it. However, it had under the arm a volume of the memories of the Duc of Saint-Simon. A guard national had read on this book the word: Saint-Simon , and had shouted: “Died! ”|Victor Hugo, quoted by Augustin Chevalier, “the law of Lynch, account of English manners”, extracted the Re-examined of the Two Worlds , December 15th 1876)

Cinema

The Western S generally treat reports/ratios of the individual citizen and Rule of law according to a well ground set of themes: culpability, the committal for trial, need for justice. Without humanism nor mechanical denunciation of the institutions plugs, they explore an ambivalent report/ratio in which the Community organization can as well persecute the man as to release it when the hysterical gears of logics of mass lead most notable, but also no matter who, even each one, to forget the principles of justice and the citizenship.

Song

The song Strange Fruit, interpreted by Billie Holiday starting from 1939, contributed to remind the public opinion that the practice of lynching continued.

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