Book Review: Goodbye, Judge Lynch: The End of a Lawless Era in Wyoming's Big Horn Basin

Authors

Stephen J. Leonard, Metropolitan State College of Denver

Date of this Version

2006

Document Type

Article

Comments

Published in GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY 26:3 (Summer 2006). Copyright © 2006 Center for Great Plains Studies, University of Nebraska–Lincoln.

Abstract

In Goodbye, Judge Lynch, John W. Davis details two early twentieth-century murder cases and their aftermaths in Wyoming's Big Horn Basin. In 1902, Jim Gordon killed his older brother, Thomas, supposedly because Jim coveted Thomas's wife, Margaret. The jury found Jim innocent of first- and second-degree murder, but convicted him of manslaughter. Jim demanded a new trial. The second jury convicted him of first-degree murder, a capital offense. Jim's attorney appealed to the Wyoming Supreme Court arguing that conviction of a greater offense in the second trail violated the U.S. Constitution's prohibition against double jeopardy.