Judge Isaac Parker

Introduction

Born on October 15, 1838, Isaac Parker was the last child of Jane and Joseph Parker. He grew up on the outskirts of the town of Barnesville in Belmont County in Ohio. The family lived in a predominantly agricultural area, but the boy did not care too much work outdoors. Their main concern was to educate. In the young age, he worked as a school teacher for higher education and, at seventeen, he decided to study law. After working as an apprentice in the legal field, he passed the test for authorization to become a lawyer in 1859. He went to the city Missouri, where he worked in a legal office. He obtained employment in criminal courts and was elected as city attorney (Evans, 732). With the advent of the civil war, he was enlisted in the 61st Regiment of Missouri Emergency. 1861 his status changed from single to married.

Discussion

In 1868, Parker sought to obtain a position as Judge of District No. 12 Missouri and he succeeded. However, his political ambitions led him to be elected as a congressman in 1870, a position where he had an outstanding performance and achieved re-election in 1872. Such periods are noted for his defense of the Bureau of Indian Affairs and called for fair treatment of American Indians in the Indian Territory. He resigned from this position in 1874 and sought a position in public office. Due to the good work done with the Republican Party during his years as a legislator, won by President Ulysses, he was granted to be nominated for Chief Justice of the Court in the territory of Utah in 1875. But at the same time, Parker requested a place as the head of the Federal Court for the Western District of Arkansas at Fort Smith. The jurisdiction of the court understood, then, the violent Indian Territory.

Posterity had been assigned to the lawyer nicknamed "Hanging Judge" by the excessive number of cases resulting in death sentences due to hanging. Many of them attracted public attention and did nothing to overshadow his legal activity. Parker, in his words, set out to build "the moral force of a strong federal court." Added to all this, the area of his jurisdiction, the Indian Territory was infested with criminals product of the violence generated by civil war in addition to the constant population movements due to expansion of the U.S. border ...