A miners' court was a type of quasi-judicial court common in the
American Old West
The American frontier, also known as the Old West or the Wild West, encompasses the geography, history, folklore, and culture associated with the forward wave of American expansion in mainland North America that began with European colonial ...
that summoned a subset of the
miner
A miner is a person who extracts ore, coal, chalk, clay, or other minerals from the earth through mining. There are two senses in which the term is used. In its narrowest sense, a miner is someone who works at the rock face; cutting, blasting, ...
s in a district when a dispute arose.
Background
It was made to retain order and decide punishments within mining communities. A presiding officer or
judge
A judge is a person who presides over court proceedings, either alone or as a part of a panel of judges. A judge hears all the witnesses and any other evidence presented by the barristers or solicitors of the case, assesses the credibility an ...
was elected and a
jury
A jury is a sworn body of people (jurors) convened to hear evidence and render an impartiality, impartial verdict (a Question of fact, finding of fact on a question) officially submitted to them by a court, or to set a sentence (law), penalty o ...
was selected. Other systems that were used included
alcalde
Alcalde (; ) is the traditional Spanish municipal magistrate, who had both judicial and administrative functions. An ''alcalde'' was, in the absence of a corregidor, the presiding officer of the Castilian '' cabildo'' (the municipal council) a ...
s and arbitration. In the event a decision was disputed, a
mass meeting
In parliamentary law, a mass meeting is a type of deliberative assembly or popular assembly, which in a publicized or selectively distributed notice known as the call of the meeting - has been announced: (RONR)
*as called to take appropriate acti ...
of the mining camp could be called to allow a dissatisfied party to plead his case and possibly get the decision reversed.
[Marshall, Thomas M. "The Miners' Laws of Colorado." ''American Historical Review'' 25.3 (1920): 426–39.]
Further reading
*Boggs, Johnny D.
Great Murder Trials of the Old West'. Piano: Republic of Texas Press, 2003.
*Burns, John F., and Richard J. Orsi. ''Taming the Elephant: Politics, Government, and Law in Pioneer California''. Berkeley: U of California, 2003.
References
External links
An American Experiment in Anarcho-Capitalism: The Not So Wild, Wild West
Quasi-judicial bodies
American frontier
History of mining in the United States
Courts by type
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