Murder in Tombstone: The Forgotten Trial of Wyatt Earp (The Lamar Series in Western History) (Paperback)

~ (Author)
Key Phrases: propositional questions, direct examiner, stage robbery, Ike Clanton, Doc Holliday, Wyatt Earp (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The most legendary gunfight in the Wild West—the famous shoot-out at the O.K. Corral—took place in Tombstone, Ariz., on October 26, 1881. Lubet, professor of law at Northwestern University, provides an unusual account of the heretofore obscure court case that followed the gunplay, when local prosecutors with political connections to the Earp brothers' opponents, the Clantons and McLaurys (of whom only Ike Clanton survived), sought quite earnestly to send the Earps and John "Doc" Holliday to the gallows. "To the prosecutors," writes Lubet, "the Earps and Holliday were murderers—law officers out of control.... For the defense, the Earps were steadfast heroes—willing to risk their lives on the mean, dusty streets of Tombstone for the sake of order and stability." As Lubet makes clear in his detailed narrative, the tense, bitterly contested trial was nearly as charged as the shoot-out itself: filled with intrigue, fifth columnists and hidden agendas. The level of emotions may best be illustrated by actions after the acquittals: Clanton partisans shot Virgil Earp on a Tombstone street, crippling him for life, while Morgan Earp took a fatal bullet in the back. Wyatt and Doc, meanwhile, found it advisable to get out of town. Lubet's worthwhile account will interest Wild West buffs as well as readers interested in legal history.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Review

"One of the gems in the vast literature on Wyatt Earp... Lubet's study of the complicated legal aftermath of the OK Corral manages to be stylish and elegant, a virtue not often found in outlaw studies." Larry McMurtry, New York Review of Books "This is the first book to examine in depth these legal proceedings, and no one could have done a better job. Lubet explains, in a clear and interesting way, how Arizona territorial law worked in the 1880s." Michael F. Blake, Chicago Tribune"

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Product Details

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: Yale University Press (March 28, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 030011527X
• ISBN-13: 978-0300115277
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.4 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (23 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #370,340 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

28 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Court Fight, Not the Gun Fight, January 12, 2005

By	R. Hardy "Rob Hardy" (Columbus, Mississippi USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Murder in Tombstone: The Forgotten Trial of Wyatt Earp (The Lamar Series in Western History) (Hardcover)

Even if you can't recite the names of the participants, you have probably heard of the "Gunfight at the OK Corral," probably courtesy of Hollywood. The most famous participant was Wyatt Earp, who has been portrayed in at least thirty movies, and you can imagine with what degree of realism. For instance, who remembers that because of the shootout, Wyatt and his sidekick Doc Holliday were actually brought to court for murder? In the lawless West, the law took its course, and in _Murder in Tombstone: The Forgotten Trial of Wyatt Earp_ (Yale University Press), Steven Lubet has looked at the legend and the legal outcome. This particular gunfight is still argued about by experts and western fans, and it is certainly the case that important parts of the event itself are never going to be completely understood. However, the subsequent trial was well documented, and Lubet's is the first book to tell the often surprising story of the court fight after the gun fight. Lubet is a lawyer himself, and brings much legal insight to a story that is usually only told as western legend.

Tombstone was a town that had sprung up in response to silver mining, and in true boomtown fashion it would fold only a few years after the shootout (it has come back as a tourist site since then). Around the town were cowboys, not at this time the respectable ranch-hands who managed cattle production, but small time ranchers who raided herds in Mexico to replenish stock, and robbed stagecoaches as a sideline. Virgil Earp came to town as a US marshal and Wyatt followed as a deputy county sheriff; they were professional lawmen, and would have been immediately marked as enemies of the cowboys. Youngest brother Morgan was there as well, and following Wyatt was the disreputable Doc Holliday he had inexplicably befriended. Among the cowboys were Ike and Billy Clanton and Frank and Tom McLaury. Ike got into a shouting match with Doc in the Alhambra Saloon, in which Virgil had to intervene. Ike spent the night drinking and cursing the Earps, and on 26 October 1881 enlisted the McLaurys and his brother Billy to arm themselves and prepare to meet the lawmen. Three of the cowboys died, and public sympathy turned from the lawmen to those they had killed. Five days later there was a preliminary hearing which was to determine if the accused men ought to be bound over for a trial. It is this hearing that forms the mass of the book, with an examination of the legal procedures of the time compared to those now.

The hearing lasted a month, with thirty different witnesses, some of them surprise witnesses called by the defense. As a lawyer, Lubet is very good at alerting readers to mistakes the lawyers on both sides made. "As desperate lawyers often do..." he explains when a lawyer stalls for time after a witness has given a surprisingly unfavorable response, or "Then the cross examiner blundered in a manner still all too familiar to trial lawyers, by asking one question too many." Spicer found that although Virgil had acted "incautiously and without due circumspection," the defendants had committed only "a necessary act, done in the discharge of official duty." There is a short epilogue after the trial; Virgil was ambushed in revenge and crippled for life, Morgan was shot and killed while playing billiards, and Wyatt conducted a "vendetta ride" to kill those responsible for attacking his brothers. This all sounds more like western history as depicted in the cinema. The main part of Lubet's history, however, is a fascinating and detailed examination not of a shoot-out but of the uncinematic and neglected legal outcome.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars An excellent but oddly named book, August 23, 2006

By	Marvin D. Pipher (Houston, Texas USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

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Despite its anomalous title, which must be either a marketing ploy or the author's unstated opinion, this is an exceptional book written by a legal scholar who is intimately familiar with the law and its history, and who has obviously done his homework regarding the hearing held in the wake of the police action of October 26,1881 in Tombstone, Arizona. The author clearly understands the laws, then extant in Arizona, and has studied the case and its testimony in painstaking detail. With that insight and background, he walks us through the proceedings pointing out when and where the prosecution and defense succeeded or erred in judgment, either winning or losing points for their positions. Fortunately for the reader, Mr. Lubet writes fluently and is able to explain the subtle nuances of both the law and the testimony, as a lawyer would see it, in terms easily understood by the layman. This makes for easy and enjoyable reading.

Beyond the proceedings, the book is still more interesting since it delves into some little known legalities of times past and explores the histories of some of the major participants. For example: I never quite understood why those accused of assassinating Abraham Lincoln were never allowed to testify in their own defense. Little did I know that, prior to 1864, laws in all U.S. jurisdictions prohibited accused parties from doing so or that in 1864 Maine became the first state to abolish that rule. Neither did I know that Judge Spicer, who presided at the OK Corral hearing was the defense attorney for the only man found guilty and executed in Utah for the Mountain Meadows Massacre. I also didn't know that Tom and Frank McLaury's brother, Will, a lawyer from Texas, interjected himself into the proceedings on the side of the prosecution and may have been instrumental in that side's insisting on a charge of first degree murder.

I must confess, however, that although I found this book to be an excellent read I was somewhat disappointed at some of the things the author failed to recognize, or at least failed to mention, and I have to disagree with some of his conclusions. More specifically: he never observed that the prosecution's case was almost entirely fabricated. As a result, he didn't seem to understand why their lawyers didn't ask more probing and expansive questions to solidify their testimony. The obvious answer, in my view, is that what they had contrived was all there was and that any deviation from that orchestrated testimony could easily have devastated their case. I.e., Would all the witnesses have said the same thing? (Witness Ike Clanton's wild and outlandish testimony.) In addition, the author stated several times that Wyatt Earp had clearly lied in stating that his gun was in his pocket. In the author's opinion, if that was so Wyatt would never have been able to draw it as quickly as he was said to have done. Instead, Mr. Lubet concluded that Wyatt was most likely waving it as they approached the "Cowboys." (a clear provocation) To me, a more likely scenario is that upon seeing that the Cowboys were armed, Wyatt quite sensibly put his hand in his pocket, grasped his pistol and steadied his nerves. And, strangely enough, the author never mentioned the fact that almost all of the prosecution witnesses were friends or associates of the slain Cowboys and that, based on the testimony of the two most neutral witnesses to the shootout, all had clearly perjured themselves.

There is one other conclusion which one can drawn from this book. Whereas many have long held that Sheriff Behan was simply a bumbling or ineffectual lawman with sympathies toward the "Cowboys" (i.e., the outlaws). He was most likely one of them. Why else would he: 1) deputize known Cowboys, 2) include known Cowboys in his posses, 3) steadfastly avoid ever capturing any Cowboys, and 4) perjure himself in an attempt to hang Virgil, Wyatt, and Morgan Earp, three respected lawmen, along with Doc Holliday? Blind hatred may have clouded Will McLaury's judgment, if he was an honorable man, but Johnny Behan has no such excuse.

All that aside, however, this is an erudite book about the most famous gun fight and the most controversial character on America's wild frontier. As such, it is thought provoking and a "must have" for every fan of western history.

11 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A perfect marriage of author and subject, February 16, 2005

By	Paul Cool (Baltimore, MD) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Murder in Tombstone: The Forgotten Trial of Wyatt Earp (The Lamar Series in Western History) (Hardcover)

Steven Lubet's "Murder in Tombstone" is a landmark study, both because Lubet takes a fresh approach and because the book represents a perfect marriage of author and subject.

Paula Marks, Casey Tefertiller, Allen Barra, and Steve Gatto have all addressed the OK corral preliminary hearing at length in their books, and Jeff Morey has written about it at length in his Internet and other articles. Each has examined the testimony, and judged it in light of such factors as witness credibility and extra-transcript evidence. They have commented upon the impact made upon the hearing by Thomas Fitch and William McLaury, and upon the reasoning of Wells Spicer. But "Murder in Tombstone" is something new.

While other works have focused on what the judge, lawyers and witnesses said about the conduct of the lawmen (police & sheriff) and of their adversaries in the vacant lot, this is the first work to focus on the conduct of the judge and lawyers (and secondarily of the witnesses). It is a first rate study, not only about the conduct of a particular complex 30-day preliminary hearing, but also of trial practice in the Gilded Age West. And this is where that "perfect marriage" I spoke of comes in. While Steven Lubet is not the first lawyer to pen a book about the OK Corral gunfight, he is the first recognized national authority on trial advocacy to do so. He has had that status for about a decade (as far as I can tell from the Amazon listings), and so what he has to say about the options open to the judge & lawyers, the tactics used and discarded, the traps sprung and the mistakes made, carries great weight. I don't agree with every conclusion made by Lubet. (I don't think that Wyatt had his gun out of his coat pocket; I think it more likely that he had his hand on his gun in his pocket, and that the hesitating movements of Frank/Billy gave him time to jerk and fire.) But I do conclude that this groundbreaking study cannot be ignored, will not be easily challenged.

Finally, the book elevates attorney Thomas Fitch to the level of being one of the most significant characters in the entire Earp/Cow-boy/Tombstone drama. Without his representation of the Earps, there would have been no Vendetta. Without a Vendetta, there would have been some books on the OK Corral story, but they would never have become the book/movie/etc. industry they became.

Buy this book and read it closely. While likely to remain sui generis in the OK gunfight field (and for that reason in print for a long, long time), it should give rise to a new genre of American legal history. Let's hope so.