Murder or physical violence committed by a crowd of indignant people, a phenomenon relevant at all times. Many such cases today. For this, it is enough for the sufferer to arouse anger in society by crime, misconduct, or simply become the object of manipulation by the public consciousness. Then he can become a victim of reprisal without trial or investigation, that is, without the participation of the law.
In the USA this phenomenon even got its own term - “lynching”. Wikipedia today treats lynching as the killing without trial of a person who is suspected of any crime or simply a violation of established rules in society.
As a rule, in the case of the most severe sentence, people subjected to lynching were hanged, less often after torture they were burned at the stake. But in fairness, it must be said that many were simply destroyed morally. They were rolled in feathers, having previously smeared the naked body with tar, after which they put him in a barrel and carried around the city. Relevant comments and the hooting of the crowd were inseparable attributes of such an action.
Now, in fact, why such a name. It came from the definition of “Lynch Court, ” and this is the name of a particular person, which makes you look into the depths of history. It just so happened that in the United States, two historical characters by the name of Lynch were tried according to their own laws.
One of them, the civil judge Charles Lynch, administered justice during the War of Independence, and this is the last quarter of the 18th century. He personally decided the fate of those suspected of war and criminal crimes. To deprive a person of his life, he did not need prosecutors, lawyers, or any other people.
History also knows Colonel William Lynch, who served in Pennsylvania. In 1780, he introduced here the “Lynch Law” which, although it provided for reprisals, but it was corporal punishment.
Thus, one of the two Lynches, or maybe both at once, claims the origin of the term, which meant a rather lengthy and destructive process for thousands of people in American history. In the USA, for example, the last known case of lynching is dated 1981. It happened in the city of Mobile, Alabama. Then members of the Ku Klux Klan killed a young black guy named Michael Donald.
However, for the local clan, this meant the beginning of the end. The police found the guilty, the court sentenced them to pay the relatives of the murdered 7 million dollars and transfer various property to the possession. The immediate killer of Henry Francis Hayes, the court sentenced to death, which was carried out in 1997.
But for many years, US official power, although publicly condemned lynching, nevertheless, did not stop it. Moreover, Sheriffs of Territories, city mayors and other officials participated in Lynch courts. Of course, in these conditions no one was engaged in the investigation of murders committed without trial.
Well, the story left vivid and very sad facts about how the crowd conducted its trial not only with the inaction of the official authorities, but even contrary to its own verdicts.
An example of this is the case of the manager of a pencil factory in Georgia, Leo Franca. He was charged with bodily harm, rape and murder of a 13-year-old factory worker. It happened in 1913.
At first, the court sentenced Frank to death, but after listening to lawyers who considered the evidence base very weak, State Governor John Slaton commuted the death penalty to life imprisonment.
This decision caused a sharp outrage among the inhabitants of Atlanta, the capital of Georgia. As a result, the governor, forced to resign, lost his post, and Leo Frank lost his life.
He was sent to serve a life sentence relatively close to Atlanta, in the prison of the city of Milledgeville, which is 130 km. from the capital of Georgia. On August 17, 1915, an angry mob of Atlanta and Milledgeville residents broke into a local prison and drove Leo Frank into an oak grove, near the burial place of the girl.
There he was offered to admit his guilt, but he denied it. Then Frank was hanged on a tree. The next day, the police pulled him out of the noose, but no one was charged.
There is a misconception that state blacks were lynched. But this is not the case and the Jewish Leo Frank is proof of this. Yes, African Americans more often than others went through the Lynch court, but it was tried against Italians, Mexicans, French Catholics and other non-African peoples.
In cases where the mood in society did not coincide with the opinion of official justice.
