American jurist (1825?-1903). The "
Law West of the Pecos," Judge Roy Bean was very likely the most
colorful judge in
history.
Bean was born in
Mason County, Kentucky but left home at the age of 15 to follow his older brothers west. After traveling to
New Mexico, he moved
south of the border and set up a
trading post in
Chihuahua, Mexico. After killing a man, Bean fled to
California to take refuge with his brother
Joshua Bean, who later became the first
mayor of
San Diego.
Roy was made a
lieutenant in the state
militia by his brother and got a job tending bar at a place called the Headquarters. He injured a man in a
duel in 1852 and was arrested. He escaped, but his brother was killed a few months later after getting stuck on the pointy end of a
romantic triangle. Roy moved back to New Mexico and worked as a bartender for his other brother, who was both a sheriff
and a saloonkeeper, which seems like a nice racket.
After a few years slinging
booze and smuggling guns during the
Civil War, Roy married a Mexican teenager and moved to
San Antonio. He supported his wife and five children by selling stolen firewood and watered-down milk.
In 1882, fleeing both the law and his wife, Bean moved to tiny
Vinegarroon, Texas, to run a makeshift
saloon for railroad workers. The desert heat apparently affected the minds of the local
county commissioners, because they appointed Bean as the
Justice of the Peace of
Pecos County. Bean, not
drunk enough to miss the obvious opportunity thrown at his feet, eagerly accepted the position and moved a few miles north to a tent city called
Langtry. The town had been named for a railroad boss, but Bean liked the name because he was obsessed with a British
actress named
Lillie Langtry. He built a saloon which he named the
Jersey Lilly -- Lillie Langtry's nickname. The Jersey Lilly pulled triple-duty -- Bean's saloon, his home, and his
courthouse.
Bean's court was short on legal niceties and long on
entertainment. Tradition states that Bean opened
proceedings with "
Hear ye! Hear ye! This honorable court's now in
session! And if any
galoot wants a
snort afore we start, let him step up to the
bar and name his
pizen!" He kept a pet
bear named
Bruno chained in the yard. Bruno chugged bottles of
beer and, when
chained in the courtroom, helped
sober up
drunks before their cases came up.
Bean once delivered a
sentence of
not guilty upon a man accused of murdering a
Chinese railroad worker, saying that he had read through his
law books and "damned if I can find any
law against killing a
Chinaman."
Another time, Bean was called to
investigate the
death of a man who had fallen from a railroad
bridge. He discovered $40 and a
pistol in the
dead man's
pockets. Bean judged that the
corpse had been unlawfully carrying a
concealed weapon and fined him $40.
He shot to
fame in 1898 after arranging a heavyweight championship
prizefight -- an
illegal event in most of the Western U.S. and in Mexico, but Bean arranged to hold it on a
sandbar in the middle of the
Rio Grande. The
publicity fueled news stories and
dime novels about Bean's
exploits and
adventures, all recounted and guaranteed to be
truthful by Judge Bean himself. A judge wouldn't lie, would he?
Bean died in his sleep in 1903 after a
drinking binge in
Del Rio. Though he'd never met Lillie Langtry, they'd carried on regular
correspondence over the years, and she is said to have sent him a pair of
pistols as a gift. Ten months after his death, Lillie finally visited Bean's hometown to listen to townspeople tell stories about her biggest fan.
One of Judge Bean's wordiest sentences was delivered against
Carlos Robles, who had been found
guilty of
cattle rustling. Robles spoke no
English, so he couldn't really
appreciate the
tirade that followed: "Carlos Robles, you have been tried by twelve true and good men, not men of yore
peers, but as high above you as
heaven is of
hell; and they've said you're guilty of rustlin'
cattle.
Time will pass and
seasons will come and go.
Spring with its wavin'
green grass and heaps of sweet-smellin'
flowers on every
hill and in every
dale. Then will come
sultry summer, with her shimmerin'
heat-waves on the baked
horizon, and
fall, with her yeller
harvest moon and the hills growin'
brown and
golden under a sinkin'
sun, and finally
winter, with its bitin', whinin'
wind, and all the land will be mantled with
snow. But you won't be here to see any of 'em, Carlos Robles, not by a
damn sight, because it's the
order of this
court that you be took to the nearest
tree and
hanged by the neck 'til you're
dead,
dead,
dead, you
olive-colored son of a
billy goat!"