Miners' court

A miners' court was a court that summoned a subset of the miners in a district when a dispute arose in the frontier West of the United States. It was a court that was made to retain order and decide upon punishments with the mining communities.A presiding officer or judge was elected and a jury was selected. Other systems that were used included alcaldes and arbitration. In the event a decision was disputed, a mass meeting of the camp could be called to allow a dissatisfied party to plead his case and possibly get the decision reversed.

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.
• Marshall, Thomas M. "The Miners' Laws of Colorado." American Historical Review 25.3 (1920): 426-39.

External links

• The Wild West of Myth and Reality
• An American Experiment in Anarcho-Capitalism: The Not So Wild, Wild West