HERE COME DA JUDGE

Have you heard of Charles Lynch (1736-1796)?  He was from Virginia.  He was a judge. 

Judge Charles Lynch was an Irish immigrant farmer who became a justice of the peace and made it his aim to punish British loyalists during the American Revolution.  He ran a court that was unorthodox in it's punishment levied.  He handed down whippings, conscription in the military, property seizure and worse.  His form of justice became known as "Lynch's Law." 

After the war, the term lynch law came to mean any non-standard punishment by an unauthorized group.  It wasn't long before mobs were formed in the name of Judge Lynch to mete out justice vigilante style.  Hangings were called lynchings.  Black slaves were most often the unfortunate recipients of this cruel, unjust form of justice.  Judge Lynch's name gave it some sort of strange legality. 

Lynchings were not limited to our country's South.  Early California, with fighting between the Spanish settlers and native Indians, was wrought with mob justice.  Thousands were hanged in the south but hundreds more were hanged in California by lynch mobs. 

Not sure, but my guess is that relatives of the late Charles Lynch are not happy that his name has stuck with the definition of mob hangings.