There Would Be No Trial (Part 6 of 6)

There were about thirty witnesses called into what was one of the longest preliminary hearings ever conducted in the territory, possibly the longest.  Ike Clanton had filed first degree murder charges against the Earps and Holiday, and it was up to Judge Spicer to determine whether the case merited court proceedings.

While the hearing was intended to reveal the truth, the witnesses for the prosecution showed natural bias for the prosecution, the witnesses for the defense, bias for the defendants.    Both sides sought to discredit the witnesses for the other side.  There was no jury, this being a preliminary hearing, so it became a matter of who the judge found most credible.  The prosecutors wanted the judge to believe that the Earps and Holiday had arrived at the vacant lot with guns drawn and that Tom, Frank, and Billy were mercilessly shot dead while raising their hands in surrender.  The defense argued that Virgil had learned that the Clantons and McLaurys had gathered at the O. K. Corral and was content in leaving them alone as long as they remained there but hearing that they left the corral and were still armed, was determined to disarm them.  Other witnesses verified that Billy and Frank were armed and neither made any attempt to surrender.

In making his ruling, Judge Spicer noted that the doctor who had examined the bodies of the deceased had stated that wounds sustained did not support the suggestion that the men had their hands and arms raised in surrender as the prosecution and its biased witnesses claimed.  If Billy and Frank had drawn and cocked their weapons as testified, the defendants had acted in self-defense though Judge Spicer could not condone their actions, nor could he condone the deputizing of Virgil’s brothers and Holiday.  The blame for the gunfight, he reasoned, rested with the Clantons and McLaurys for their insistence to keep their firearms in violation of the ordinance.  Spicer declared the case closed.  There would be no trial.

That should have been the end of the tale, but the Cowboys had friends, friends who were bad people, and their friends weren’t about to let things lie.  About a month after the gunfight, Virgil was ambushed by would-be assassins unknown.  He survived the attack but permanently lost the use of his left arm.  Ike Clanton was suspected, but no one was ever brought to trial for lack of evidence.  A few months later, Morgan was murdered as he played a game of pool.  This time, the three men suspected of the crime were hunted down one by one and killed by brother Wyatt, finally marking the end of the gunfight at the O. K. Corral.