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John J. Hoover was a billiard hall owner hanged by vigilantes on April 28, 1880, for the unprovoked murder of a townsman in Fairplay in Park County in central Colorado. Little is known of Hoover's background though he was a prospector in the California Gold Rush in the early 1850s and was in 1880 one of the older residents of Fairplay.〔 ==The crime== Known for his irascible personaltiy, especially when under the influence of alcohol,〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Colorado: The Gold Fields of Colorado )〕 Hoover on April 1, 1879, stormed into the Fairplay House Hotel and shot and mortally wounded Thomas M. Bennett,〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Linda Wommack, Review of ''South Park Perils: Short Ropes & True Tales of Historic Park County, Colorado'', Filter Press, 2013, 237 pp. )〕 a native of Iowa, who was waiting on customers at the counter. Hoover told Bennett that he was taking charge of the hotel because he owned the building, an untruth. When the dying Bennett was asked what could have provoked Hoover, he replied, "No, no, no, oh, my God, he did it in cold blood."〔 Hoover declared temporary insanity based on an injury that he had received in an 1871 mining accident in the now ghost town of Oro City, near Leadville in Lake County, Colorado, where he had fallen sixty-five feet down a mineshaft. Hoover told authorities that his injury from the mining accident caused him to engage in "temporary fits of insanity." Three witnesses could attest to his accident, Hoover said, but none could travel to Fairplay at the time of the trial.〔Laura King Van Dusen, "Crime and Punishment in 1880s Fairplay: People Protest Light Sentencing, Deliver Frontier Justice", ''Historic Tales from Park County: Parked in the Past'' (Charleston, South Carolina: The History Press, 2013), ISBN 978-1-62619-161-7, pp. 89-96.〕 With the approval of District Attorney C. W. Burris, Hoover was allowed to change his plea from "Not guilty of murder" to "Guilty of manslaughter.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=The Flume, Fairplay, Colorado, November 26, 1885; article is a review of the events of 1879-1880 )〕 The Colorado Fourth Judicial District Court Judge Thomas M. Bowen gave Hoover an eight-year imprisonment. A year was reduced for his plea of manslaughter, and a second year was credited for time already served while awaiting trial.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「John J. Hoover」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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