|
Lynching is an extrajudicial punishment by an informal group. It is most often used to characterize informal public executions by a mob, often by hanging, in order to punish an alleged transgressor, or to intimidate a minority group. It is an extreme form of informal group social control such as ''charivari,'' skimmington, riding the rail, and tarring and feathering, but with a drift toward the public spectacle. Lynchings have been more frequent in times of social and economic tension, and have often been a means for a dominant group to suppress challengers. However, it has also resulted from long-held prejudices and practices of discrimination that have conditioned societies to accept this type of violence as normal practices of popular justice. Though racial oppression and the frontier mentality in the United States have given lynching its current familiar face, execution by mob justice is not exclusive to North America, but it is also found around the world as vigilantes act to punish people behaving outside of commonly acceptable boundaries. Indeed, instances of it can be found in societies long antedating European settlement of North America. The legal and cultural antecedents of American lynching were carried across the Atlantic by migrants from the British Isles to colonial North America. Collective violence was a familiar aspect of the early modern Anglo-American legal landscape. Group violence in the British Atlantic was usually nonlethal in intention and consequence but it occasionally shaded, particularly in the seventeenth century in the context of political turmoil in England and unsettled social and political conditions in the American colonies, into rebellions and riots that took multiple lives. During the Antebellum, assertive free-Blacks, Latinos in the South West and runaways were the object of racial lynching. But lynching attacks on U.S. blacks, especially in the South, increased dramatically in the aftermath of the Civil War, after slavery had been abolished and recently freed black men gained the right to vote. Violence rose even more at the end of the 19th century, after southern white Democrats regained their political power in the South in the 1870s. States passed new constitutions or legislation which effectively disfranchised most blacks and many poor whites, established segregation of public facilities by race, and separated blacks from common public life and facilities. Nearly 3,500 African Americans and 1,300 whites were lynched in the United States between 1882 and 1968, mostly from 1882 to 1920. Lynching during the 19th century in the British Empire coincided with a period of violence which denied people participation in white-dominated society on the basis of race after the Emancipation Act of 1833. Today lynching is a felony in all states of the United States, defined by some codes of law as "any act of violence inflicted by a mob upon the body of another person which results in the death of the person," with a "mob" being defined as "the assemblage of two or more persons, without color or authority of law, for the premeditated purpose and with the premeditated intent of committing an act of violence upon the person of another."〔South Carolina Code Ann. § 16-3-210〕 Lynching in the second degree is defined as "any act of violence inflicted by a mob upon the body of another person and from which death does not result". To sustain a conviction for lynching, at least some evidence of premeditation must be produced, but "the common intent to do violence" may be formed before or during the assemblage.〔''State v. Barksdale'', 311 S.C. 210, 214, 428 S.E.2d 498, 500 (Ct. App. 1993)〕 == Etymology == The origins of the word lynch are obscure, but likely originates during the American revolution. The term originates from the phrase "Lynch Law", a term for a punishment without trial. Two Americans during this era are generally credited for the phrase: Charles Lynch and William Lynch, who both lived in Virginia in the 1780s. Charles Lynch has the better claim, as he was known to have used the term in 1782, while William Lynch isn't known to have used the term until much later. There is no evidence that death was imposed as a punishment by either of the two men. In the United States, the state of origin of the terms ''lynching'' and ''lynch law'' is traditionally attributed to a Virginia Quaker named Charles Lynch.〔Cutler, James E., Lynch Law (New York, 1905).〕 Charles Lynch (1736–1796) was a Virginia planter and American Revolutionary who headed a county court in Virginia which incarcerated Loyalist supporters of the British for up to one year during the war. While he lacked proper jurisdiction, he claimed this right by arguing wartime necessity. Subsequently, he prevailed upon his friends in the Congress of the Confederation to pass a law which specifically exonerated him and his associates from wrongdoing. He was concerned that he might face legal action from one or more of those so incarcerated, even though the American Colonies had won the war. This move by the Congress provoked controversy, and it was in connection with this that the term "Lynch law", meaning the assumption of extrajudicial authority, came into common parlance in the United States. Lynch was never accused of racist bias, and indeed acquitted blacks accused of murder on three separate occasions, as dictated by the facts brought before him.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=The Atlantic Monthly Volume 0088 Issue 530 (Dec 1901) )〕〔(University of Chicago, ''Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary'' (1913 + 1828) )〕 William Lynch (1742–1820) from Virginia claimed that the phrase was first used for a 1780 compact signed by him and his neighbors in Pittsylvania County. While Edgar Allan Poe claimed that he found this document, this was likely a hoax.〔 In Ireland, it is often claimed to be named for James Lynch Fitzstephen from Galway, Ireland, who was the Mayor of Galway when he hanged his own son from the balcony of his house after convicting him of the murder of a Spanish visitor in 1493.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Remarkable instance of inflexible justice )〕〔(Thomasconner.info )〕 However, linguistic evidence is strongly against it, and the story was likely invented in the 19th century.〔 The archaic verb ''linch''; to beat severely with a pliable instrument, to chastise or to maltreat. This is also considered implausible.〔 However see also ''lych'' meaning corpse. 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「lynching」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|