Outlaw
Outlaw was also a British hip hop group. Outlaw was also the name of the fifth studio album by British band Alabama 3. The Outlaw is also the name of a roller coaster at Adventureland in Iowa. For other uses, see Outlaws.An
outlaw, a person living the lifestyle of
outlawry, meaning literally "outside of the
law." In the
common law of England, a judgment declaring someone an outlaw was one of the harshest penalties in the legal system. However, romanticised outlaws became
stock characters in several fictional settings, particularly in
Western movies.
In
British common law, an outlaw was a person who had defied the laws of the realm, by such acts as ignoring a
summons to court, or fleeing instead of appearing to plead when charged with a
crime. In the earlier law of
Anglo-Saxon England, outlawry was also declared when a person committed a
homicide and could not pay the
weregild, the blood-money, due to the victim's kin. Outlawry also existed in other legal codes of the time, such as the ancient
Norse and
Icelandic legal code.
To be declared an outlaw was to suffer a form of
civil death. The outlaw was debarred from all civilised society. No one was allowed to give him food, shelter, or any other sort of support — to do so was to commit the crime of
aiding and abetting, and to be in danger of the ban oneself. An outlaw might be killed with impunity; and it was not only lawful but meritorious to kill a thief flying from justice — to do so was not
murder. A man who slew a thief was expected to declare the fact without delay, otherwise the dead man's kindred might clear his name by their oath and require the slayer to pay wergild as for a true man (F. Pollock and F. W. Maitland,
The History of English Law Before the Time of Edward I (1895, 2nd. ed., Cambridge, 1898, reprinted 1968)). Because the outlaw has defied civil society, that society was quit of any obligations to the outlaw —outlaws had no civil rights, could not sue in any court on any cause of action, though they were themselves personally liable.
In the context of
criminal law, outlawry faded not so much by legal changes as by the greater population density of the country, which made it harder for wanted fugitives to evade capture; and by the international adoption of
extradition pacts. In the civil context, outlawry became obsolescent in
civil procedure by reforms that no longer required summoned
defendants to appear and plead. Still, the possibility of being declared an outlaw for derelictions of
civil duty continued to exist in English law until
1879 and in
Scots law until the late
1940s. Prior to the
Nuremberg Trials, the British jurist
Lord Chancellor John Allsebrook Simon attempted to resurrect the concept of outlawry in order to provide for summary executions of captured
Nazi war criminals. Although Simon's point of view was supported by
Winston Churchill, American and Soviet attorneys insisted on a trial, and he was thus overruled.
The
stereotype owes a great deal to
English folklore precedents, in the tales of
Robin Hood and of gallant
highwaymen. But outlawry was once a
term of art in the
law, and one of the harshest
judgments that could be pronounced on anyone's head.
The outlaw is familiar to contemporary readers as an archetype in
Western movies, depicting the lawless
expansionism period of the United States in the late 19th century. The Western outlaw is typically a
criminal who operates from a base in the
wilderness, and opposes, attacks or disrupts the fragile institutions of new settlements.
American Western outlaws
*
Apache Kid*
Butch Cassidy*
Billy the Kid*
Jesse James*
Cole Younger *
List of Western OutlawsDepression-era "Public Enemy" outlaws
*
John Dillinger*
Bonnie & Clyde *
Ma Barker*
Jack BlackNorse peoples
*
Erik the Red* Gísli Súrsson (Gísli the Outlaw)
*
Grettir the StrongAsian
*
Song Jiang - Historical Chinese outlaw immortalised in the classic
Water MarginMedieval
*
Robin Hood - Legendary Medieval
English outlaw
*
William Wallace - Leader of the Scottish resistance to
Edward I.
*
Rob Roy MacGregor - Scottish Chieftain.
Bandits
*
Veerappan Indian (of India) bandit.
*
Jovo Stanisavljević - Čaruga -
Serb in
Yugoslavia*
Joco Udmanić - Serb in Yugoslavia
*
Perot Rocaguinarda - Catalan bandit, pictured as the gentlemanly bandit Roque Guinart in
Don Quixote*
Ned Kelly*
Martin Cash*
Ben Hall*
Frank Gardiner*
Captain Thunderbolt*
Dan Morgan*
Jack the Rammer*
Mary Ann Bugg*
Moondyne Joe*
William Westwood aka
Jackey JackeyFugitives: Contemporary Outlaws
*
Eric Robert RudolphOthers
* Edgar the Outlaw (
Edgar Ætheling)
* Sawney Beane (Scottish)
* Nightingale the Robber (Russian myth)
* Jack the Robber (
Roma)
* Cercyon (Greek), a bandit killed by
Theseus*
Napoleon by the coalition in Vienna
*When the government of the
First Spanish Republic was unable to reduce the
Cantonalist rebellion centered in
Cartagena, Spain, the Cartagena fleet was declared piratic, allowing any nation to prey on it.
The Outlaw is a
1943 Western movie about
Billy the Kid that marked the début of
Jane Russell; it was directed by
Howard Hughes. The film also starred
Walter Huston as
Doc Holliday.
The film is remembered mostly because Hughes invented the push-up
brassière for his new star Jane Russell to wear. The attention paid to her
cleavage meant that the film had a running battle with
censors in several states, as well as with the
Hays Office.
