FROM GUN TO GAVEL

The courtroom recollections of James Mathers of Oklahoma are almost too good to be true, meaning no offense, from the standpoint of the drama of violence and law in Indian Territory. James Mathers first came to Oklahoma Territory as a young lawyer; as the first county attorney of Carter County he inherited numerous federal murder charges, and embarked on a practice that included astounding people and doings. He quiped down a strychnine brandy for a client's defense; was forced to kill in self-defense; encountered the Code of the West in a feud between two friends whom he had facts to reconcile...His faith in the jury system as a warm hand on the cold shoulder of the law; his attitudes toward the rights of the defendant come out. There is vivid story telling here of a warmhearted and astute lawyer working his way through fascinating cases, from the heartbreak of trying to save a convicted client to the humor of winning the day for a man of high morals who had his own views on taxation. Absorbing reading.