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Short Stuff: Outlawry · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Hey, and welcome to the short stuff. I'm Josh, and
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: there's Chuck and Jerry's here too, sitting in for Dave.
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: And this is a very special short stuff Chuck, because
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: Dave requested this topic so long ago that I don't
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: even remember when he did.
• 0:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Every once in a while a colleague will drum
• 0:25
  Speaker 2: up the nerve to approach us very sheepishly with head bowed,
• 0:29
  Speaker 2: to say what do you guys think about this idea?
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: And Josh will wave them away and say it shall
• 0:36
  Speaker 2: be on the list in seven years time.
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: Yes, hey, or so right, give or take seven more years.
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: We shall do outlawry.
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: And we are finally. So this one's for you, Dave.
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: And it's a good idea too, because most people think
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: of outlaws as a specific you know, like.
• 0:59
  Speaker 2: Like a cat.
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: Yes, exactly. A lot of people think of Johnny Cash
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: when they think outlaw, don't.
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: They, Yeah, outlaw country music. It's a thing.
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: But this turns out to have been an actual legal standing, Yes,
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: that could be applied to people. That was not a
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: pleasant thing to have applied to you, and it basically
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: meant that, but you're on your own. It was applied
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: at least in a lot of cases to fugitives, but
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: like we think of fugitives today is like people who
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: the US Marshal Service goes and gets. Like we talked
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: about an Operation Flagship that kind of falls under the
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: same rubric, but this was a fugitive and that like
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: they were summoned to court, they decided not to come
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: to court and after a certain procedure they were declared outlaws,
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: and that that meant like the law no longer applies
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: to them, all the protections that are afforded to you
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: are gone. And it does seem a little harsh, I
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: have to say, for just failing to appear in court.
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it was a long time ago though, so who
• 2:03
  Speaker 2: knows what was going on back then. Sure, mainly medieval
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: England is what we're talking about. But the earliest kind
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: of this outlaw status became a law in sixth century
• 2:12
  Speaker 2: Frankish law called the Lex Salica. This was under King
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: Clovis early five hundreds, So this is a long long
• 2:21
  Speaker 2: time ago, and this is basically like yet, if you
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: don't respond to a summons, then you're outside of the
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: King's protection. This kind of started the legal basis for that.
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: But medieval England is where it's sort of most known
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: if you were over the age of fourteen and you
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: were a man. If you were a woman, you were
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: said to be waived, even though it was basically the
• 2:42
  Speaker 2: same thing. But if you were over fourteen and you
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: were a male, you could be outlawed and basically say
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: like like you said, like hey, anything you do or
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: anything anyone does to you, rather like we're not even
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: going to prosecute him. Somebody could break into your house
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: and steal your stuff and you're an outlaw, so sorry
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: ts for you.
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah, And so like today, our conception of outlaw or
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: modern conceptions like say, applying to Johnny Cash like you said,
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: or Jesse James or even Robin Hood, they're not types
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: to show up to a legal summon, so they definitely
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: do kind of fall into that same category. But we
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: kind of have it backwards and that we think of
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: those people as like they chose a life of crime
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: outside the law right their outlaws, But in reality, with outlawry,
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: the law itself has withdrawn itself from you and left
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: you outside the law kind of in a really caddy turn.
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: The law is like, oh, you don't recognize my jurisdiction
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: over you're not going to come to court when we
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: ask you to. Well, then fine, I guess you don't
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: need my protections anymore either. Hence you're an outlaw exactly.
• 3:58
  Speaker 2: And you mentioned a process, there was a problems. It
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: wasn't immediate, It was a pretty slow process even. But
• 4:05
  Speaker 2: what would happen is the sheriff of wherever you were
• 4:09
  Speaker 2: would locate these fugitives. They would do some investigating see
• 4:14
  Speaker 2: if they owned any property that they could get to
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: basically say like, hey, we've got your you know, your
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: stash of chickens. Come to court, maybe you'll get those
• 4:23
  Speaker 2: chickens back. If that never happens and they can't get
• 4:27
  Speaker 2: them to come to court or whatever, then the sheriff
• 4:30
  Speaker 2: has to sit through this five different times in court,
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: calling you know, the fugitive to come forward, and after
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: the fifth non appearance, then they hit the gavel or
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: drop the glove or whatever the heck they did back
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: then and said, you, sir, are an outlaw.
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and it was a big deal to be declared outlaws.
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: We'll see, I say, we take our little break to
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: come back and talk about outlawry a little more. How
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: about that.
• 4:56
  Speaker 2: Let's do it. Shot shot.
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: Okay. So when you were declared an outlaw, essentially, the
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: way I saw it written was that it's uh, it
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: amounted to a conviction as well as an extinction of
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: civil rights. So there were different kinds of outlawry. Just
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: failing to appear in court seemed like outlaw light spelled
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: l I t E. But there was also major outlawry,
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: in which case you were really in trouble, uh, like
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: big felonies, treason, rebellion, like big deal stuff could have
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: you labeled a major outlaw. And again like if they
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: did find your cash of chickens, those were theirs. Now
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: they could take them any like real property, you had
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: anything that was yours, they could seize and keep. And
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: that's pretty standard stuff even still today. Like if you
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: get caught with suspected drug money, the sheriff just keeps
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: your money and says, prove it's not drug money. That's
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: not like completely out of the norm. The thing that
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: really makes outlawry very surprising to us today is anybody
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: could come and take your property, anybody could come and
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: beat you up and kill you. And because the law
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: no longer applied to you, there was no law that
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: was broken when they murdered you. They weren't breaking a law.
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: You had no protection any longer. And that's the thing
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: that makes it really kind of shocking as far as
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: like a legal formality is concerned to us today.
• 6:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and even if if someone you know, your neighbor
• 6:49
  Speaker 2: didn't come and rob your house or try and kill
• 6:51
  Speaker 2: you or something, if you had outlaw status, you were
• 6:54
  Speaker 2: definitely not a part of the community anymore. You were
• 6:57
  Speaker 2: totally ostracized and shunned. Sometimes it was just sort of
• 7:01
  Speaker 2: the way that everyone shunned somebody, which is very quietly
• 7:06
  Speaker 2: and passive aggressively. Sometimes it was very much official though.
• 7:10
  Speaker 2: If they had an outlaw they captured, they could say like, hey,
• 7:16
  Speaker 2: we're going to really ostracize you. We're going to send
• 7:19
  Speaker 2: you to Australia have fun over there.
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah, or America. Yeah, and you would end up being
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: an indentured servant. And one of the other things I
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: read about that that was kind of interesting, that really
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: drove the point home. It's not just like I'm an
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: indentured servant over here now I wish I wasn't. Like,
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: maybe around your area you might have some sympathetic friends
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: that might hide you or bring you food out in
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: the woods or something like that. In America or Australia,
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: you probably knew no one, so you had no help whatsoever,
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: and you truly were ostracized. So that in and of
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: itself was a big deal. Another thing that could happen
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: to you too, is if the sheriff did catch up
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: with you, and like there was a very high chance
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: you were just killed on site, because you it was
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: a death sentence for you as well, Like they had
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: no obligation to bring you in. If they wanted to
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: just kill you and get over with it, the sheriff
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: could do that too.
• 8:15
  Speaker 2: You were so close to saying oz ostracized.
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: Oh, I walked right past that on purpose. Okay, I
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: didn't chuck because it's a good one. I'm glad you
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: pointed it out.
• 8:28
  Speaker 2: Uh. So this was, you know, usually like real outlaws,
• 8:32
  Speaker 2: like real criminals, even if it was something like not
• 8:34
  Speaker 2: appearing in court. You said, it was oftentimes a lot worse.
• 8:37
  Speaker 2: But it wasn't always that in some countries. I know,
• 8:41
  Speaker 2: we talked about it in our I think we had
• 8:42
  Speaker 2: a leprosy episode many years ago. Right. Yeah, in India,
• 8:47
  Speaker 2: if you had leprosy, you could be banned and ostracized
• 8:51
  Speaker 2: and essentially get something akin to an outlaw status by
• 8:54
  Speaker 2: being sent to leper colony where you had where you
• 8:58
  Speaker 2: didn't have the same rights as everyone else. I think
• 9:00
  Speaker 2: they call leprosy Hanson's disease, now, is that right? M Yeah,
• 9:05
  Speaker 2: but no one would know what we meant if we.
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: Just said that, so probably not a few people would,
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: and those people were very satisfied that you just said that.
• 9:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and I knew the leper was not something that
• 9:16
  Speaker 2: people say anymore.
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: No, Yeah, but yeah, I can't remember who Hanson was.
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: I think we talked about them in the episode two.
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: But yeah, that was a long time ago, but it's
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: a good episode. I haven't heard it in a while.
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: There were some ways to have your outlaws thats revoked.
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: One of them was just showing up the court. Yeah,
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: there was a specific court you had to go to.
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: It was the King's Bench in London, so you had
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: to make your way to London and you basically pled
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: to have it removed. And I think that that was
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: part of the procedure because again, if you showed up
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: to the court that had called you in the first place,
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: you might be murdered, and that would be that Yeah,
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: so that was I think the initial part of the process,
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: and there does seem to be like a a pretty
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: generous amount of forgiveness for you know, lesser crimes I
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: think like that where you just hadn't shown up, especially
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: if you're like, I'm sorry my foot, I twisted my
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: ankle jogging and I just couldn't make it to court,
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: or you know, my stupid cousin was supposed to take
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: me but his cart broke down, that kind of thing.
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: The court would probably take pity on you and remove
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: your outlaw status because now you were playing ball with them,
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: which is the whole point of them conferring you an outlaw,
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: is that you hadn't in the first place. What was
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: really shocking to me is that this same stuff could
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: be applied to somebody in a civil case, like somebody's
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: like this guy stole my chickens, I'm gonna sue you
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: and you didn't show up. You could also be considered
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: an outlaw for that too. That's just nuts.
• 10:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that is remarkable to hear.
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: And it wasn't until eighteen seventy nine that England revoked
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: that part of their outlaw statute that it couldn't be
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: used in civil cases anymore. But as far as I know,
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: and I looked high and low for definitive proof of this,
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: but just from references I saw, it seems like there's
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: still outlaw books or outlaw statutes on the books for
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: criminal acts.
• 11:16
  Speaker 2: Wow. Yeah, let's get rid of.
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: Those, sir. Do it? You got anything else?
• 11:24
  Speaker 2: I got nothing else?
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: Well, Dave, this was a great idea. Thanks for it.
• 11:28
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• 11:33
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• 11:35
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