Las Vegas Age, December 16, 2003, Clark County, Nevada
Copyright © 2003 Gerry Perry <MissGerry@cox.net>

This copy contributed for use in the USGenWeb Archives.

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LAS VEGAS AGE
12/20/1913

HIKO PIONEER PASSED AWAY

LAST SURVIVOR OF JUSTICE COURT MURDER TRIAL AND HANGING DIES IN 
CALIFORNIA

    The news has been received in this city of the death in California 
of Louis STERN, for over 40 years a resident of Hiko, in Lincoln county. 
 He died at the National Solders' Home at Sawtelle, Cal., Friday, 
December 19, at the age of 87 years.
    By the death of this splendid old character Nevada loses one of 
those who have helped to carve her history through nearly a half 
century. In the late sixties Mr. STERN, having fought for the country 
of his adoption through the civil war, came to the wilderness of the 
west in search of fortune and adventure.
    At Hiko, then the county seat of Lincoln county, he settled, and 
there for more than 40 years he was the ruling spirit. He held the 
position of justice of the peace as well as that of postmaster at Hiko 
for many years. Being taken ill several months ago, friends secured his 
admission to the soldiers' home in Sawtelle, where he was surrounded by 
every comfort to ease his declining days. Monday last he made a will
bequeathing his little property at Hiko to the two Mesdames CASTLE and 
Mrs. WRIGHT, who had befriended him in his illness.
    Louis STERN was an actor in many a drama of real western life, and 
for years, when engaged in trying cases as justice of the peace, moved 
his bunk from place to place at night, thereby saving his life when 
those incensed at his decisions attempted to shoot him through the wall 
as he slept.
    In 1869, before he was elected justice of the peace, he was one of a 
jury of 12 men who tried a murderer in the justice court, found him 
guilty and carried out the sentence of the court by hanging. A traveler 
was missed and a search discovered the metal portions of his saddle, 
which had been burned, and later the body of the murdered man. A posse 
was formed and the murderer trailed to Austin, Nevada, and there 
arrested. He was taken back to Hiko, where the justice of the peace 
selected 12 good men and true, of whom Mr. STERN was one, for a jury and 
announced that  the accused would have a fair and impartial trial.
    The trial began at ten o'clock in the morning and at three the jury 
brought in a verdict of guilty of murder in the first degree. The 
defendant entered a motion for a new trial, which was promptly overruled 
by the justice on the ground that the condemned man had already had a 
fair trial. Thereupon the jury took the prisoner to the largest tree in 
camp and hung him at four o'clock. The only hitch in the whole 
proceeding was in the fact that the grave in which the executed criminal 
was buried was unduly shallow, the coyotes disinterring the body the 
same night. However, this was remedied the next day by re-burial in a 
deeper grave.
    The grand jury and the district court, after being established in 
Lincoln county, took upon themselves an investigation of the affair. It 
was decided that, since the justice court was the only regularly 
constituted court, the sentence and execution were legal acts, thereby 
establishing this as the only known case where a justice of the peace 
tried a man for a murder and imposed a legal sentence of death.
    Mr. STERN, in telling of the affair, always asserted that, although 
the noise of nailing the boards together to make a coffin for the 
criminal did at times disturb the peaceful progress of the proceedings, 
the trial was fair and the judge and jury impartial.