Frontier justice

Frontier justice (also called vigilante justice ) is extrajudicial punishment that is motivated by the nonexistence of law and order or dissatisfaction with justice. The phrase can also be used to describe a prejudiced judge. Lynching and gunfighting are considered forms of frontier justice.

United States

 * Late 1800s: A group of self-appointed lawmen called "stranglers" lynched around sixty horse and cattle rustlers along southwest North Dakota's Little Missouri River.
 * 1886: Theodore Roosevelt, who would become President of the United States, captured three alleged horse thieves who had stolen a rowboat from his ranch. Roosevelt delivered the thieves to the nearest authority.

Brazil

 * April 1991: Jose Vicente Anunciacao murdered a coworker during a drunken knife-fight in Salvador. Witnesses to the crime were not able to provide evidence in court. Anunciacao was set free and then dragged from his bed at night by a mob of forty people who beat him to death with bricks and clubs. Previously, a mob of fifteen-hundred people stormed and set fire to the Parana prison where Valdecir Ferreira and Altair Gomes were being held for the murder of a taxi-cab driver.