Frank Canton (1849 - 1927)

Outlaw and Lawman. His real name was Joe Horner, born near Richmond, Virginia. As a child his family moved to Texas where he became a cowboy, and worked the trails from Northern Texas to Kansas in the late 1860’s. In 1871 he started robbing banks and rustling cattle. In 1877 he was jailed for robbing […]

Jerome Caminada (1844 - 1914)

Legendary policeman and real-life Victorian super-sleuth. A master of disguise with a keen eye for detail and ingenious methods of detection. He was the inspiration for Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s character Sherlock Holmes. Caminada was born in Deansgate, Manchester in 1844, to an Irish mother and an Italian father. At that time, Deansgate consisted mostly […]

California Peace Officers’ Memorial (1970 - 1970)

Located inside the east entrance of the California State Capitol, the monument was dedicated in 1988, to honor California’s peace officers who gave their lives serving the citizens of the state. The memorial which has three bronze figures represent the more than 1,400 peace officers who have died in the line-of-duty since California became a […]

Henry Clay Caldwell (1832 - 1915)

Civil War Union Army Officer. Served during the Civil War as Colonel and commander of the 3rd Iowa Volunteer Cavalry. He led the cavalry forces that caotured Little Rock, Arkansas, on September 10, 1863. The next year, President Abraham Lincoln appointed the native Iowan to be a United States District Judge for the Eastern District […]

Rusty Burrell (1925 - 2002)

Sheriff, Bailiff, and Reality Actor. Born in Metropolis, Illinois,  as Roy Justus Burrell, better known as Rusty, he had sometimes moonlighted as an actor in his youth. A World War II Navy veteran who had lied about his age to join, After his discharge he was a minor league baseball player who played for a […]

William John Burns (1860 - 1932)

FBI Director. He was appointed to the the post of Director of the Federal Bureau Investigation (FBI) on August 22, 1921 and served until June 14, 1922, when he was asked to resign by Attorney General Harlan Fiske Stone. At the time of his resignation, Burns had been involved in the Teapot Dome Scandal, the […]

Vincent Bugliosi (1934 - 2015)

American Attorney, Prosecutor and Author. Bugliosi will best be remembered for successfully prosecuting Charles Manson and his accomplices for the seven Tate-LaBianca murders in 1969. Bugliosi graduated from the University of Miami, which he attended on a tennis scholarship. In 1964, he received his law degree from UCLA, where he was president of his graduating […]

Samuel Lindsay “Sam” Browne (1869 - 1951)

Law Officer. Famous for single-handedly saving the Central Division Los Angeles Police Station from being blown-up by a terrorist. Ran for the office of Los Angeles County Sheriff in 1926, but lost by less that 1000 votes. The first cousin of J. Edgar Hoover, it has believed that he invented the police uniform gun belt […]

Raymond A. Brown (1915 - 2009)

Attorney. He was a veteran New Jersey defense attorney noted for his many controversial high-profile cases. In 1960s, he defended professional boxer Rubin “Hurricane” Carter, poet Amiri Baraka and Soviet spy John W. Butenko. He gained a reputation as civil rights lawyer in 1968, when he defended black students which included his son, were arrested […]

Robert Lee Brokenburr (1886 - 1974)

Civil Rights Leader.  The son of a former slave, he was born in Phoebus, Virginia (now part of the city of Hampton), received a law degree from Howard University in 1909, and began a practice in Indianapolis.  A Republican, as were most African-Americans who could vote in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Brokenburr […]

Jean Anthelme Brillat Savarin (1755 - 1826)

Lawyer, he was an amateur of french cooking and wrote “La Physiologie du gožt.”

Richard M. Brewer (1850 - 1878)

Western Rancher and Lawman. On March 1, 1878, at the beginning of the Lincoln County War, New Mexico, he was appointed constable by the Magistrate. His group known as “The Regulators” included Billy the Kid and other deputies. There purpose was serving arrest warrants to members of the Dolan Gang for the ambush and murder […]

Henry Skillman Breckinridge (1886 - 1960)

US Government Official, United States Army Officer, Olypic Athlete. A graduate of Princeton University and Harvard Law School, he was appointed as President Woodrow Wilson’s Assistant Secretary of War, in 1913, at age 27. A member of the 1912 and 1928 Olympic fencing teams, and was captain of the latter. During World War I he […]

William Milton “Billy” Breckenridge (1846 - 1931)

Western Law Officer. He was deputy sheriff of Cochise County, Arizona at Tombstone under Sheriff John Behan at the time of the OK Corral gunfight between the Earps and the Cowboys. He is considered by most historians to have been part of the anti-Earp faction and a friend of the Cowboys (i.e., outlaws). He wrote […]

Sir John Alexander Boyd (1837 - 1916)

Lawyer and Judge. The only child of John Boyd and Margaret MacCallum. He married Elizabeth Buchan, on August 31, 1863,  and they had nine sons and three daughters. In 1856 he graduated from Upper Canada College. In 1860 he published in Toronto A summary of Canadian history, it also appeared with revisions by John as […]

Floyd Murray “Toad” Boring (1915 - 2008)

US Secret Service Agent. He was involved in a fierce gunfight on November 1, 1950 with two Puerto Rican nationalists who were attempting to assassinate President Harry S. Truman. One of the assassins and a White House police officer, Leslie Coffelt, were killed in the shootout. The incident was recounted in the 2005 book “American […]

Jane Matilda Bolin (1908 - 2007)

Jurist. She was the first black woman to become a judge in the United States. Judge Bolin was the first black woman to graduate from Yale Law School, the first to join the New York City Bar Association, and the first to work in the office of the New York City corporation counsel, the city’s […]

Sherman Block (1924 - 1998)

Los Angeles Law Figure. Born in Chicago, Illinois, he was noted for being the leader of the nation’s largest sheriff’s department. After serving in the US Army in World War II, he studied engineering at the Washington University St. Louis Missouri, before relocating to Los Angeles, California, in the mid 1950s. In 1956, he joined […]

Delos Thurman Bligh (1823 - 1890)

Lawman. Known as “Yankee” Bligh, he was a contemporary of famed detective Allan Pinkerton. He was heavily involved in the pursuit of the James-Younger Gang, so much so that in 1875 Jesse James wrote letter to newspapers in Louisville, Kentucky, St. Louis, Missouri and Nashville, Tennessee denouncing Bligh. He gained an international reputation for his […]

Alexander Bruce Bielaski (1883 - 1964)

FBI Director. He served as the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) from April 30, 1912 to February 10, 1919. After leaving the Bureau he went into law and later as a prohibition agent operating a decoy speakeasy in New York City. In 1929 he became President of the National Board of Fire […]

Alphonse Bertillon (1853 - 1914)

Criminologist. Bertillon began his career as a records clerk in the Parisian police department. He was the son of medicial professor Louis Bertillon. His obsessive love of order led him to develop his own methods of identifying  suspects. Bertillon identified individuals by measurements of the head and body, shape formations of the ear, eyebrow, mouth, […]

Robert Bentley (1970 - 1910)

Murder Victim. London City policeman who, with his colleague Charles Tucker, was ‘killed in the execution of their duty while endeavouring to apprehend a number of armed burglars in Exchange Buildings, Cutler St.’ The burglars were actually Russian anarchists who later held a shoot-out at the ‘Siege of Sidney Street’ in 1911. (bio by: David […]

Melvin Belli (1907 - 1996)

Attorney. A native of Sonora, California, Belli graduated from the University of California Berkeley in 1929 and received his law degree from the Boalt Hall School of Law in 1933. Establishing his practice in San Francisco, he quickly made a name for himself as an expert in personal injury cases. His many successes in such […]

John Harris Behan (1845 - 1912)

Lawman. Born in Westport, Missouri in what is now Kansas City, the third of nine children of Peter and Sarah Harris Behan. Johnny moved west to San Francisco, working as a miner and a freighter. During the American Civil War Johnny was a 19-year-old civilian employee of Carleton’s Column of Union Volunteers in California. He […]

Sam Bean (1874 - 1907)

Saloon Keeper, Folk Figure. Sam Bean was raised in Langtry, Texas. His father was a famous Judge known as “Law, West of the Pecos,” his mother was a Spanish woman. His parents were married in San Antonio soon after the Civil War. About 1914 Sam moved to Del Rio, Texas, opening a saloon and dance […]

Roy “Judge” Bean (1970 - 1903)

Western Law Figure. Born in Mason County, Kentucky, during the Civil War, he ran a blockade by hauling cotton from San Antonio, Texas, to British ships off the coast. After the war, he established a small saloon near the Pecos River in a tent city he named Vinegaroon. With the nearest court being 200 miles […]

Gregson Edward “Greg” Bautzer (1911 - 1987)

A Navy pilot in WWII, Bautzer was The Attorney to the Stars, representing Ginger Rogers, Ingrid Bergman and Joan Crawford to name a few, he also represented MGM owner Kirk Kerkorian and Howard Hughes. Engaged to actresses Barbara Payton, Lana Turner and Dorothy Lamour, he married actress Dana Wynter. He is also credited with founding […]

Richard Achilles Ballinger (1858 - 1922)

Presidential Cabinet Secretary. Served as Mayor of Seattle, Washington from 1904 to 1906. Served as Secretary of the Interior in President William H. Taft’s administration from 1909 to 1911. In 1909 he was President of the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition World’s Fair. Named Lake Ballinger in honor of his father, Col. Richard H. Ballinger.  Family links:  Parents: […]

D. M. Ballew (1877 - 1922)

D. M. Ballew Western Lawman. Born David Monticello Ballew, he was a most controversial and effective Ardmore, Oklahoma Territory Deputy Sheriff. A very noted gun fighter, he first made headlines killing Pete Bynum who was in the middle of a holdup. Later he killed outlaws Steve Talkington for resisting arrest, James Perle and two men […]

Lola Greene Baldwin (1970 - 1957)

First Policewoman of the United States. Born Aurora “Lola” Greene in Elmira, New York. Her father died in 1877, causing Lola to quit high school to earn money. She taught school for a number of years in New York and Nebraska before marrying LeGrand Baldwin in 1884. During her remaining years in Lincoln, she found […]