1881: Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday Jailed as the O.K. Corral Shooting Goes to Hearing
Weeks after the gunfight that made Tombstone, Arizona infamous, two of the men who had fired the shots found themselves behind bars instead of being hailed as lawmen. Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday were jailed on this day in 1881 as hearings opened into the killings outside the O.K. Corral, their claim of having acted within the law now the very question the court had to decide.
The shootout had already split the town between those who saw the Earp faction as defenders of order and those who saw cold-blooded killers in badges. With the hearing looming, that argument moved from the street into the courtroom, and the men who had walked away from the gunfight unscathed now faced the possibility of hanging for it.
