Hang 'Em High (1968)

Pat Hingle: Judge Fenton

Photos 

Quotes 

• Jed Cooper : You're lynching those boys. Why?

  Judge Adam Fenton : Why? Because of you, Cooper. Because of that beautiful, that magnificent journey you took to bring three killers to justice. Because if the law didn't hang them, the next posse that goes out will say, "Hang 'em and hang 'em high, there's no justice in Fort Grant." And if there's no justice in Fort Grant, Cooper, there will be no statehood for this territory.

• Jed Cooper : Seems like you're a man trying to give away money and don't have too many takers.

  Judge Adam Fenton : You sound like a man protesting the pay is too high. Don't.

• Judge Adam Fenton : [hands Cooper a cup of coffee]  Here, if that hangin' rope didn't kill ya, maybe my coffee will.

• Jed Cooper : Well, I don't care how you slice it - whether there's nine men out in the plains with a dirty rope or a judge with his robe on in front of the American flag - those boys are going to be just as dead as if they'd been lynched.

  Judge Adam Fenton : That's right, Cooper, just as dead - but they won't have been lynched. They would have been judged. And if you can't see the difference, you'd better take off that star right now!

• Judge Adam Fenton : Pick up the badge, Mr. Cooper.

  [Cooper glares at Fenton] 

  Judge Adam Fenton : Pick up the badge or leave justice to me and my men.

• Judge Adam Fenton : Nineteen marshals and one court to commandeer 70,000 square miles. A happy hunting ground filled with bushwackers, horse thieves, whiskey peddlers, counterfeiters, hide peelers, marauders - they'd kill you for a hat band. Now that's why there's a badge in my desk, Cooper, itching to sit on somebody's chest... and no takers!

• Judge Adam Fenton : You think I judged him too harshly? Used him for kindling my fire of justice? Well, maybe that's inevitable when there's only one man, one court, with the power of final justice over a territory that's five times the size of most states. Mistakes? Oh, I've made 'em, Cooper. Don't you doubt about that. Don't you doubt, either, there are times sitting up there in that judgement seat I wished, I prayed, that there was someone standing between me and God Almighty - someone with the power to say, "You're wrong, Fenton. You've made an error in law - that this man deserves another trial, this man here a reprieve, this man is innocent." But until this territory becomes a state with a governor and a state court of appeals, I am the law here - all the law. If you don't like that, you can cuss me till hell freezes over... or you can join me, Cooper; even fight me. Help me turn this God forsaken territory into a state where no one man calls himself the law.

• [last lines] 

  Judge Adam Fenton : Cooper, Charlie Blackfoot was seen in the town of Ridgeway. I got two unfilled warrants here for Blackfoot and Maddow. The law still wants 'em.

• Judge Adam Fenton : So that's how it is, huh? That Rachel lit a fire in you with that rich body of hers. You lit a fire in each other. Now you're gonna get married, raise cattle and kids, devil take the rest of the world.

  Jed Cooper : Maybe.

  Judge Adam Fenton : You used the law and a badge to heal that scar on your neck.

  Jed Cooper : Well, how many men are you going have to hang to heal your scar?

  Judge Adam Fenton : Go to hell, Cooper.

  Jed Cooper : I've already been there, judge, in your wagon and that hole you call a jail.