The Hanging of Horse Thieves

     There was supposedly an Old West saying that if you stole a man's horse, you had condemned him to death, which is why stealing a horse was a hanging offense. 

     The truth is the hanging of horse thieves is a legendary myth, sort of anyway. Marshall Trimble, author and the state of Arizona’s official historian, was unable to discover a single instance of a horse thief being hanged by a legal court. Legal is the key though...a lot of horse thieves were hung...vigilantes lynched 'em. 

     The death penalty for horse theft never existed, but a lot of men, including Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, and at least one woman, Belle Starr, did spend time behind bars for stealing horses. 

     Historically, punishments were often severe for horse theft, with several cultures pronouncing the sentence of death upon actual or presumed thieves, but not in the United States although several societies were formed in the US to prevent horse theft and apprehend horse thieves. 

     Even today horse theft continues around the world. Horses are stolen for their meat, for ransom or in disputes between their owners or others. Horse theft today is a crime, like auto theft, punishable by felony jail time. 

     Horse theft is still relatively common, with an estimated 40,000 horses a year being stolen. Punishment for horse theft can be severe...a woman in Arkansas was sentenced to 60 years in prison for the 2011 theft of five horses and equestrian equipment; one of the horses was later found dead, while the others were recovered. The European Union horses born after 2009 are required to have microchips. 

     Dating back to medieval and early modern times horse thieves were common and they were severely prosecuted with punishment including branding, torture, exile and in some societies even death. 

     The death penalty as a punishment for horse theft dates back as far as the first century AD, when one Germanic tribe sentenced horse thieves to death while murderers got away with a fine. 

     Horse theft was harshly punished in the French Bordeaux region in the 15th–18th centuries. Punishments ranged from whipping to a lifetime sentence of service on a galley ship. This latter punishment was also given to perpetrators of incest, homicide and poisoning. 

     In Pennsylvania, the An Act to Increase the Punishments of Horse Stealing was passed in 1780 and repealed in 1860. The law stated, "the first offense [the convicted] shall stand in the pillory for one hour, and shall be publicly whipped on his, her or their [bare] backs with thirty-nine lashes, well laid on, and at the same time shall have his, her or their ears cut off and nailed to the pillory, and for the second offense shall be whipped and pilloried in like manner and be branded on the forehead in a plain and visible manner with the letters H. T." 

     In the United States, the Anti Horse Thief Association, first organized in 1854 in Clark County, Missouri, was an organization developed for the purposes of protecting property, especially horses and other livestock, from theft, and recovering such property if it was stolen. A similar group, which operated mainly in Ohio, was the Bentonville Anti-Horse Thief Society. Men suspected of being horse thieves would be pursued by members of the organization and often hanged without trial.