About
Phantly Roy Bean Jr. (c. 1825 – March 16, 1903) was an American saloon-keeper and justice of the peace in Val Verde County, Texas, who called himself "the Only Law West of the Pecos." He held court in his saloon along the Rio Grande in a desolate stretch of the Chihuahuan Desert. Legend records his jurisprudence as thoroughly abnormal and in many instances, comical. Although remembered as a hanging judge who said, "hang 'em first and try 'em later," he never had anyone hanged.