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Teen Sent to Jail for a Month Because His Father Wouldn’t Give Him a Court-Ordered Beating
A 16-year-old who broke the law had his punishment changed after the original sentence couldn’t be completed
Examining every day news stories from our past immediately gives examples as to how much things have changed in our not too distant past. Prominent in this regard is the evolution of the criminal justice system. Less than a century ago, a 16-year-old boy was put in jail for a month because his father was unable to give him a beating that had been ordered by a judge as punishment for the boy violating the liquor law.
It was reported in 1931 that 16-year-old Harl Goin of Muskogee, Oklahoma got into big trouble. The young boy had been nabbed by police for being in violation of the Volstad act; specifically bootlegging and making his own hooch.
Hauled before Judge R.L. Williams, an arrangement was worked out where the teen’s father, H.F. Goin, promised he would whip his son if a jail sentence could at all be avoided. After all, he acknowledged that he had routinely beat the boy in the past with switches and bridle straps for various indiscretions. Perhaps seeing an opportunity to return disciplinary power back to the parent, the judge agreed to the violent arrangement, allowing the defendant to return home as long as he returned to the courthouse basement for the application of his punishment to be witnessed by the court to completion.
In an unusual twist, the senior Goin reported back to the court that at the age of 65, he was simply too old and physically diminished to administer a proper thrashing to his son. Wanting to hold up his end of the bargain, he requested that authorities produce a replacement to conduct the whipping. *Some newspapers alternately reported that Goin’s father refused to beat him because just the day before, the boy had suffered some sort of internal injury while plowing.
The Judge decided that there was absolutely no wiggle room on the deal he had made. He refused to provide a substitute whipper, and since the father either couldn’t or wouldn’t administer the sentence, the boy was seized and taken to jail to serve the next 30 days.
Regardless of what punishment ended up satisfying his sentence, the case was certain to be one that the young Goin wasn’t going to forget any time soon. Hopefully, he emerged from his confinement more determined to not break the law and grateful that he was spared a beating.
