Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(US) lynch law.

1834		W.G. Simms Guy Rivers I 65: Sometimes they give him Lynch’s Law, after old Nick Lynch, who invented it in Virginny, long before your time or mine.
1835		Vade Mecum 25 July 2/4: These tumults are an eastern branch of Judge Lynch’s western courts, and the time is not far off when appeals from the decisions must be made with the bullet and the bayonet [DA].
1843		L.H. Medina Nick of the Woods II i: I told him Judge Lynch was out, and the boys will take care I was not found lying.
[1861		Stirling Obs. 19 Sept. 3/3: Brought Before Judge Lynch [...] ‘Are those ropes ready aloft there?’ ‘Judge Lynch called out [...] ‘I kin pass but one sentence — Death’].
1866		Dublin Eve. Mail 4 Sept. 2/5: [heading] Judge Lynch in London [...] The Monster Ex-Governor Eyre! This wholesale murderer Will be tried by a Jury of Ten thousand Working men at a Torchlight Meeting on Clerkenwell-green [etc].
1867		S. London Chron. 1 June 6/4: ‘Judge lynch’ at Clapham [...] A lady pointed out a well dressed man as having just robbed her of her watch. he was instantly seized by a number of respectable mechanics [who] then deliberately threw the swell mobsman into the horse pond, repeating the cold baths everal times.
1870		Falkirk Herald 28 May 3/6: Judge Lynch in the far West [...] The American pages contain an account of a shocking outrage which was committed by a gang of outlaws [...] in Kansas.
1877		S. James Vagabond Papers (3rd Ser.) 54: Outrages on young children or women are punished by death, and Judge Lynch often speedily settles such cases.
1888		C.E. Craddock Despot of Broomsedge Cove 429: Ye ’member how keen Teck Jepson war fur appealin’ ter Judge Lynch, ez he called it.
1894		G.A. Henty Dorothy’s Double III 155: On the breast of the dead man was pinned a paper. ‘This man has been tried and found guilty of murder, and he has been hung by my orders – Judge Lynch.’.
1900		Marvel 21 Dec. 10: Maybe one or two had just escaped from ‘Judge Lynch’.
1912		Day Book (Chicago) 9 Nov. 5: The hourly dread that some white woman relative may be horribly outraged by a brutal negro [is] responsible for the suppresion of the negro vote [...] and justice by Judge Lynch.
1924		C.E. Mulford Hopalong Cassidy Returns 20: ‘It’s better’n Judge Lynch,’ he mumbled.
1936		L. Pound ‘American Euphemisms for Dying’ in AS XI:3 201: Yield to Judge Lynch.
1948		O. Weston Mother Lode 30: One of the Mexicans robbed a sluice and Judge Lynch stepped in [DA].