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Wyatt Earp Might Not Pass Muster if He Tried to Join Marshals Today : Lawmen: Modern applicants must have intelligence and physical stamina. The O.K. Corral hero would probably have trouble with the FBI background check.

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ASSOCIATED PRESS

More than a century after the shootout at the O.K. Corral at Tombstone, Ariz., the term U.S. marshal still evokes Wyatt Earp spilling outlaws’ blood in the desert dust.

Earp was many things--gambler, gunfighter, saloonkeeper, miner, buffalo hunter and purported horse thief--but it was that gunfight on Oct. 26, 1881, that made him the most famous lawman of the marshals’ 202-year history.

U.S. Marshal Eugene Davis, Earp’s 20th-Century counterpart and an amateur Old West historian, says that Earp--who wasn’t appointed marshal until two months after O.K. Corral--today would need more than his legendary fast draw and swagger to wear the gold star.

“He might have some trouble with the FBI background investigation,” Davis said. “He’d have to clear that.”

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A check of Earp’s record would surely turn up criminal allegations against him and the fact that he had been fired from the Police Department in Wichita, Kan., for brawling.

Should he somehow survive the FBI scrutiny, his experience might be accepted in place of the required college degree. If he then passed oral and written exams, 13 rigorous weeks at the marshals’ boot camp in Glen County, Ga., would follow.

Davis, 62, is an example of what the service expects of its marshals today. He and his staff recently won “outstanding” ratings from the service director’s office in Washington.

Davis, appointed chief of Salt Lake City’s 11 deputy marshals in 1982, served in the Army during the Korean War era. Father of 11, he has been an insurance claims adjuster and an FBI agent.

He earned a doctorate in law from the University of Utah. As an attorney in the 1960s and ‘70s, Davis was admitted to practice before the U.S. Supreme Court as well as state and federal courts in Utah.

Davis stressed that the modern federal marshal must have physical and intellectual attributes.

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An unabashed admirer of the frontier lawman’s grit and courage, Davis says Earp’s skill with firearms and fists--even the way he sat a horse--could work to his advantage in the 1990s.

“We ask applicants if they’ve been involved with physical confrontations or firearms. If they have, and did everything right, then that’s a plus,” he says.

Everything right? That, too, could be a stumbling block for Earp, who had a penchant for fisticuffs and whacking troublemakers on the noggin with his revolver--when he wasn’t shooting them.

“One of the things a law enforcement officer has to know is when to pull his gun and when not to,” Davis said. In Earp’s defense, he added: “Usually, a guy who could ride a horse well and shoot would have the physical abilities we look for.”

Still, the days of rough-and-tumble gold and cattle boom towns dispensing frontier justice are gone for the oldest federal police agency, founded by George Washington in 1789.

Today’s marshals are charged with guarding federal judges and prosecutors, assisted by state-of-the art alarm systems and surveillance gear. The service also protects special witnesses in organized crime cases and helps relocate them under assumed identities.

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Marshals also execute more fugitive arrest warrants than all other federal agencies combined. They transport more than 100,000 federal prisoners a year.

Chief U.S. District Judge Bruce S. Jenkins says he was especially thankful to Davis and his officers during the February, 1989, bombing and firearms trial of Singer-Swapp polygamist clan members.

Clan leader Addam Swapp had warned of divine retribution for his persecutors, and Davis took no chances. Marshals formed a tight, protective ring around the judge and his family for the duration of the trial.

“Gene and his staff do an excellent job,” Jenkins said. “They are right there when you need them.”

Still, Davis acknowledged, he sometimes wishes he could exchange his own duties for a chance to travel back in time and test his mettle as a frontier marshal.

Those musings led his wife, Carol, to nickname him “Marshal D,” after the fictitious Marshal Matt Dillon of television’s “Gunsmoke.”

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“I think I would have done all right in the Old West,” Davis said with a smile. “I was the fastest draw in my FBI class. I’ve got quick hands.

“It would have been interesting. They had to bring back prisoners on horseback, and camp overnight. Yes, they had it pretty tough back then.”

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