Actually, that bothered me, too, but Parker may have been operating under assumption that a relatively isolated town like Appaloosa would have been operating in a state of near-anarchy with the courts only a step above miners' courts. That might have been true of an earlier frontier, but by 1880 (more or less when the story was set, from what one can tell) there would have been some minimal adherenace to legal procedures. Even if the town itself was unincorporated (similar to the situation in the movie WARLOCK), with the county sheriff involved--as he was in this story--there should have, and probably would have--been some adherence to the the laws of the Territory. I'm not as up on those laws as I am with Arizona's of the same era, but I'd be really surprised if Bragg wasn't legally entitled to a trial by jury. What seemed to be taking place in the book and movie was more like a preliminary hearing, similar to what the Earps and Doc Holliday received after killing some Cowboys near the OK Corral. The judge might have found Bragg guilty but would only be able to have Brand handed over to a higher court for an actual trial. Since the sheriff was taking Bragg to the county seat, there's no reason that wouldn't or couldn't have happened.
It didn't diminish my enjoyment of the movie much, but it bothered me because Robert B. Parker should have known better, and possibly did. It also always annoys me when westerns that aspire to some autheeticity still play fast and loose with legal realities (like in movies where "the sheriff" seems to be actually more like a town marshal, and "the marshal" seems top function as a sheriff. (And then there was Matt Dillon, who acted as both under the auspices of a federal badge!)
Parker at least acknowledged that Cole and Hitch had no authority outside town limits, even if they acted as such.
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