Joseph Isaac Clanton (c. 1847 – June 1, 1887) was a member of a loose association of outlaws known as The Cowboys who clashed with lawmen Wyatt, Virgil and Morgan Earp as well as Doc Holliday.

Clanton filed murder charges against the Earps and Holliday but after a 30-day preliminary hearing, Justice Wells Spicer ruled that the lawmen had acted within their lawful duty.

Earp later said that on June 2, 1881, he offered the Wells, Fargo & Co. reward money and more to Clanton if he would provide information leading to the capture or death of the stage robbers.

[5]: 193  The Clantons were reputed to be among a group of outlaw Cowboys who crossed the border into Mexico where they stole cattle and re-sold them to the hungry miners in Cochise County.

[6] The Mexican government at the time placed high tariffs on goods transported across the border, making smuggling a profitable enterprise.

On August 12, 1881, Old Man Clanton and six other men were herding stolen cattle sold to him by Curly Bill Brocius through Guadalupe Canyon near the Mexican border.

I went down to Wyatt Earp's house and told him that Ike Clanton had threatened that when him and his brothers and Doc Holliday showed themselves on the street that the ball would open.

[4] Later in the morning, Clanton picked up his rifle and single-action revolver from the West End Corral, where he had stabled his wagon and team and deposited his weapons after entering town.

They arrived from Antelope Springs, 13 miles (21 km) east of Tombstone, where they had been rounding up livestock with their brothers and had breakfasted with Clanton and Tom McLaury the day before.

[16]: 190 [17] : 49  The city statute was not specific about how far a recently arrived visitor might "with good faith, and within reasonable time" travel into town while carrying a firearm.

Cochise County Sheriff Johnny Behan, a friend to the Cowboys,[19] later testified that he first learned of the trouble while he was getting a shave at the barbershop after 1:30 pm, which is when he had risen after the late-night game.

When Virgil Earp learned that Wyatt was talking to the Cowboys at Spangenberg's gun shop he picked up a 10-gauge or 12-gauge, short, double-barreled shotgun[20]: 185  from the Wells Fargo office around the corner on Allen Street.

To avoid alarming Tombstone's public, Virgil returned to Hafford's Saloon carrying the shotgun under his long overcoat.

During a month-long preliminary hearing before Judge Wells Spicer, Clanton told a story of abuse that he had suffered at the hands of the Earps and Holliday the night before the gunfight.

He testified that the Clantons and Frank McLaury raised their hands after Virgil's command, and Tom thrust open his vest to show he was unarmed.

Clanton also claimed that Doc Holliday and Morgan, Wyatt, and Virgil Earp had separately confessed to him their role in the Benson stage holdup, or else the cover-up of the robbery by allowing the robbers' escape.

In his ruling, he noted that Clanton had the night before, while unarmed, publicly declared that the Earp brothers and Holliday had insulted him, and that when he was armed he intended to shoot them or fight them on sight.

Spicer wrote, "the great fact, most prominent in the matter, to wit, that Isaac Clanton was not injured at all, and could have been killed first and easiest.

Though Ike Clanton's hat was found at the scene where the ambushers waited, a number of associates stood up for him, saying that he had been in Contention that night, and the case was dismissed for lack of evidence.

On Saturday, March 18, 1882, Morgan Earp was killed by a shot through a door window facing a dark alley while playing billiards at Hatch's Saloon in Tombstone.

[22] Wyatt never located Clanton, although they killed three other outlaw Cowboys, and the Earps and Holliday left the Arizona Territory in late April, 1882.

[27] On November 6, 1885, local rancher Isaac Ellinger and Pratt Plummer had dinner with the Clanton brothers and Lee Renfro.

The Clantons had been suspected for some time of rustling cattle, taking stolen livestock from the Springerville area to Clifton and southern Arizona by way of the Blue River down to Eagle Creek.

Mr. Wilson, at whose ranch the shooting occurred, notified the nearest neighbors and four men came over and identified the deceased and assisted in giving him as decent a burial as circumstances would admit.

[35] Clanton appears in the Doctor Who story "The Gunfighters" (1966), played by William Hurndell, which is largely based on the Sturges film.

[citation needed] In 1957, Kelo Henderson played Clanton in an episode of Dale Robertson's NBC series, Tales of Wells Fargo.

[citation needed] From 1959 to 1960, the actor John Milford portrayed Clanton in eight episodes of the ABC/Desilu television series, The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp.

[37] Clanton was played by William Tannen in the episode "After the OK Corral" of the syndicated western anthology series, Death Valley Days.

DeForest Kelley (Dr. Leonard McCoy) also played Clanton in an episode of the CBS television series You Are There prior to Star Trek.

[citation needed] Stephen Lang played Clanton in the movie Tombstone (1993), which draws heavily on the Billy Breakenridge book Helldorado: Bringing the Law to the Mesquite.