Afterwards, McCall was chased down the street and arrested. A couple of days later, a trial was held charging McCall with murder. However, because McCall claimed Hickok had killed his brother and he had only been taking revenge, he was found not guilty. Later the trial was found to be illegal and Jack McCall was arrested and hanged.

After the trail, on August 5, 1876, the men of Deadwood decided they needed law and order in the camp and elected Isaac Brown as Deadwood's first marshal on August 5, 1876. But for Marshal Isaac Brown, being a lawman would be a short-lived career. When he, along with the Reverend Smith and two other men named Charles Mason and Charles Holland were traveling between Crook City and Deadwood, they were ambushed and killed on August 20th. Leaving an open position, the miner's court soon met again on September 16th and this time they elected Con Stapleton as the new marshal.

Though he would only serve as the town's marshal for a little over a year, one of the most widely publicized events during his short tenure was the shooting of David Lunt. On January 14, 1877, Stapleton, along with Lunt and several other men were standing around talking at Al Chapman's saloon when a man named Tom Smith came barreling into the saloon with his pistol in the air. Shouting threats and leveling his gun on the saloon's patrons, he barked, "Anyone who moves gets shot!"

When the crazed man neared Stapleton's group, the marshal tried to disarm him and in the frenzy the pistol discharged, barely missing Stapleton's head and striking Lunt in the forehead. As the amazed crowd looked down upon what they thought was surely a dead man, amazingly David Lunt stood up, brushed himself and went about his business like nothing happened. Stapleton then arrested Smith on a charge shooting an an officer and though Smith was found guilty he was soon released.

In the meantime, David Lunt continued on as usual, even though he had a hole that went entirely through his head. That was, until March 22, 1877, when he began to complain of a terrible headache. As he took to his bed at the Centennial Hotel, friends and staff cared for him, but it was to no avail. That night, some 67 days after he had been shot, he died. Afterwards, the doctor performed an autopsy and found that the bullet had carried a bone fragment deep into his brain, causing a large abscess and filling his brain with fluid. The doctor was amazed that he lived any time at all, much less for more than two months.

After Lunt's death, a new warrant was issued for Tom Smith for murder and the man was soon rearrested and taken to Yankton, Dakota Territory to stand trial.