Why is Judge Roy Bean important?

He wasn't really, certainly not from a legal point of view. Locally he was important because he was the first justice of the peace in a region where the nearest 'real' court was over 200 miles away. He would be considered 'soft' by today's standards in the US, preferring fines over jail sentences. It must be added that he kept the fines for himself, though. On the other hand, in his later years he spent most of the capital that he had acquired in this way on supporting the local poor.