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{{trope}}
[[File:JudgeJoker_7209.png|link=Batman: theThe Animated Series|frame|"[[Courtroom Antic|Record? Is someone supposed to be writing this down?]]"]]
 
 
{{quote|''"There is no such thing as a plea of innocence in my court. A plea of innocence is guilty of wasting my time. Guilty!"''|'''Inquisitor Lord [[Shout -Out|Fyodor Karamazov]]''', ''[[Warhammer 40000]]''}}
 
A [[Hanging Judge]] is a ruthless judge who rules his courtroom with an iron fist as his own personal fiefdom. He will hand out brutal sentences [[All Crimes Are Equal|for the most minor infractions]]. He may be corrupt and using the law for his own ends, a [[Corrupt Hick]] using his power to dominate the local community, a [[Knight Templar]] who believes his punishments are justified, or just a bully who gets off on abusing his power, but any hero who ends up in front of him can expect no mercy and precious little justice. You better have an [[Amoral Attorney]] at your side when you confront the [[Hanging Judge]] in the courtroom, or it's guaranteed that you won't walk out as a free bird after the trial.
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** This trope is lampshaded when Dredd meets an actual [[Hanging Judge]] (or feed-to-flying-rats-judge) in [[Mordor|Cursed Land]].
* [[Real Life]] Wild West lawman Roy Bean is portrayed like this in [[Don Rosa]]'s ''[[The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck]]: The Prisoner of White Agony Creek'' (you know, the one where [[Memetic Mutation|Scrooge has hatesex...]]). He apparently regards kidnapping, assault, [[Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking|making a man waste good liquor]], and [[All Crimes Are Equal|pretty much all crimes]] as hanging offenses.
* Roy Bean also shows up in the [[Lucky Luke]] album ''The Judge''. He charges Lucky Luke with theft in order to confiscate the cattle herd Luke was in charge of, assigns a deaf-mute as the defense attorney, and packs the jury with cronies (including the town's undertaker and his own pet black bear). In the end he is revealed to be more of a [[Corrupt Hick]] [[Jerk Withwith a Heart of Gold]] who's mostly concerned with lining his own pockets and giving the townspeople a good show: No-one gets worse than fines and confiscation of property because there would be no point in killing his own customers.
* Weird Pete when he is presiding over 'Gamer's Court' in ''[[Knights of the Dinner Table]]''. Quite frankly, any kind of power seems to go to Pete's head.
 
 
== Films -- Animated ==
* Judge Claude Frollo in the [[Disney Animated Canon|Disney version]] of ''[[The Hunchback of Notre Dame (Disney film)|The Hunchback of Notre Dame]]''. (He was an archdeacon in the original novel.)
* Doc Hudson's first appearance in ''[[Cars]]'' implies he is one of these.
{{quote| '''Doc Hudson''': All right, I wanna know who's responsible for wrecking my town, Sheriff. I want his hood on a platter! I'm gonna put him in jail till he rots. No, check that... I'm gonna put him in jail till the ''jail'' rots on top of him, then I'm gonna move him to a new jail and let that jail rot. I'm --...}}
:: And that's ''before'' he recognizes Lightning as being [[Berserk Button|a race car]].
* In ''[[Transformers: theThe Movie]]'', the Quintesson judge always finds the defendant innocent...unfortunately, [[Bizarro World|being innocent of any crime happens to be a capital offense.]]
{{quote| '''Quintesson Prosecutor''': Before the magistrate renders a verdict, would you like to beg for your lives? It sometimes helps...but not often.}}
 
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* In ''Used Cars'', Judge H. H. Harrison is portrayed as a hanging judge, complete with model guillotine and hangman's noose on his bench. The film's villains take a chance on using Harrison, an honest judge, simply because he's guaranteed to give the harshest sentence should he find the heroes guilty.
* Judge Alvin 'J.P' Valkenheiser in the movie ''[[Nothing but Trouble]]''.
* Judge Doom in ''[[Who Framed Roger Rabbit?]]''. What makes him even more sinister than the other judges is the fact that Toontown is undisputedly under his power, and he certainly has enough influence around LA to say that [[Judge, Jury, and Executioner|he pretty much IS the law-enforcement of the city]]. The good police forces are nothing more than pawns [[Just Following Orders|just doing their work]].
** The worst part is that he can [[Killed Off for Real|kill toons]], who are practically [[Cartoon Physics|invincible]] otherwise.
* Judge Hangin' Harry Shoat in ''[[Primal Fear (Filmfilm)|Primal Fear]]'' actively embraces this trope, even noting that if hanging were legal, he'd be the first one to pull the lever.
* The first Judge from John Grisham's ''[[The Rainmaker]]''.
* The Judge in ''[[Ghostbusters]] 2'', who would've had the Ghostbusters burned at the stake if he could... {{spoiler|until the ghosts of the Scoleri brothers, whom he had sent to the chair in the past, vengefully attacked the courtroom, proving the Ghostbusters weren't a fraud}}.
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{{quote| '''Judge Smails''': I've sentenced boys younger than you to the gas chamber. Didn't want to do it. I felt I owed it to them.}}
* Judge Chamberlain Haller, of ''[[My Cousin Vinny]]'', is a notable aversion of this trope. He does allow his dislike for Vinny to color his judgment ''once'' and make a bad decision, but on the whole, he's a stickler for proper courtroom procedure and brooks absolutely no nonsense from Vinny or anybody else but is also very fair and ends up praising Vinny's skills as a litigator after he wins the case.
* Judge Turpin from ''[[Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (Filmfilm)|Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street]]''. In probably his only courtroom scene, he sentences a 8-year old boy to death.
 
 
== Literature ==
* Charles Harness novel ''The Venetian Court''. Judge Spyder abuses his authority in order to execute criminals. He's assisted by the fact that trademark infringement has been made a death penalty offence.
* The Queen of Hearts in ''[[Alice in Wonderland (Literature)|Alice in Wonderland]]'' (even though it's supposed to be her husband who is acting as a judge).
** Worth noting that in the book no one is actually beheaded. The Queen is just an overreactive battleaxe, and the King is mostly going through with the trial to humor her.
* The book ''[[Nuklear Age]]'', by the author of the 8-Bit Theater webcomic, features a courtroom segment presided over by the Honorable Judge Hangemall Letgodsortitout.
* Judge Wargrave from ''[[And Then There Were None (Literature)|And Then There Were None]]''. In fact, his nickname was "Hanging Judge" because he has given so many death sentences. {{spoiler|He actually ''liked'' killing, but had enough of a conscience and sense of justice to become a judge instead of a serial killer -- he preferred to kill only people who deserved it. And the whole plot of the book comes from a [[Xanatos Roulette]] of his that would let him die after punishing other "criminals" who had formerly gotten [[Karma Houdini|scot-free for their crimes]]. }}
* Lord Hate-good from ''[[The PilgrimsPilgrim's Progress (Literature)|The Pilgrims Progress]]''.
* Justice Hathorne from ''[[The Devil and Daniel Webster]]''. This may also count as [[Truth in Television]] as Hathorne was the judge who presided over the Salem Witch Trials.
* [[Bram Stoker (Creator)|Bram Stoker]] wrote a short story called ''The Judge's House'' where the house was haunted by the ghost of a hanging judge.
* In [[Dan Abnett]]'s [[GauntsGaunt's Ghosts]] novel ''His Last Command'', Commissiar Kanow hands out the death sentences with abandon and explicitly tries to blungeon "Fast appraisal, fast dispatch" into Junior Commissiar Ludd's head. {{spoiler|When he tries summary execution on Gaunt and his team (warrants to be made out next morning), he's [[Hostage Situation|taken hostage]], and Gaunt tries to [[If I Wanted You Dead...|reason with him]], fails, and deals with Ludd.}}
* J. S. Le Fanu's short story ''An Account of Some Strange Disturbances in Aungier Street'' features the ghost of a hanging judge. {{spoiler|Unfortunately for anyone who rents his house, the judge ''still'' likes to hang people.}}
** Le Fanu's ''Mr. Justice Harbottle'' features a particularly corrupt hanging judge who is punished supernaturally.
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* ''[[The Dresden Files]]'' - According to Harry, The Merlin tends to act as one over trials of lawbreakers of magic (with a strong implication that a good chunk of the offenders could be rehabilitated with a proper mentor). But again, Harry isn't exactly the most unbiased source when it comes to The Merlin's actions...
** In The Merlin's eyes, nobody ''can'' be rehabilitated. Considering most people on the Council view Harry as a walking Time Bomb, the Merlin's not the only one who thinks that, so there are very few people willing to take on a warlock and rehabilitate them. In Council trials, the accused is not allowed to speak, and the final verdict is usually based on a soul-gaze given by the Merlin himself. We know of three people to escape the death penalty after being found guilty of using black magic: {{spoiler|Harry's mother}}, Harry, and {{spoiler|Molly}}. The first two were taken in and trained by Ebenezer, and Harry claimed responsibility for {{spoiler|Molly}}. Harry's the only one to date for whom rehabilitation has worked. Only time will tell {{spoiler|for Molly, but she did relapse a bit in ''Turn Coat''.}}
* From ''[[Harry Potter (Literaturenovel)|Harry Potter]]'', Barty Crouch Senior was the head of magical law enforcement during the time when Voldemort fell from power, and gave those under him the power to kill, rather then capture, fleeing Death Eaters. Typically, they were sent to prison without trial, but those that were lucky enough to receive them would find Crouch the definition of a [[Hanging Judge]], holding no sympathy for those accused or any belief that they might be innocent. Fortunately, the jury involved in these trials were typically more level-headed. This all came back to bite Crouch when his son was captured with a group of Death Eaters, and put on trial with them. Crouch was just as unsympathetic and condemning to Junior as he was to everyone else who came before him, and his cold demeanor toward his own son lost him his standing with the Wizarding public, which cost him his potential bid for Minister of Magic.
* In ''[[Catch Twenty Two|Catch-22]]'', Clevinger faces one of these when he's brought before a [[Kangaroo Court]] on trumped up charges. When Clevinger tries to protest that punishing him would be a violation of justice, the judge goes into a full blown rant.
{{quote| "That's not what justice is (...) [[Dirty Commies|That's what Karl Marx is.]] I'll tell you what justice is. Justice is a knee in the gut from the floor on the chin at night sneaky with a knife brought up down on the magazine of a battleship sandbagged underhanded in the dark without a word of warning. Garroting. That's what justice is when we've all got to be tough enough and rough enough to fight Billy Petrolle. From the hip. Get it?"}}
* ''[[Maximum Bob]]'' by [[Elmore Leonard]] was about such a judge -- the title was his nickname, referring to the harsh sentences he handed down. It was adapted into a short TV series starring Beau Bridges.
* [[Judge Knott]] was inspired to go into politics and displace a hangin' judge whose racism led him to destroy a man's livelihood for a minor infraction.
* Archie's father Adam Weir in [[Robert Louis Stevenson (Creator)|Robert Louis Stevenson]]'s [[Author Existence Failure|unfinished novel]] ''Weir of Hermiston''. Believed to be based on the real life Robert McQueen (see below).
* The ''[[Knight and Rogue Series]]'' proudly presents Loves-the-Rope Thrope.
* In the ''[[JoesJoe's World (Literature)|Joes World]]'' novels there was a [[Hanging Judge]] so extreme that he sentenced other judges to hang for ''not handing out enough death sentences''.
 
 
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** A (relatively) poor replacement for Bullingham after the death of the actor who played him (Bill Fraiser) was Mr Justice Graves, often refered to as Mr Injustice Gravestone. He is less agressive than Bullingham but non the less tries to unfairly influence the jury, only with more subtle methods. There is also a real 'hanging judge', Mr Justice Vosper, a relic from the days of the noose who summed up dead against one of Rumpoles' old clients, leading to his execution. He was later proved innocent.
* Judge Judy from...''[[Judge Judy]]''. Though to be fair, she is always, ALWAYS right. Just ask her.
* The episode "Judge Dread" of ''[[Law and& Order (TV)|Law and Order]]'' featured a judge that was so harsh that her image was used on packets of cocaine to represent ''its'' potency; after she strikes down a white-collar criminal's plea agreement for being too lenient, he is convinced by another con to hire a hitman to kill her.
* An episode of ''[[Law and Order Special Victims Unit]]'' featured a judge who imposed harsh penalties on juvenile defendants, citing a claim she was sending a message (most of the kids were sent to a facility for sex offenders for minor misdemeanors such as public urination. The case that brought it to their attention. A sixteen year old sent a racy photo by text message to her boyfriend, and was tried for distributing child pornography.) The detectives and a defense lawyer soon discovered the prison she was sending the kids to was run by her brother, who gave her a large kickback for every inmate she sent. She was caught accepting bribes in the end. Like many L&O plots, that was based on a true story-- and then copied with significantly less elegance in just about every other Lawyer Show.
* The judge [[Square One TV|George Frankly]] faced was supposedly a hanging judge.
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* Judge Clark Brown from ''[[Boston Legal]]''. He's handed out cruel and unusual punishments for some [[What Do You Mean It's Not Heinous?|very minor crimes.]]
* Judge Jefferson Dixon from the ''[[Cowboy G Men]]'' episode "Hang the Jury".
* Judge Alvarez in the ''[[Cold Case (TV)|Cold Case]]'' episode "Jurisprudence".
* Mr Justice Kent, the mark in the ''[[Hustle]]'' episode "Lest Ye Be Judged".
* Parodied in the ''[[Jeeves and Wooster (TV series)|Jeeves and Wooster]]'' episode "In Court After the Boat Race (or, Jeeves' Arrival)" which featured a magistrate who treated stealing a policeman's helmet as if it were mass murder and who handed down a five shilling fine as if he were pronouncing the death sentence.
* The judge who passes sentence over the eponymous trio in the sixth episode of ''[[Filthy Rich and Catflap]]''.
* General Sir Anthony Cecil Hogmanay Melchett becomes one in ''[[Blackadder Goes Forth]]'' in a military court. He's completely ready to have Blackadder shot for shooting '''his''' prize pigeon, though Blackadder is supposed on trial for disobeying orders Melchett barely mentions them. He fines the Defence £50 for turning up and refers to Blackadder as 'the Flanders Pigeon Murderer'.
* ''[[Wanted Dead or Alive (TV)|Wanted: Dead or Alive]]'': In "Miracle at Pot Hole", Randall brings a suspected murderer to Pot Hole, but fears the man won't receive a fair trial when he finds the townspeople in the grip of a power-mad bully who serves as the hanging judge over a [[Kangaroo Court]].
* ''[[Justified (TV series)|Justified]]'' has Judge Reardon, (played by [[Stephen Root]].) The show somewhat both [[Reconstruction|reconstructs]] and [[Deconstruction|deconstructs]] the trope with him. He privately explains to Raylan that the reason he sends down such harsh sentences is because of a case early in his career where he gave a dangerous man a light sentence out of sympathy for the man's obvious abuse as a child. Said man proceeded to kill a six-year-old, an act that has haunted Reardon ever since. At the end of the episode it's revealed that the would-be assassin trying to kill him {{spoiler|is aiming to either kill Reardon or try to get killed ''by'' Reardon so his family can get the insurance money. Reardon's harsh sentence, ostensibly to 'straighten out' the man, only ruined his family's lives.}}
 
 
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** A number of NPCs, such as Roy Bean, Isaac Parker and, in ''Hell on Earth'', Richard Tolliver.
** A monster called the Hanging Judge, which repeats all the sins you've ever committed as it hunts you down. The worst sin? Being Texan - Texans killed them in life.
** The spin-off card came ''[[Collectible Card Game|Doomtown]]'' included "Hangin' Judge Gabriel", who could [[One-Hit Kill|instantly 'Ace']] any character marked as Wanted. As a bonus, his flavor text was a [[Shout -Out|direct reference]] to [[Judge Dredd|Judge Death]] (see above). A later set introduced the Hangin' Judge monster from the RPG into the setting of the card game.
* The background for [[Magic: theThe Gathering|Magic: the Gathering's]] ''Ravnica'' setting has an ''even worse'' possibility: the courtroom is ''someone else'''s personal fiefdom (generally the [[Corrupt Church|Orzhov]], or the Dimir, the guild that doesn't exist).
{{quote| "In Otiev's mind, he ruled in favor of the accused. But in his courtroom he was only a spectator, watching his hand deliver the sign of death."}}
 
 
== Theater ==
* Both versions of Judge Turpin in ''[[Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (Theatretheatre)|Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street]]'', although the fact that the [[wikipedia:Bloody Code|Bloody Code]] was still in force at the time may explain some of it. He's still [[Complete Monster|far from sympathetic]].
* Danforth in ''[[The Crucible]]''.
* Lord Angelo in [[William Shakespeare|Shakespeare's]] ''[[Measure for Measure (Theatre)|Measure for Measure]]'' starts executing 'fornicators' at first offense: not very nice, even before he [[Straw Hypocrite|tries to blackmail their sisters]] [[Scarpia Ultimatum|into having sex with him]].
* In ''[[The Rise and Fall of The City of Mahagonny (Theatre)|The Rise and Fall of Thethe City of Mahagonny]]'', Trinity Moses seems a little too keen on the idea of condemning people to death.
 
 
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* ''[[Ace Attorney]]'' has hanging prosecutors, who basically rule the courtroom with an iron fist (or [[Whip It Good|whip]] or [[Caffeine Fiend|coffee cup]]). The judge technically passes the final verdict but is largely ineffectual and the prosecutors can do whatever they want.
* In ''[[Liberal Crime Squad]]'', judges with a Conservative bent are called Hangin' Judges. Aside from not wanting your liberals put on trial by these guys, they're actually pretty dangerous in direct combat as they can essentially [[Hannibal Lecture]] your members into submission.
* The Sheriff of Nottingham in ''[[The Adventures of Robin Hood (Videovideo Gamegame)|The Adventures of Robin Hood]]''.
 
 
== Webcomics ==
* In the ''[[The Order of the Stick (Webcomic)|Order of the Stick]],'' the judge for the [[I Don't Like the Sound of That Place|Empire of Blood]].
{{quote| '''Mr. Jones:''' Listen, here there are two types of accused. Those who plead guilty, and those who piss the judge off with a time-consuming trial before being ''found'' guilty.}}
* Naturally, [[Names to Run Away From Really Fast|His Honorable Tyranny]] from ''[[Homestuck (Webcomic)|Homestuck]]'', and Terezi acting as a Dredd-esque arbitrator. These are [[Proud Warrior Race|trolls]]; there is no defense. "In a courtblock, the word 'defense' itself is offensive."
 
 
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{{quote| '''Judge Whitey''': [[Insane Troll Logic|Being as I have a ham sandwich with mayonnaise waiting for me at my mansion]], I declare the defendants guilty as charged.}}
** [[Truth in Television]]: Poverty really was once considered a mental illness.
* ''[[Harvey Birdman, Attorney Atat Law]]'', especially in regards to Judge Mentok, who often doesn't even pay attention to his own cases - instead whiling away the moments swapping the minds of all the jury members or goofing around with the bailiff. And he's known to just declare guilty verdicts solely based on one piece of evidence.
** He once declared a mistrial because exactly two weeks to the second happened to coincide with Peter Potamus asking the prosecution if he got that thing he sent them (that thing being important to the case, in this instance) and the prosecution had, up until now, failed to acknowledge that yes, they had gotten it. Since Harvey was the one on trial, that's okay then.
* The judge in the Invaded episode of ''[[FostersFoster's Home for Imaginary Friends]]'' had most of the cast thrown in jail.
* And there's also the judge in the ''[[Home Movies]]'' episode where Brendon's bike was destroyed in an accident. Brendon had been riding his bike on the wrong side of the road, and he was struck by a car, head-on. The judge showed ''no'' sympathy toward Brendon who was on trial over said accident, when ''Brendon was nearly killed''. Note that Brendon is eight years old.
* [[Punny Name|Judge Mental]] from [[Spin-Off|the animated version of]] ''[[Beetlejuice (Animationanimation)|Beetlejuice]]'' certainly qualifies here since he thinks EVERY punishment equals "sending them to Sandworm Land". Of course, considering that it's usually Beetlejuice himself the judge has to deal with, it's [[Justified Trope|somewhat justified]].
* In "Trial" on ''[[Batman: theThe Animated Series]]'', [[The Joker]] eagerly takes to this sort of role. When he's introduced as the judge in Batman's [[Kangaroo Court|trial]], he immediately slams the gavel and pronounces "GUILTY!" (He's persuaded to continue the trial anyway.) After the trial is over with a not-guilty verdict, Joker decides to execute Batman anyway. He even ''calls'' himself "Ol' Hanging Judge Joker" at one point.
* A feline version of the Devil serves as this to a courtroom of demonic cats in Hell in ''[[Plutos Judgement Day]]''.
* Playboy cartoonist Brian Savage did quite a few with a judge who would look at a clock showing it's 4:30 and sentence someone to "Oh, four and a half years. In another the judge is shown firing a full clip of bullets into the defendant while a baliff comments "He's never had a ruling overturned."
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* [[wikipedia:George Jeffreys, 1st Baron Jeffreys|Judge Jeffreys (or to be exact, George Jeffreys, Baron Jeffreys of Wem)]] was called both "the Hanging Judge" and "the Bloody Judge" as a result of his habitual excesses, particularly during the so-called "Bloody Assizes" that marked the putting down of the Monmouth Rebellion of 1685. Jeffreys was notorious for his manipulation of juries and his violent language toward prisoners and witnesses even in that unscrupulous age. He has been a popular figure in historical fiction set in the seventeenth century, and has become for Britons the archetypical [[Hanging Judge]].
** Judge Jeffreys starred in [[Neal Stephenson]]'s ''[[The Baroque Cycle]]'' as one of the protagonists' nemeses.
** He was also a villain in [[Peter S Beagle|Peter S. Beagle]]'s ''Tamsin''.
** He appears in [[Rafael Sabatini]]'s ''Captain Blood: His Odyssey'' and in the [[Captain Blood (Film)|film]] based thereon; Sabatini incorporates historical dialogue reportedly used by Jeffreys from the bench.
** Jeffreys also appears in the background of M. R. James's [[Horror|ghost story]], "A Neighbour's Landmark," and in person in his "Martin's Close."
** [[Christopher Lee]] played Judge Jeffreys in [[Hammer Horror]]'s ''The Bloody Judge'' (released in the US under the title ''[[Gory Deadly Overkill Title of Fatal Death|Night of the Blood Monster]]'').
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