Joker Jury

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The Trope Namer

Scarface: Our prosecutor is ready, likewise our fair and impartial jury-- Mad Hatter: Hang him! Harley Quinn: Shoot 'im! Killer Croc: Hit him with a rock! —Batman: The Animated Series, "Trial"

What happens if a hero is captured by his foes? Sure, they could just kill him out of hand, or toss him into a Death Trap, but if the villain has a sense of the theatrical, a quirky sense of humour, or is just flat-out crazy, he might decide to put his nemesis on trial. If so, the hero will find himself facing a Joker Jury, often overseen by a Hanging Judge.

The Joker Jury is a mockery of a trial held by a hero's foes, where his enemies make up the judge, the jury, the prosecution and even the defense. The charges are usually ridiculous, such as interfering with the villain's crimes, and the verdict is a foregone conclusion. Sometimes, the hero is actually able to defend himself and even win the trial. In that case, the villain usually just tries to kill him anyway.

The trope title comes from a story in Batman #163 where Batman and Robin are captured by the Joker and put on trial with the Joker as judge and members of his gang, all dressed in Joker costumes and make-up, as the prosecutor and jury.

See also Jury of the Damned. When the heroes are put on trial by someone besides the villains, it's often a Trial of the Mystical Jury or a Kangaroo Court. Often involves a Villain Team-Up.

Examples of Joker Jury include:

Anime and Manga

• In One Piece, Enies Lobby technically serves as a courthouse, even though criminals are only brought through there on their way to the underwater prison Impel Down, or to Marine Headquarters, and has an almost absurd pretense of justice. Criminals are judged by the Just Eleven Jurymen, who are pirates who have been sentenced to death and pronounce any criminal guilty to take as many down with them as they can. Judge Baskerville, actually three people who sit together to form a three-headed man, has a strange way of passing sentences: the left head favors punishing criminals, the right side favors leniency, and the center offers the more extreme "compromise" of execution. As such, no criminal has ever been acquitted. Strangely enough, Nico Robin and Franky don't get this treatment when they are taken through Enies Lobby.
  • That's actually justified. Spandam used CP9's authority to override that.
• In the dub version of Yu-Gi-Oh!!'s Virtual World arc, Johnson, whose Deckmaster and appearance is that of Judge Man, claims he is putting Joey on trial for gambling.

Comic Books

• This happens to Batman a lot:
  • The above-mentioned Batman story.
  • Also occurs in Batman: Dark Victory.
  • Two-Face does it during the "No Man's Land" story arc. In a mild subversion, the "defendant", Commissioner Gordon, got off by naming Harvey Dent as his defense attorney, and turning it more into a battle between the two sides of his personality. Harvey won.
  • Two-Face puts a judge on trial in the Robin: Year One mini-series.
  • In an odd inversion, in a storyline that ran in Batman #291-294, Batman was missing and presumed dead, and villains placed themselves on trial before a court of their fellow villains, attempting to prove themselves guilty of Batman's murder.
  • The pre-made adventure for a Batman RPG from the early 90s had Joker attempting to frame the player characters for murder, then putting them on trial before a "jury of [their] peers" - twelve mannequins dressed in Batman's cape and cowl.
• Happens to Spider-Man in the "Power and Responsibility" arc that kicks off the Clone Saga.
• In an All Just a Dream example in Action Comics #286, while in the grip of a Red Kryptonite nightmare, Superman dreams that Luthor, Brainiac and other villains put him on 'trial' for his alleged 'crimes' against them, and sentence him to battle Supergirl to the death in a gigantic arena or else stand by helplessly while they blow up the Earth.
• The Lucky Luke story The Gang of Joss Jamon has him put on trial. Judge, prosecutor and defense attorney are members of the titular gang; the jury is made up of Jesse James, Billy the Kid, Calamity Jane (who's shown as simply a villain rather than the Crazy Awesome Boisterous Bruiser she becomes later on in the series; in the 1991 Animated Adaptation, she's replaced by Ma Dalton) and the Dalton brothers.
  • It's used in a few other albums too, usually with the Dalton brothers as judge, prosecutor and defense attorney. In one case, Luke is able to talk Averell into successfully defending him.
  • Also seen in The Judge, said judge being the historical Roy Bean: 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.
• Mordru subjects the Legion of Super-Heroes to one of these in Action Comics #370.
• Factor 3 did this to the X-Men in issue 37, trying them for treason for preventing their fellow mutants from comitting crimes.
  • Also, Magneto. To Gambit.
• The Injustice Society of the World subjects the Justice Society of America to one of these in All Star Comics #37.
• The standard M.O. of the mercenary/vigilante group the Jury in the Marvel Universe.
• Judge Dredd was once put on trial by the survivors of East Meg One in the New Kremlin. A part inversion, Sov Judge Orlok, who brought Dredd in, both resisted having the trial and ended up giving the most influential defense testimony, making a conviction impossible AND prevented an assassination attempt on Dredd.
• In an early issue of Daredevil, the Owl kidnapped the judge who had sentenced him to prison and staged a mock trial using members of his gang as the jury. He also kidnapped Matt Murdock to serve as the defence attorney.
• In Captain America, Cap's girlfriend Diamondback was subjected to one of these by her former teammates in the villainous Serpent Society.
• Jonah Hex is subjected to one in Weird Western Tales #30. Quentin Turnbull captures him and puts him on 'trail' for "treason and other high crimes against the Confederate States of America". The 'jury' consists of "your former comrades in arms, some of them survivors of the very massacre you perpetrated".
• In The Incredible Hercules comic by Marvel, Zeus is put on trial by Pluto using a jury of assorted deceased villains.
• During Clone Saga Spider-Man is put on one by Judas Traveller, accusing him that his sole existence creates supervillains and ruin people's lives. Judas play the judge, Ravencloft immates are jury, Kaine is defence attorney and prossecution role is let to Carnage. Spider-Man is of course found guilty and sentence to be killed, but after Kaine almost died to save him Traveller spares them both. He then reveals that if Peter can inspire such noble acts in scum like Kaine, he deserves to live.

Films -- Animation

• Disney's The Hunchback of Notre Dame includes the song "The Court of Miracles", in which the gypsies act in this capacity while functioning as antagonists to the main characters, holding a chirpy trial of Quasimodo and Phoebus. Clopin acts as judge while his hand puppet acts as defense, and the final line runs thus:

Clopin: We find you totally innocent... which is the worst crime of all. So you're going to hang!

• • Since the gypsies believe the heroes to be minions of Frollo, the whole thing is intended as a parody of him.
  • The scene in the original novel functions similarly, except that it's the hapless Gringoire being tried.

Films -- Live Action

• Peter Lorre's character in the movie M is captured by criminals and put on trial because his crimes are bringing the police down on the heads of every other criminal in the city. Ironically, this court is actually fairer than the one he could expect in the real legal system.

Gamebooks

• The eponymous hero of the Lone Wolf series gets one such mock-trial in Book 7, Castle Death. The sentence? "The Maze!"

Literature

• This shows up in the xenofiction novel Watership Down, in one of the legends told of their racial hero, El-ahrairah. Prince Rainbow has determined to put a stop to El-ahrairah's tricks once and for all by planting a mole. El-ahrairah soon spots the informer and deliberately lays a trail for him. Acting on the info duly received, the Prince tells El-ahrairah he will only consider him innocent if a jury finds him so—a jury chosen by the prince, made up entirely of rabbit predators. At which the trickster bunny pulls off a really clever subversion: he is able to use the predators' contempt for rabbits to his advantage, and get rid of The Mole at the same time.
• Older Than Steam: Happens in John Bunyan's The Pilgrims Progress, when Christian and Faithful are arrested in Vanity Fair. When the judge's name is "Lord Hategood," you know you're in trouble.
• A Series of Unfortunate Events had one in The Penultimate Peril; somewhat subverted as while accidental, the Baudelaires really did murder someone. None of the proceedings made any sense, but things are never fair in this series.
• In the novel Captain America: Liberty's Torch, Cap is captured by a powerful American militia. He is to be put on trial and for his defense, they captured a lawyer based off the popular creator Mark Gruenwald. Both Cap and the lawyer know the whole thing is a sham, but are forced to go through with it anyway.
• A classic (though loose) example can be found in Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland where the main character participates in a trial with all the previous characters she met serving as witnesses. It's a loose example because it's the Knave of Hearts, not Alice, on trial, and neither jury nor witnesses have it in for the defendant. Unfortunately, the ultimate judge in all this is the Queen of Hearts, who does.

Live-Action TV

• Used in an episode of Hawaii Five-O when Steve McGarrett is put on "trial" by prisoners in the state pen, many of whom he put there.
• The fourth season of 24 had the US Secretary of Defense captured and put on trial by terrorists.
• Matlock was called upon to act as defense counsel for a prison guard being tried for murder by rioting prisoners.
• The IMF fake one of these as part of The Con in the Mission: Impossible episode "The Flight".
• In the ninth series of Are You Being Served, Mr. Humphries is investigated for alleged offenses. The hearing rapidly takes on the air of a jury trial, with a hostile judge who openly says that any defense would be a "feeble tissue of lies". In the end, he is found guilty, then proved innocent thirty seconds later.
• Q puts Picard on trial in the pilot and series finale of Star Trek: The Next Generation.
  • Technically he puts Humanity on Trial; Picard is the defense attorney.
• Happens to Adama in Battlestar Galactica, causing him to remark, "Oh, this is THAT kind of trial."
• In the Stargate Atlantis episode "Inquisition", the Coalition of Planets put the team on trial with two out of three of the judges having ulterior motives. They got off by bribing one of the biased judges.
  • This happened earlier in an episode of SG-1. Teal'c is put on trial for a murder he committed while First Prime of Apophis. The judge, jury, and executioner was son of the guy who Teal'c killed. Daniel points out how unfair this is, only to be shot down since it's part of their legal system.
• Inverted in the 1960s series Batman. In one episode the Joker is put on trail for his various crimes, and after the presentation of the obviously insurmountable evidence, the jury unanimously declares him Not Guilty. The judge calls them out on this, and it turns out the jury is made up entirely of ex-cons and criminals who are pulling for the Joker anyway.
• In an episode of Blackadder Goes Forth, Blackadder is put on trial for shooting General Melchett's beloved carrier pigeon, Speckled Jim, just after this had been made a court-martialable offence. Guess who was the judge? General Melchett.
• In the first part of The X-Files' finale, Mulder is captured by US Marines and put before a show tribunal. After he is convicted and sentenced to death, the others easily break him out.
• Tales from the Crypt: "The Third Pig", a bloody retelling of the Three Little Pigs had the third pig tried for the murder of his brothers. The judge and jury are all wolves, who deliberate by going in the room and immediately coming back out.
• In Mystery Science Theater 3000, Mike is put on trial for all the times he's blown up planets with Observer acting as the judge, Pearl the prosecutor, and Professor Bobo as Mike's defense attorney (though that's Mike's fault as he had several competent legendary defense attorneys to choose from and sarcastically chose Bobo when he saw Bobo's name on the list). He may not have gotten Clarence Darrow, but at least he got an attorney with the same mannerisms.
• Doctor Loveless' final appearance in The Wild Wild West had him put many people, including Jim West, on trial with himself as the judge. The crimes all boiled down to "getting in Doctor Loveless' way".

Music

• The Pink Floyd album The Wall contains an unusual variant of this. During "The Trial", Pink is tried by his own neuroses and inner demons, including monstrous incarnations of all the people who made life difficult for him.
  • Even more strangely, though it looks as if the whole trial is stacked against him, it's actually the best thing that happens to him, as it made him realize he needed to destroy the wall. A useful Kangaroo Court, as it were.
• "Fuck the Police" by NWA has a cop being tried by MC Ren, Dr. Dre, Ice Cube and Eazy-E for being "a redneck, white trash, chicken-shit motherfucker".

Theater

• In the new musical adaptation of Mary Poppins, Act One ends with a new number called "Temper Temper", in which Jane and Michael's toys come to life, grow to be bigger than the children, and promptly hold the children trial for having lost their tempers and broken the toys—singing all the time. By all accounts, this scene generally counts as Nightmare Fuel.

Web Comics

• In Nodwick, Yeager is put on trial by the "Council of Three-And-A-Half" which is later revealed to consist entirely of people he bullied as a child.
• Van Von Hunter begins with Van on trial for the crime of "re-murder", i.e. the "murder" of an undead vampire. The event took place in a land seemingly populated entirely by the undead, so the judge, jury, and lawyers are all undead.

Web Original

• The Red Panda Adventures episode "Trial by Terror" had the Red Panda undergoing a commitment hearing by the inmates of the asylum many of his foes had been sent to.

Western Animation

• True to its roots, in the Batman: The Animated Series episode "Trial", Batman is captured and placed on trial by the inmates of Arkham Asylum—and just to stack the deck further, his defending attorney was an outspoken critic of the vigilante who earlier blamed him for ostensibly provoking the mentally unstable into becoming criminals. Explaining the trial bit, Two-Face says, "Personally, I suggested a quick slug between the eyes... but I lost the coin toss."

Scarface: And now, all rise for the most honorable, most benevolent, most merciful Judge Joker! Joker: GUILTY!

• • This trope is subverted when the attorney becomes a female Perry Mason / Matlock and proves Batman innocent by pointing out that the supervillains themselves are responsible for what's happened to them. Double Subverted when the villains end up finding Batman innocent, but decide that they're "such finks" they'll kill him and his attorney anyway. Of course, now that Batman's attorney has done her job, it's time for Batman to do his...
• Happens in two Superfriends episodes:
  • 1973/74 episode "The Menace Of The White Dwarf". The Raven puts Superman through a trial with himself as judge and prosecutor and a jury consisting of his android doubles. Wendy, Marvin, and Wonder Dog act as Superman's defense attorneys.
  • The Challenge episode "The Trial of the Superfriends." You'd think that after being stripped of their power sources, captured by the Legion of Doom, and put on display in Legion Headquarters, the "justice" of an obviously mock trial would be the least of the Justice Leaguers' concerns — but it's the only thing they protest. The Four Leaguers', Batman and Robin, Wonder Woman, and Green Lantern, are sentenced to battle Brainiac's androids of them who have their power items, the Utility Belts, Magic Lasso, and Power Ring.
• In a Jimmy Neutron movie, King Goobot tells Jimmy about how they have to "do this sham trial by the book".
• Timmy in The Fairly OddParents has a trial with all his unwished wishes in "Escape From Unwish Island."

Judge Imaginary Gary: How does the (guilty) defendant plead (guilty)?

• There's an old and rather scary Disney short, Pluto's Judgement Day, in which Mickey's dog is lured to some sort of "dog Hell" and judged for the crime of tormenting cats. Everyone in the courtroom besides Pluto is a cat—the judge, the bailiff, the prosecution, and the jury—which obviously leads to him being declared ♫"G-U-I! L-T-Y! Guilty Guilty Guilty!"♫. Lucky for Pluto, it was All Just a Dream.
• The Real Ghostbusters did this.
• The Quintessons of Transformers: The Movie set up a Joker Jury for everyone. Those found innocent are fed to the Sharkticons. What a guilty verdict entails is open to speculation, but is probably one of those "you don't wanna know" things.
  • One "official" book stated that the Quintessons did the judge thing for fun, and dumped the accused in the pit no matter the verdict.
• In an episode of Yin Yang Yo, Carl The Evil Cockroach Wizard stages injury received from Yin and Yang while the two were in the midst of training which leads to a kangaroo court case. Naturally, the jury, witnesses and judge are all their past villains.
• This showed up in a Halloween special on The Simpsons, in the case of The Devil v. Homer, wherein The Devil (Flanders) contests that Homer sold his soul for a donut, which Homer finished. Due to the sheer incompetence of his attorney Lionel Hutz, Devil Flanders gets to fill the jury with some of Hell's most notorious residents, including John Wilkes Booth, Richard Nixon, and the starting lineup of the notorious 1976 Philadelphia Flyers hockey team.
  • FWIW, the jury acquitted him, as Homer had already promised his soul to Marge.
  • In the episode where Bart kills a bird with Nelson's BB gun, he imagines being put on trial by a tribunal of birds that sentence him to be pecked to death.
    • The birds originally just called him there to put down newspaper, but then Bart just had to open his big mouth...
  • Another dream sequence had Homer being put on trial by living donuts. He takes a bite out of his lawyer and is sentenced to be eaten by a giant donut.
• An episode of Duckman has him find himself in a town where everyone is related to Duckman's arch-nemesis, King Chicken, and they put him on trial for giving the wrong answer to the "chicken-egg" question.
  • Although the actual jury was made up of a random collection of inbred idiots who accidentally sat in the jury box instead of the audience.
• Rocko's Modern Life had a story where a fly fakes physical injuries to file a lawsuit against Rocko. The entire jury is made up of insects.
• One of the "Slappy Squirrel" segments in Animaniacs has Genre Savvy Slappy put on trial where the judge is a wolf, the jury are all wolves, and the prosecuting attorney is the grandson of the plaintiff, Slappy's longtime nemesis Walter Wolf. Slappy wins because she has a "dynamite case"—literally. That is to say, she put cases of dynamite underneath the jurors' seats, so even though she more or less confessed to the crime she was accused of plus blowing Walter up afterwards, the jury found her Not Guilty.
• Happens in Aqua Teen Hunger Force when Shake is called into Tree Court for dumping a huge vat of grease in the woods, then burning down a tree. Even his defense attorney is a shrub, who immediately squeals "GUILTY! MY CLIENT IS GUILTY!". Shake definitely doesn't help himself by ripping off the shrub's branches and covering himself in bark while holding the branches, to try to disguise himself as a tree MID-TRIAL!
  • He got off better than his accomplice Carl, who ended up supplying the parchment for the court's records.
• Taken a step further on Jimmy Two-Shoes. Not only is Cerbee tried with a Joker Jury, somehow every member is Lucius.
• One old Looney Tunes short featured Little Red Riding Hood being put on trial for crimes against the Big Bad Wolf. The judge, prosecutor, and entire jury are all wolves. It actually ends up a subversion, as even the all-wolf jury finds the Big Bad Wolf's story a blatant lie.
• In one episode of Peter Pan and The Pirates, Peter Pan is put on trial by Captain Hook, with his pirates as the jury and Wendy as a defense lawyer. Surprisingly, she wins the case.
• Near the end of Beast Wars, Megatron finally gets tired of his backstabbing underlings and decides to get rid of them. Quickstrike is put on trial with Megatron serving as judge (complete with powdered wig), Inferno as a stenographer, Waspinator as the defense, and the remaining Predacons as jury. He only survives because of a sudden attack on the base.
• One episode of The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh involved Winnie the Pooh having a nightmare where he is put on trial by a jury of balloons after mistakenly losing Christopher Robin's balloon.
• The Garfield and Friends episode "Wanted: Wade", where Wade the duck actually starts thinking that he was a criminal after removing a tag on Orson Pig's chair. He then starts to have a nightmare where he is actually put on trial where Orson is the judge presiding over said trial and sentencing him to 9999 years in prison after declaring him guilty.
• One episode of Arthur was about Buster Baxter stealing an action figure from a toy store, causing him to think that he is a criminal. About halfway through the episode Buster has a nightmare where he is arrested by the police and is taken to court where the judge is none other than Mr. Ratburn and the jury his other classmates (including his best friend Arthur Read).
• The Green Goblin in Spider-Man: The Animated Series gives this to the board members who he blames for the 'death' of Osborne, where he is Judge. He even has a Justice Statue with his face.
• One episode of Teachers Pet had Leonard Helperman imagine himself being put on trial in front of a judge and jury who all for some reason resemble Ian Waszlewzki, the class slob.

Real Life

• A book of legal anecdotes is titled Dracula was a Lawyer, because of Vlad the Impaler's practice of serving as prosecution and defense for his enemies.
• The gangster Charlie Richardson used to hold "trials" of any henchmen who had disappointed him, and would wear full judicial robes for the occasion.
• Ayn Rand is also reported to have held "trials" for people in her inner circle who she thought had slighted her.
• When a defeated military is tried for war crimes, especially since propaganda displayed them as pure evil.
• The thankfully foiled plot to kidnap Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer involved putting her "on trial" for her efforts to thwart the COVID-19 pandemic.