Joker Jury - Television Tropes & Idioms

alt title(s): A Jury Of Your Foes

Scarface: Our prosecutor is ready, likewise our fair and impartial jury—
Hatter: Hang him!
Harley: Shoot 'im!
Croc: Hit him with a rock!

—Batman The Animated Series, "Trial"

"Justice is swift in Court of Miracles; I am the lawyers and judge all in one!"

"We like to get the trial over with quickly because it's the sentence that's really the fun!"

"The Court of Miracles," from The Hunchback Of Notre Dame

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.

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, in a mild subversion, the hero is actually able to defend himself and 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

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 with his three heads; 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 "Dark Victory".
- Two-Face does it during the "No Man's Land" story arc. In a mild subversion, the "defendant" 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 had him put on trial. Judge, prosecutor and defense attorney are members of a gang; the jury is made up of Jesse James, Billy the Kid, Calamity Jane 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.
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, 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.

Films

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.
Disney's The Hunchback Of Notre Dame includes the song 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.
Star Trek VI: James T. Kirk, the most hated human among Klingons, is tried for the murder of the Klingon chancellor in front of a jury of Klingons. Though they do give him a semi-competent public defender in Colonel Worf, the decision is obvious, and off he goes to Rura Penthe.

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.
Happens in John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, when Christian and Faithful are arrested in Vanity Fair. When the judge's name is "Lord Hategood," you know you're in trouble. So this is Older Than Steam.
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 to this troper, but things are never fair in this series.
- This Troper was under the impression that Olaf simply took advantage of the court's literal interpretation of "justice is blind" by holding the jurors at gunpoint and basically directing the progress of the entire trial, and since everybody was blindfolded no-one would have noticed that Olaf was The Man Behind The Man when it came to the Baudelaire's conviction.
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.

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.
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.

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".

Theatre

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.

Western Animation

In the Batman The Animated Series episode "Trial", Batman is captured and place 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!
- Interestingly, in this case they end up finding Batman innocent, but decide that they're "such finks" they'll kill him anyway.
Happens in Superfriends episodes "The Trial of the Superfriends" and "The Menace Of The White Dwarf".
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 had a trial with all his "Unwished wishes".
There's an old and rather scary Disney short, "Pluto's Judgement Day", in which Mickey's dog is 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 guilty. Lucky for Pluto, it was All Just A Dream.
- ♫"G-U-I! L-T-Y! Guilty Guilty Guilty!"♫
  - Is that being sung to the Mickey Mouse March tune? (M-I-C, K-E-Y...?)
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 trope gets its own musical number in Disney's version of The Hunchback of Notre Dame. Quasimodo and friends end up trapped in the Court of Miracles, a hideout for cutthroat criminals which is set up to look like a courtroom. There, the inhabitants put on a mock trial while singing a song about how "we like to get the trial over with quickly because it's the sentence that's really the fun!" At the end, the crooks declare our heroes "totally innocent...which is the worst crime of all. SO YOU'RE GOING TO HANG!"
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 Jon Wilkes Booth, Richard Nixon, and for whatever reason, the 1976 Philadelphia Flyers hockey team.
- According to The Other Wiki, the Flyers were notorious in that era for their dirty style of play, gaining the nickname "The Broad Street Bullies".
- 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.
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.

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.

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.

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