Discussion Main / JudgeDredd

According to the Mega-City One Archives, the only crimes that actually carry the death penalty are collaboration with a hostile power during wartime and interfering with a Judge engaged in protecting the security and citizens of MC-1. However, Judges are permitted to use lethal force if the situation warrants it.

Ukrainian Red Cross

According to the Mega-City One Archives, the only crimes that actually carry the death penalty are collaboration with a hostile power during wartime and interfering with a Judge engaged in protecting the security and citizens of MC-1. However, Judges are permitted to use lethal force if the situation warrants it.

Ukrainian Red Cross

The Mega-City One Archives are notoriously inaccurate. From the Amazon.co.uk reviews.

• "a fudge of a book"
• "written by someone who appears had not read Dredd"
• "'facts' are gleaned not from the comic but from the role playing games"
• "not accurate enough"

I would suggest that, given the canonical evidence, the death penalty is far more common in Judge Dredd than the book states.

^I haven't read Mega-City One Archives to know what's inaccurate in it, but VampireBuddha is correct in saying that the only crimes that carry the death penalty are aiding and abetting the enemy during war and doing anything else that may threaten the security of the city as a whole.

Judges are also allowed to defend themselves with lethal force if a perp is hostile and dangerous, and a lot of criminals do end up dying because of this (I'm assuming this is what most of that "canonical evidence" you're claiming is), but it's a big stretch to call that the "death penalty."

I don't recall any statement in the comic that suggested those two crimes are the only ones that carry the death penalty, and the examples I gave definitely count as executions:

• Judge Dredd executed Lazarus Kohlrabi◊ for premeditated mass murder in prog 630
• Judge Anderson executed Deeter Malthus◊ for child slavery in prog 1049
• Judge Dredd executed Mental Gomez for various crimes in issue 253 of the Megazine

Would this be a bad time to point out that PJ Maybe is currently sitting on death row? He's due to be executed by "the needle" — presumably lethal injection — and he seems to have avoided interfering with judges and aiding hostile powers.