History Main / HangingJudge

* [[OlderThanFeudalism Athenian]] lawgiver Draco is the UrExample, giving us the word "[[TropeNamers draconian]]" to describe excessively harsh punishment. It is said that when asked why [[AllCrimesAreEqual minor offences get the same death sentence as the serious ones]], he said that in his view these lesser crimes deserved them, and he couldn't think of any punishment harsher than death for more serious ones (good thing they [[FateWorseThanDeath didn't have]] Wiki/TVTropes back then). Incidentally, the Greeks of his time regarded him as a genius and a courageous and enlightened lawgiver. Mostly because he also brought several innovations, perhaps the most important being an explicitly written code of law that all literate citizens could read (and all illiterate citizens could have verified by any random literate person they found), instead of oral traditions arbitrarily interpreted by a special caste. In other words, the law was harsh, but at least it was ''definite.''

* RealLife Wild West lawman Roy Bean is portrayed like this in Creator/DonRosa's ''Comicbook/TheLifeAndTimesOfScroogeMcDuck: The Prisoner of White Agony Creek''. He apparently regards kidnapping, assault, [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking making a man waste good liquor]], and [[AllCrimesAreEqual all crimes]] as hanging offenses. Fortunately for Scrooge and Goldie, he considers... whatever they were doing that wasn't shown at the end of the comic, perfectly legal.

* [[UpToEleven Even worse]] was Gaius Verres, who had been praetor of Sicily. First of all, he extorted so much loot, slaves, and capital from Sicily that some have estimated that he actually caused a recession ''on his own''. His handling of corn and grain harvesting was so poor parts of Italy starved and he nearly ended up with a slave revolt. Anyone who confronted him he put on trial for treason or espionage where he was the judge and jury and sentenced them to death. He was discredited in a case by Marcus Tullius Cicero, where it was revealed that he had sentenced Roman knights to death without trial, in one instance in order to disguise his own corrupt dealings with a gang of pirates (and sexual slavers). The Romans considered this to be a MoralEventHorizon. You will be pleased to hear that he was eventually murdered on the orders of Mark Antony, who [[KarmicDeath wanted some of the art treasures he had thieved from Sicily.]]

* Prince Buster's song "Judge Dread" was about a notorious Jamaican hanging judge also known as "Judge Fourhundredyears", who considered it imperative that Jamaican youth, to preserve public morals, be sentenced to ludicrously long prison terms for minor infractions.

* In ''VideoGame/ProfessorLaytonVsPhoenixWrightAceAttorney'', you are thrown into a KangarooCourt where everybody but you -that is, Judge, prosecutor (or rather, Inquisitor) and audience- wants your client to be [[BurnTheWitch thrown into]] [[FamilyUnfriendlyDeath a pit of fire]]. Unlike in the main series, the prosecutor won't make the witnesses tell lies to incriminate the defendant- they'll gladly do it of their own will if that means getting your client to feed the flames.

[[folder:Web Comics]]

[[folder:Anime and Manga]]

** Jonah confronts one in the story "The Hangman" in ''Weird Western Tales'' #35. Marshal Sam Lehman is a CorruptHick who is both the town marshal and judge. He makes almost every offence a hanging offence (such as hanging a saloon girl for filching ten dollars from a drunken cowhand) as the frequent public hangings attract business to the town.
* ''ComicBook/JudgeColt'' has this reputation. In #1, he has six men hanged at the same time on the one gallows (something RealLife hanging judge Isaac parker once did).

* Ronan the Accuser and the Kree Accuser Corps from the MarvelUniverse and of Comicbook/{{Captain Marvel|MarvelComics}} fame are often depicted this way, though in their case is more DropTheHammer Judge than hanging.

* In ''A Man Called Horace'', when in the saloon Horace encounters one who is infamous in the town and says to him "Well, if it isn't Judge 'Hang 'Em High' Harrison". In response, the judge says "I wish people wouldn't call me that. [[ITakeOffenceToThatLastOne It's Harris, not Harrison"]]. In the following issue, the judge goes on to say he doesn't understand why people view him as too harsh, as he believes "the suspect is innocent until proven hung!"

* Judge Hopkins from ''WesternAnimation/ParaNorman'' is a deconstruction; while he was very much at fault for sentencing Agatha Penderghast, a ''little girl'', to death for her [[ISeeDeadPeople ability]], he legitimately did [[IDidWhatIHadToDo what he thought was best]] and his decision wasn't motivated by sadism or cruelty, but by a values system that [[DeliberateValuesDissonance all the people of Blithe Hollow agreed with]]. Unfortunately, this ends up unleashing Agatha's wrath upon the town and Hopkins comes to regret his actions over the next few centuries (being forcefully resurrected as a zombie certainly gave him some perspective).

* Archie's father Adam Weir in Creator/RobertLouisStevenson's [[DiedDuringProduction unfinished novel]] ''Weir of Hermiston''. Believed to be based on the real-life Robert [=McQueen=] (see below).

* ''Literature/TheCountOfMonteCristo'' zigzags this with Gérard Villefort. He starts the novel as a subversion, a rapidly rising Crown prosecutor who's gotten many men executed but who were actually guilty of the crimes he accused them of. He later frames the completely innocent Edmond Dantes for conspiring against the French Crown and sends Dantes to nearly two decades in prison to advance his own career. He becomes a judge while Dantes is in prison, and becomes a HangingJudge for real.

* Danforth in ''Theatre/TheCrucible''.

** The Dark Judges, however, are this. Judge Death's CatchPhrase is "The crime is life, the sentence is death!" after all, and even before becoming an undead monster, he was [[ExaggeratedTrope an extreme case]]. As a trainee Judge, he executed every single person brought before him, even a couple who only wanted a divorce. They reconciled just before the trial in an attempt to avoid his judgment, [[MovingTheGoalposts so instead he executes them for "wasting the court's time"]].

* Another Wild West example: Isaac C. Parker, a U.S. District Judge, presiding over the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Arkansas for 21 years. He was actually nicknamed "The Hanging Judge" since he sentenced 160 people to death by hanging (156 men, and 4 women), 79 of which were indeed hanged. Time/Life treats Parker in a favorable light, claiming that he brought peace to a lawless territory, and, among other things, treated Indians as fairly as whites. According to Time/Life, the only reason he hanged so many people was that there was an excess of {{Outlaw}}s in his territory who "needed killin'." But Parker's reputation for harshness is often overstated; of 13,490 cases tried before his bench, 344 were for capital offenses. Of those, 160 defendants were convicted and sentenced to hang, and only 79 were actually hanged.

* Ronan the Accuser and the Kree Accuser Corps from the MarvelUniverse and of ComicBook/CaptainMarvell fame are often depicted this way, though in their case is more DropTheHammer Judge than hanging.

* [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roland_Freisler Roland Freisler]], President of the People's Court of UsefulNotes/NaziGermany, a notorious ''[[KangarooCourt Sondergericht]]'' ("Special Court") that was set up outside the operations of the constitutional frame of law, and was usually employed against resisters to the Nazi regime and other political enemies. He was known for (as his additional role as being court reporter) manipulating the transcripts to make the defendants guilty, and also for screaming the sentences to defendants -- so much that in one politically-charged trial, the news media found it hard to comprehend what he was saying. He acted as [[JudgeJuryAndExecutioner judge, jury, and prosecutor,]] and was responsible in his three years on the bench for the majority of the death sentences the court ever issued - including some, like Helmuth Hubener ([[WouldHurtAChild only 17]]), [[EvenEvilHasStandards despite the recommendations of the Gestapo against executing him]]. [[LaserGuidedKarma Freisler was killed by a collapsed beam when a bomb fell on his courthouse]]. The bombers responsible for the raid were led by one Lieutenant Colonel Robert Rosenthal, a [[DeathByIrony Jewish lawyer]] from Brooklyn. Freisler was so hated, [[EvenEvilHasStandards even by other Nazis]], that the wife of General Alfred Jodl later recounted that a local worker remarked "[[AndThereWasMuchRejoicing It's God's verdict!]]" in public upon seeing Freisler's corpse and not only got away with it, but no one even deigned to contradict him.

** Played with with [[spoiler:Mael Stronghart]] in ''VisualNovel/TheGreatAceAttorney''. [[spoiler:He only plays fair to keep his good facade and is a villain, but will turn in this trope only when pushed too far.]]

* Ronan the Accuser and the Kree Accuser Corps from the MarvelUniverse and of CaptainMarvell fame are often depicted this way, though in their case is more DropTheHammer Judge than hanging.

** Subverted with Judge Dredd, a protagonist example. He's not corrupt, the laws are just ''that'' [[FelonyMisdemeanor ruthless]]. It's worth noting that Dredd very rarely ''sentences'' anyone to death, and the only two crimes confirmed to carry the death penalty in Mega-City One are open rebellion and murdering a Judge. That said, a ''lot'' of people die at Dredd's hands while resisting arrest.

* One of the victims of the SerialKiller BigBad from ''Literature/Ripper2014'' is a corrupt Juvenile Court judge nicknamed the Butcher. She got her nickname for imposing excessive sentences and sending young people to [[PrisonInc for-profit youth correctional facilities]]. They compensate her via speaking fees for lectures and other bonuses to avoid looking like she is accepting bribes, but that is exactly what she does.

* Judge Mark Ciavarella of the Luzerne County Court of Common Pleas (in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania) became infamous for his harsh treatment of juvenile offenders. Ciavarella spent years sending children as young as five to detention centers for relatively minor crimes, such as trespassing or even insulting a teacher on Website/{{Myspace}}. It was later revealed that he was making an obscene amount of cash from his convictions, as the owner of the center [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kids_for_cash_scandal paid him for each new prisoner he sent there]]. This led to his being [[LaserGuidedKarma convicted and sentenced to twenty-eight years in prison]] for his involvement in the "Kids for Cash" scandal. The good folks at ''{{Website/Cracked}}'' probably summed up many people's feelings about him by saying that they'd be "happy with a law that allows each American to kick him in the balls once". Listen to ''Podcast/{{Swindled}}'''s dedicated episode to the [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7wIWXfEIads "Kids for Cash" debacle here]], and see [[MamaBear the mother]] of one of Ciavarella's victims [[DrivenToSuicide who killed himself]] [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H8JRMGP2hg8 cut him a new one here.]]

* The only sentence available for those convicted by Vehmic courts was death by hanging.

* [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roland_Freisler Roland Freisler]], President of the People's Court of UsefulNotes/NaziGermany, a notorious ''[[KangarooCourt sondergericht]]'' that was set up outside the operations of the constitutional frame of law, and was usually employed against resisters to the Nazi regime and other political enemies. He was known for (as his additional role as being court reporter) manipulating the transcripts to make the defendants guilty, and also for screaming the sentences to defendants -- so much that in one politically-charged trial, the news media found it hard to comprehend what he was saying. He acted as [[JudgeJuryAndExecutioner judge, jury, and prosecutor,]] and was responsible in his three years on the bench for the majority of the death sentences the court ever issued - including some, like Helmuth Hubener ([[WouldHurtAChild only 17]]), [[EvenEvilHasStandards despite the recommendations of the Gestapo against executing him]]. [[LaserGuidedKarma Freisler was killed by a collapsed beam when a bomb fell on his courthouse]]. The bombers responsible for the raid were led by one Lieutenant Colonel Robert Rosenthal, a [[DeathByIrony Jewish lawyer]] from Brooklyn. Freisler was so hated, [[EvenEvilHasStandards even by other Nazis]], that the wife of General Alfred Jodl later recounted that a local worker remarked "[[AndThereWasMuchRejoicing It's God's verdict!]]" in public upon seeing Freisler's corpse and not only got away with it, but no one even deigned to contradict him.

* [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roland_Freisler Roland Freisler]], President of the People's Court of UsefulNotes/NaziGermany. He was known for (as his additional role as being court reporter) manipulating the transcripts to make the defendants guilty, and also for screaming the sentences to defendants -- so much that in one politically-charged trial, the news media found it hard to comprehend what he was saying. He acted as [[JudgeJuryAndExecutioner judge, jury, and prosecutor,]] and was responsible in his three years on the bench for the majority of the death sentences the court ever issued - including some, like Helmuth Hubener ([[WouldHurtAChild only 17]]), [[EvenEvilHasStandards despite the recommendations of the Gestapo against executing him]]. [[LaserGuidedKarma Freisler was killed by a collapsed beam when a bomb fell on his courthouse]]. The bombers responsible for the raid were led by one Lieutenant Colonel Robert Rosenthal, a [[DeathByIrony Jewish lawyer]] from Brooklyn. Freisler was so hated, [[EvenEvilHasStandards even by other Nazis]], that the wife of General Alfred Jodl later recounted that a local worker remarked "[[AndThereWasMuchRejoicing It's God's verdict!]]" in public upon seeing Freisler's corpse and not only got away with it, but no one even deigned to contradict him.

* Pontius Pilate, who plays a supporting yet somewhat significant role in the Bible, was historically considered rather brutal. In that time, hanging would have been getting off lightly. Pilate was so renowned for brutality, he got recalled to Rome as they felt his harshness was provoking rebellion. In fact, the only known case where he exercised any significant caution was in the case of a certain [[UsefulNotes/{{Jesus}} Joshua Ben Joseph]], which took place right after the execution of the man who had appointed Pilate prefect of Galilee in the first place.

* [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roland_Freisler Roland Freisler]], President of the People's Court of UsefulNotes/NaziGermany. He was known for (as his additional role as being court reporter) manipulating the transcripts to make the defendants guilty, and also for screaming the sentences to defendants -- so much that in one politically-charged trial, the news media found it hard to comprehend what he was saying. He also was responsible in his three years on the bench for the majority of the death sentences the court ever issued - including some, like Helmuth Hubener ([[WouldHurtAChild only 17]]), [[EvenEvilHasStandards despite the recommendations of the Gestapo against executing him]]. [[LaserGuidedKarma Freisler was killed by a collapsed beam when a bomb fell on his courthouse]]. The bombers responsible for the raid were led by one Lieutenant Colonel Robert Rosenthal, a [[DeathByIrony Jewish lawyer]] from Brooklyn. Freisler was so hated, [[EvenEvilHasStandards even by other Nazis]], that the wife of General Alfred Jodl later recounted that a local worker remarked "[[AndThereWasMuchRejoicing It's God's verdict!]]" in public upon seeing Freisler's corpse and not only got away with it, but no one even deigned to contradict him.