Hanging judge
"Hanging judge" is a colloquial phrase for a judge who has gained notoriety for handing down punishment by sentencing convicted persons to death by hanging, or otherwise imposing unusually harsh sentences. Hanging judges are officers of the court with mandates, as opposed to extralegal lynch law.
History[edit]
17th century[edit]
19th century[edit]
- Matthew Baillie Begbie, Vancouver and Victoria judge[3]
- Isaac Charles Parker, U.S. district judge[4]
20th century[edit]
- Nikolai Krylenko, Bolshevik revolutionary, prosecutor, and Minister of Justice of the USSR
- Roland Freisler, president (presiding judge) of the Nazi Volksgerichtshof[5] (d. 3 February 1945)
- Vasiliy Ulrikh, Soviet jurist, chief presiding judge at the Moscow Show Trials during the Great Purge
- Sadegh Khalkhali, Shia cleric of the Islamic Republic of Iran
- Choor Singh, Singaporean judge of the Supreme Court of Singapore
Cultural references[edit]
- A character in the Bob Dylan song "Lily, Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts" (album: Blood on the Tracks)
- Justice Wargrave in Agatha Christie's novel And Then There Were None
- The Hanging Judge, a 1918 film directed by Henry Edwards
- A track on the 1991 Armored Saint album Symbol of Salvation
- Justice Sir Francis Brittain in Bruce Hamilton's 1949 novel Hanging Judge; the novel was adapted for the stage by Raymond Massey in 1952, and Boris Karloff played Justice Brittain in the BBC Radio adaptation of the play in 1953.[6]
- The title of jazz and cultural critic Stanley Crouch's 1990 essay collection Notes of a Hanging Judge
References[edit]
- ^ Tyler Bryant, Ruth. "George Jeffreys, first Baron Jeffreys of Wem". Donald E. Wilkes, Jr. Collection: Chief Justice George Jeffreys. University of Georgia School of Law. Retrieved 22 November 2015.
- ^ Adams, Gavin John (2012). Letters to John Law. Newton Page. pp. xiv, xxi, liii. ISBN 978-1934619087.
- ^ Williams, David R. (1977). The Man for a New Country. Victoria, BC: Gray's Publishing. p. 129. ISBN 978-0-8882-6068-0.
- ^ National Park Service. "Judge Isaac C. Parker". National Park Service. Retrieved 22 November 2015.
Remembered in Western novels and films as a "Hanging Judge"
- ^ Knopp, Guido (2002). "4, "The Hanging Judge"". Hitler's Hitmen. United Kingdom: Sutton Publishing.
- ^ "Raymond Massey - Hanging Judge - BBC Sounds". Archived from the original on 2019-02-04. Retrieved 2019-02-04.
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