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.

Historical examples

17th century

• George Jeffreys, 1st Baron Jeffreys^[1]
• Salathiel Lovell^[2]
• John Toler, 1st Earl of Norbury^[3]

19th century

• Matthew Baillie Begbie, Vancouver and Victoria judge^[4]
• Isaac C. Parker, U.S. district judge^[5]

20th century

• Nikolai Krylenko, Bolshevik revolutionary, prosecutor, and Minister of Justice of the USSR
• Roland Freisler, president (presiding judge) of the Nazi Volksgerichtshof^[6] (d. 3 February 1945)
• Vasiliy Ulrikh, Soviet jurist, chief presiding judge at the Moscow Show Trials during the Great Purge
• Lord Goddard, Lord Chief Justice of England
• Roman Kryże [pl], Polish judge at communist political trials, including that of Witold Pilecki^[7] and the Warsaw meat affair. His harsh rulings gave rise to the saying "Kryże is judging – there will be crosses" (Polish: sądzi Kryże – będą krzyże).^[8]
• Sadegh Khalkhali, Shia cleric of the Islamic Republic of Iran
• Choor Singh, judge of the Supreme Court of Singapore
• Ebrahim Raisi, eighth president of Iran, in his earlier role in the 1988 executions of Iranian political prisoners

Cultural references

• 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.^[9]
• Critic Stanley Crouch's 1990 essay collection entitled Notes of a Hanging Judge