Kangaroo Courts held in various Webcomics.
- Given that Ansem Retort thrives on the Refuge in Audacity trope, it's hardly surprising that Zexion's impeachment trial was this. A bit of a subversion, though. That quote immediately followed a verdict of not guilty. This quote summed it up best:Phoenix Wright: OBJECTION!
Axel: GO FUCK YOURSELF!
Judge: Objection overruled; go fuck yourself sustained. - Charby the Vampirate: Sharister's gameshow. While it's unknown how guilt is proven the grand finale includes a gameshow spinner to choose the defendant's fate and most of the spinner's pie slots are for public executions like hanging, decapitation, being fed to a giant monster, being pressed to death, being burned at the stake, and being tossed into an iron maiden. The whole thing seems to run on a policy of All Crimes Are Equal as well.
- In Commander Kitty, after Nin Wah is arrested by the Triple-I, she's immediately found guilty of being an accomplice to the disappearance of her spacer crew, leaving an expensive hotel bill unpaid, and possessing a dangerous, illegal cyborg arm. She's sentenced to fifteen minutes of community service
...which involves cleaning the outside of the station without a spacesuit.
- In Faux Pas, Randy is afraid that the cats will subject Cindy to this unfair trial. Cats Are Mean.
- Discussed and defied as much as possible in Freefall. The only other qualified judge on Planet Jean openly wants Mr. Kornada to burn for pushing release of the "Gardener in the Dark" virus, so the Mayor acts as judge for the trial despite also having a potential bias (she doesn't believe in robot sapience). Since everyone on the planet is dependent on robot labor, the trial is transmitted to an offplanet space debris mining team to be an impartial jury. Even then, one of the jurors has to be reminded that the trial is to decide "guilty" or "not guilty", not to suggest creative punishments.
- Heartcore: The redux of chapter 1 features this, with Royce Lashiec as protagonist Ame's judge, prosecution, and jury.
- Homestuck: Terezi's introduction is of her pretending to be an Amoral Attorney working in one such court, with one of her stuffed dragons as the defendant. No defense is allowed, and the judge is named His Honorable Tyranny. The trial ends with the dragon being hanged from Terezi's tree, along with a dozen more of Terezi's stuffed animals who were the victims of previous trials. This is supposed to be representative of her world's actual legal system. Later on, there's the exploits of her ancestor Redglare, an actual legislacerator. It's disturbingly close to Terezi's roleplay.
- Monster Soup: Five supernatural felons get quickly sentenced to rehabilitation in the same insane asylum on the same floor with the same psychiatric plan, despite the wide discrepancies in their crimes, ranging from petty theft to first-degree murder. The lawyer in charge of all five goes from professional to Bunny-Ears once he realizes that this is just a farce to get five specialists in a state-controlled experiment.
- The Order of the Stick:
- Inverted when the court they find themselves in has explicitly been set up to pardon them, but look like they're getting a fair trial.
- A straight up example occurs here Jones [whispering to Roy] Listen, here there are two types of accused: those who plead guilty, and those who piss the judge off with a time-consuming trial before being found guilty.
Rodriguez: [also whispering] The conviction rate here is 114%, and that doesn't even make sense!
- Schlock Mercenary:
- Rare positive example; Massey stages a trial with the consent of everyone involved to set precedent and make sure an ancient resurrected sophont will receive full legal rights.
- It also gets mentioned, when Petey decides to 'help' the UNS with an extradition request after the Toughs 'kill' a Hypernet Television Network. Massey explicitly compares the expected event to a kangaroo court. It turned out that Petey had a plan, and wanted to use the threat of everything, including the UNS's involvement in a side project, becoming public to convince everyone to keep quiet about what (they thought) had happened.Tagon: Wait... that looks like you're writing a confession.
Massey: And here I thought I could distract you with the promise of kangaroos.
- Rare positive example; Massey stages a trial
- The Asperpedia trolls' trial in the Sonichu 10 finale features a judge who clearly considers the accused guilty and the defense presented by one of the accused (reading from a list of thoughts he had while high the night before). The trial ends in capital punishment for all defendants. A rare example as the kangaroo court is portrayed in a positive light by the author, attempting to make the end result seem just.
- The Team Fortress 2 comic "Unhappy Returns" has some of the mercs get caught and prosecuted for their crimes. The mayor of the town literally makes himself Judge, Jury, and Executioner, the only other staff member required for the trial is the public defender, and to cap it all off, the Mercs, who were guilty of several counts of accidental murder and property damage, were being charged for crimes they didn't commit! It wasn't until after the trial that the Mayor listed their crimes, which were things he committed. And then the mayor almost hanged them to death. It turns out the entire town was driven insane from water poisoning from the Red and Blu factories, so they were incapable of performing a regular trial.
- This happens to Wonderella pretty much every time she gets in trouble with the law, seeing as the only judge in her city is also her snarky Jerkass rival Patrianna. One interesting example...
