The term show trial is a pejorative description of a type of highly public trial in which there is a strong connotation that the judicial authorities have already determined the guilt of the defendant. The actual trial has as its only goal to present the accusation and the verdict to the public as an impressive example and as a warning. Show trials tend to be retributive rather than correctional justice. The term was first recorded in the 1930s.
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Famous quotes containing the words show and/or trial:
“The world of men show like a comedy without laughter: populations, interests, government, history; ‘t is all toy figures in a toy house.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“A man who has no office to go to—I don’t care who he is—is a trial of which you can have no conception.”
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)