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 body in the grave is like the tree in winter; they conceal their greenness under a show of dryness.... We too must wait for the springtime of the body.”
—Marcus Minucius Felix (2nd or 3rd cent. A.D.)
“The trial by market everything must come to.”
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)