Special Judicial Squad

"Who judges the Judges?"

The Special Judicial Squad (SJS) is the Internal Affairs unit of the Justice Department. They are the Judges that judge the Judges. SJS investigates allegations of corruption, unjudicial conduct, criminal activity, and treason within the ranks of the Mega-City Judges. The conduct of the SJS is also overseen by the SJS, and in the 2140s hearings were held by a parliament to decide if a Judge was "worthy" or wavering.

Even Dredd has been targeted by the SJS. Some hound him for his disregard for the chain of command and his tendency to use his own judgement in situations that affect the whole Justice Department. Others think that a judge that seems as incorruptible and as dedicated as Dredd must be hiding something.

While Dredd has clashed with the SJS over their methods, he has considered them a useful branch and in 2080 they tried to recruit him. Over the years he has grown to view the Special Judicial Squad with distaste, as he's aware that many of them enjoy their necessarily brutal work.

Mega-City One

"Depending who you ask, they're 'the Judges who judge the Judges', the brakes on fascism, or a bunch of drokking drokkheaded evil drokks."

—Jack Point, Megazine #238

Their helmets and Lawmasters have a skull badge on them and they wear special belt-buckles that have "SJS" instead of the Judge Shield. Their uniform is black rather than Blue or Navy-Blue.

The SJS is despised by other Judges due to their extreme methods, which include random searches and the torture of Judges during interrogations, as well as the perception that they routinely monitor and arrest good Judges. One SJS Judge in 2082 considered this was also in large part because the SJS gets to treat the Judges as they treat citizens, and they don't like the taste of their own medicine.

Originally, Justice Department didn't have a dedicated internal affairs group and has a shoddy 'self-policing' record. Fargo's old 'fixer' Marisa Pellegrino pitched the concept to the new Chief Judge Hollins Solomon in 2051, following triple scandals of one compromised Judge, various incompetent ones who brutalised innocent people at a Philadelphia mega-block riot, and hackers leaking dirty laundry. The Special Judicial Squad was created to restore public faith, under Judge Errol Quon. This was hugely unpopular with many Street Judges, who saw it as political interference in their work.

SJS during Cal's reign

Under Chief Judge Goodman, the SJS operated secretly from a nondescript HQ and, while subordinate to the Council of Five, in practice they were already becoming aloof and semi-autonomous during the first decades after the Atomic Wars. One task of the SJS was to cover up the existence of the department's deputised financial advisors, who were allowed to break various laws in order to keep the city's financial system going. When Rico Dredd was arrested, the SJS investigated Joseph Dredd on assumption he was corrupt as well - Judge Marion Gillen was quite startled to find he wasn't.

Without the knowledge of the rest of the department, the SJS ran a "welcome wagon" scheme for returning Titan penal colony inmates. A series of escalating harassment would drive inmates to leave the city or kill themselves, with potentially several murders disguised as suicides.

By 2082, many Street Judges believed that the SJS watched each other's backs and were a law unto themselves. By this year, the head of the division was nominally Judge Elva Barradien, but he was only a figurehead to distract the ire of other Judges, while his 'advisors' Kenneth McComber and Roseanne Dekaj wielded the true power. This was itself a scheme by Barradien that they didn't know about, letting this arrangement be an 'open secret' in Justice Department so he had extra room to maneuverer. Barradien's heavy-handed actions in enforcing the financial coverup - including various Judge murders - was exposed by Judges Dredd and Gillen, and Barradien and Dekaj were killed. Goodman ordered a ground-up restructuring of the Squad, with Judge Adam Kimber made division head and Gillen as advisor.

The SJS's association with the insane Judge Cal would further enhance their notoriety. When Cal became division head, he was able to blackmail numerous corrupt judges into helping him rise to power, ensuring that he had plenty of allies to assist him in his planned coup d'état. This evidence eventually came to light over twenty years later, by which time many of Cal's subverted judges had been promoted to very senior positions in the Justice Department, and there were several arrests.

The Squad were intensely loyal to Cal by 2099, which almost gave him an opening to try a coup in January of that year when Goodman appeared to have gone mad.

Exeunt Slocum

When Cal moved to usurp power, the SJS (depicted as a sinister Praetorian Guard to go with "Judge Caligula") attempted to frame Dredd for murder, and later tried to assassinate him, while SJS Judge Quimby assassinated Chief Judge Goodman. Cal would then use the SJS to keep the other Judges and citizens in line, and the SJS's control of the Daily Crime Briefing tapes were used to brainwash the bulk of the force into accepting his rule. Even the SJS weren't immune from his wrath, with Judge Slocum being pickled.

Following Cal's death and a harsh purge of the Squad, Judge McGruder was entrusted with the responsibility of rebuilding the SJS and restoring its integrity. She laid down safeguards to prevent the organisation from going rogue again, including more briefings to the Chief Judge and Council of Five. (Underhandedness and bully-boy tactics were, of course, remained standard operating procedures.) As head of the SJS, she had a seat on the Council. Since then the SJS has produced two more chief judges: McGruder herself, and Judge Volt.

Random Physical Abuse

In "The Interrogation", Dredd was abducted by SJS Judges under Judge Spiegl and viciously interrogated on spurious grounds. Dredd believed the SJS had turned corrupt again and that the body may be planning a coup, although it turned out to be a routine Random Physical Abuse Test of him instead (he passed). Years later, an RPA would go wrong and two SJS Judges were killed, and Spiegl and Dredd came to blows over it. The incident showed the tension between SJS and Street Judges, who ignored the beating Dredd gave Spiegl.

As McGruder deteriorated, swathes of the SJS went rogue under the assumptions that either McGruder wouldn't notice or that she'd back them anyway (Spiegl had even said this to Dredd in their second encounter). These acts included SJS deathsquads killing democrat activists with fraudulent 'authorisation' from McGruder, one instance of which was exposed by Hershey in 2114, and an attempt to kill Hershey in 2115 under the pretense that they hadn't heard a stand-down order. Deathsquad leader Judge Eliphas managed to escape any consequences after leaving the blame with a dead deputy and in 2116, he tortured Dredd under cover of a Random Physical Abuse test - allegedly on McGruder's own orders, though he quite enjoyed getting revenge for the "lies" about him.

After one run-in with the SJS, Hershey forced 150 Judges to take the Long Walk.

Judge Niles was head of the SJS during Chief Judge McGruder's second term. Despite the actions of the SJS under him, Niles was a key part of a conspiracy to force McGruder to resign when her mental health deteriorated and provided Dredd with the location of a Mechanismo factory to convince him to support it. Once she left office, Chief Judge Hadrian Volt appointed Niles to the ruling Council of Five.

Before a new Chief Judge could be appointed, Niles - now at odds with Hershey - implied to two SJS Judges that it would be hushed up if Hershey had an 'unforeseen' accident at an InterDep conference. Hershey had herself given up on plans to truly decimate the SJS, believing them necessary to keeping the city running.

By 2117, Sector 301 ("the Pit") was hideously corrupt and so were the local Special Judicial Squad, with the chief Judge Roth being in bed with the Frendz. This caused Dredd to set up an internal investigation outside of SJS control, consisting entirely of street judges led by Judge DeMarco and then by Judges Buell & Garcia. After the death of Roth, Buell and Garcia were placed in charge of the sector's SJS: Buell was surprised to realise he had a knack for hunting down bent judges.

Buell went on to become the head of the Squad in 2112 and part of the Council of Five. His deputy was Garcia until she was killed in action in 2134. He ended the "welcome wagon" and other SJS 'traditions'. In "Tour of Duty", it was Buell and Garcia's SJS who stormed in and arrested Chief Judge Sinfield after proving he had used criminal means to gain power.

From 2117 its headquarters was inside the Statue of Judgement (as well as the Public Surveillance Unit which was also based there); ironically Cal fell to his death from the top of the statue. The statue was destroyed by terrorists in 2134; and shortly afterwards a new headquarters building was depicted, named as "SJS Central" and suffering administration problems because of the statue's loss.

In the spin-off strip Insurrection, the SJS had a large army with vast warships – the Justice Control Divisions – that ensured MC-1 colony planets did not try to secede. (In earlier spinoff Maelstron, SJS teams are sent to colony worlds with local Justice Departments to clear them of corruption.) Senior Judge Kulotte was sent with a major force to bring the rebel colony of K-Alpha 61, aka "Liberty", to heel and finally subjugated it after a harsh battle, only to learn Marshal Karel Luther had abandoned the unwinnable fight and taken his insurgents elsewhere.

Kulotte and Luther fought various battles across Mega-City space and the Judge was able to convince him not to use a doomsday weapon, only for the two to be forced into alliance when the Zhind launched an all-out invasion. The very instant the war ended, the SJS space corps systematically massacred the 'insurgents' who had been fighting alongside them.

Following the events of Day of Chaos in 2134, the SJS were discredited for not uncovering a nest of high-ranking Soviet agents. The SJS were also facing a massive reorganisation, being absorbed into a new Undercover Operations Division where Buell would be a subordinate. In 2014 (2136 in the strip), Buell was still on the Council, the reorganisation having been cancelled. By the end of 2137, SJS Judge Waldron was on the Council in Buell's place.

Alex Gerhart blamed Dredd for the events of Chaos Day and was determined to find something to nail him on. The two would both be sent to the Titan penal colony after Aimee Nixon's coup and their dual suffering there caused Gerhart to change his mind on Dredd, going as far as to talk him down from outright murdering the Titan convicts. Afterwards, he reported on Dredd's state of mind after the ordeal to Barbara Hershey: that Dredd was violent and angry, but he was always violent and angry and as long as he did it for the law, there was no problem.

Unknown to the rest of the Squad, the aging Judge Pin was a serial killer responsible for the 'random' deaths of numerous Judges she deemed corrupt, ever since she suffered a mental breakdown on Chaos Day. She arranged for Gerhart to be convinced to take the Long Walk, in order to get back at Dredd. (This actually worked in Dredd's favour as he could request Gerhart to be present at a specific point near the city wall, allowing him to fire a sniper shot at the monstrous Black Ops Division head Smiley, who had not taken Gerhart's presence into account.)

When Waldron was removed from the Council by incoming Chief Judge Logan, she proved herself corrupt in joining Judge Farrow's coup attempt and was herself suspended. She later appeared back on the Council, now visibly aged.

Pin's murders would come to light in 2142 after she arranged for Dredd's abduction - capturing and killing Gerhart to lure him in - and left him to die a slow death. He broke free of her corpse-garden and she was left to be devoured by ravenous mutant rats.

SJS have a section that monitors people's personal files within the Grand Hall, making sure no Judge is writing anything suspect in private. Maitland was almost arrested due to writing a (unsent) letter to a journalist that Waldron detected.

The SJS ran the "welcome wagon" (revived after Buell was put out to pasture) on Titan returnee Kyle Asher in 2143. Dredd became aware of the scheme and was monitored by Judges Copper and Kerubo. He was able to arrest Copper when she tried to kill Asher after Buell, backed up with SJS Mechanismo units, forced Kerubo to stand down. However, Copper fell on her sword and claimed to have been acting alone, allowing everyone else in the conspiracy to get away with it.

Foreign equivalents

Dredd with a Mega-City Two SJS Judge

Multiple foreign cities have their own version, either with the same name or an alternate.

Mega-City Two, Texas City, and Luna-1 all have a Special Judicial Squad, with MC-2's wearing black equivalents of the usual uniform. The Lunar equivalent has been given greater powers of torture than its terrestrial counterparts; division leader Judge Kessler would use his power to try and carry out a soft coup in 2124.

Brit-Cit used External Affairs, a division of the sinister and besuited Special Branch, or a SJS depending on which strip you're reading.

Hondo's Tokko Division

Hondo calls their version Tokko Division, which can enforce seppuki. They wear a black version of the usual uniform. As with the Council of Justice, they were often more concerned with the look of things than following the actual law: in 2217, they allowed a conflict between Shimura and a crime syndicate to play out to rid Justice Department of the 'shame' of a ronin.

Worlds of 2000AD RPG

The Judge Dredd & Worlds of 2000AD RPG put out a Day The Law Died campaign book in 2020. This included a history of the SJS, inventing several elements for game stories:

• The SJS initially recruited experienced Street Judges, who did their job with some empathy. Once it started recruiting youths fresh out of the Academy, it began to become a nastier group and started to change the uniform.

• When Dredd was in the Cursed Earth, Cal boosted the SJS and his own popularity within it by using his Judges to intervene in regular criminal cases: effectively trying to replace Dredd and making the SJS more prominent within the city.

• The Squad was almost disbanded after Cal died but survived as a necessary evil after a number of Street Judges tried to enrich themselves in the chaos. Nobody believed the Squad's claims of all being brainwashed and the top ranks were purged.

• McGruder had the loyalty of the SJS in both terms, having been an effective leader pre-Chief Judge. They backslid in her second term, assuming she would have their back, and "perhaps in revenge" when she didn't, SJS Chief Niles helped depose her. Niles showed Volt loyalty when the man put him on the Council of Five, something he was disgruntled McGruder would never have done.

• The SJS lost their base in the Statue of Judgement and a vast amount of records during Chaos Day. The new SJS Central took a long time to build.

• The Undercover Operations Division plan failed, and thus Buell clung onto his job for several years, because of the enormous administrative difficulties.

Notable members

The pickled Slocum, forever decorating the HQ

Heads of SJS

(This list is incomplete.)

• Judge Cal ????–2100 or 2101
• Judge McGruder 2101–2104
• Judge Niles 2112–2122
• Judge Buell 2122–2136 or 2137
• Judge Waldron 2138 onwards

Deputy Heads of SJS

(This list is incomplete.)

• Judge Muncie ????–2122
• Judge Garcia 2122–2134

Others

• Judge Eliphas
• Judge Ishmael
• Judge Kulotte
• Judge Pin
• Judge Quincy
• Judge Slocum
• Judge Spiegl

Trivia

• The Special Judicial Squad uniform has varied over the years, though always with skulls, an SJS buckle, and different shoulder pads. The Eagle Comics colour reprints had the SJS wearing gold badges but 2000AD has (mostly) coloured them as silver.

• In the Dredd vs. Death video game, if your 'lawmeter' runs too low the SJS appear to shoot you down.

References

• The A-Z of Judge Dredd: The Complete Encyclopedia from Aaron Aardvark to Zachary Zziiz (by Mike Butcher, St. Martin's Press, March 1995, Template:ISBN)

Judge Dredd
Main Characters	Judge Dredd - Judge Hershey - Judge Anderson - Judge Beeny - Judge Buell - Galen DeMarco - Dirty Frank - Judge Edgar - Chief Judge Fargo - Judge Francisco - Judge Giant - Judge Goodman - Judge Griffin - Judge Guthrie - Judge Janus - Judge Karyn - Judge McGruder - Judge Niles - Judge Rico - Judge Shenker - Judge Silver - Judge Solomon - Judge Volt - Detective-Judge Armitage - Inspector Shimura - Devlin Waugh - Johnny Woo - Judge Larter - Judge Jack - Judge Agee - Judge Bennett - Judge Castillo - Judge Dekker - Judge Goon - Deputy Cheif Judge Herriman - Judge Kruger - Judge Munn - Judge Perrier - Judge Prager - Judge Minty - Detective-Judge Steel - Detective Judge Trant - Judge Kazan - Chief Judge Ohno - Judge-Inspector Akio Anaba - Judge Marshall Lawson
Recurring Villains	Angel Gang - Mean Machine Angel - Elmer Angel - Junior Angel - Link Angel - Judge Bachmann - Oola Blint - President Booth - Judge Cal - Dark Judges - Rico Dredd - Armon Gill - Judge Grice - Morton Judd - Kleggs - Judge Kraken - Mechanismo - Stan Lee - Marty Zpok - PJ Maybe - Nero Narcos - Orlock - Shojun the Warlord - Judge Sinfield - Call-Me-Kenneth - Mr. Moonie - Murd the Oppresor - Owen Krysler - Don Uggie Apelino - Captain Skank - Father Earth - Kazan - Bulgarin - General Blood'n'Guts - Satanus - Satan - Fink Angel - Ratty - Rhode Island Red - Phobia - Nausia - America Jara - Cesare - Judge Mortis - Judge Fear - Judge Death - Judge Fire - Manners - Ramses - Trapper Hag - Sabbat - Wu Yang - Yin Mie - Randolph Whitely - Judge Choke - Judge Sleep - Judge Sludge - Judge Burroghs - Judge Fistula - Judge Skinner - Judge Stigmata - The Seven Samurai - Rex Peters - Slocum - Kenny Who? - Nosferatu - Grampus - Heavy Metal Kid - Ratty - Elvis - The Warlords - DeGaulle - The Joker - The Scarecrow - The Riddler - Arnold Wesker - Lobo - Judge Kurten - Pink Eyes - Aimee Nixon - Mr. Bones - Effil Drago San - Bella Bagley - Dune Sharks - Xenomorphs - Ueno Hama - Raptaurs - The Explosive Man - Judge Sherman - Ankhhor - President Clinton Box - Pamelina Oswin
Other Characters	Chopper - Vienna Dredd - Fergee - Yassa Povey - Jacob Sardini - Walter the Wobot - Henry Ford - Spikes Harvey Rotten - Tweak - Tony Tubbs - Otto Sump - Mrs. Gunderson - Sensitive Klegg - Jack Point - Maria - Benneet Beeny - Grunwalder - Old Joe Blind - Max Normal - Toots Milloy - Mr. Harke - Mr. Burr - Jim Grubb - Dave the Orangutan - Nimrod - The Creep - Johnny Alpha - Wulf Sternhammer - The Fargo Clan - Randy Fargo - Jubal Fargo - Hocus Ritter - Batman - Harry Henson
Storylines	America - The Apocalypse War - Block Mania - City of the Damned - The Cursed Earth - Day of Chaos - Democracy - The Doomsday Scenario - The Hunting Party - The Judge Child - Judgement Day - Mechanismo - Mutants - Necropolis - Origins - Oz - The Pit - The Robot Wars - Tour of Duty Trifecta - Wilderlands
Crossovers	Judge Dredd vs. Aliens - Judgement on Gotham - Predator vs. Judge Dredd - Mars Attacks Judge Dredd