Reminder: Judge Judy Is Absolutely Terrible

In America, there is no greater law bringer than Judy Sheindlin, better known as the Damoclesian arbiter of absolute truth and swift destroyer of the poor and uneducated on her daytime TV Judge Judy show. The woman is so synonymous with American justice, one poll found that Americans trusted the TV lady more than all of the Supreme Court Justices combined.

In an interview on Ellen, the most highly paid TV personality deigned to sit down with Degeneres for a world shocking announcement: After 25 glorious years of calling people who didn't finish high school idiots, the Judge Judy show would finally hang up the gavel. The split seemed to have come primarily from CBS after figuring out they could just stop paying her $47 million a year and show her 3,000+ reruns on a loop without raising the suspicions of the show's demographic of half-asleep pensioners and people high on workers' comp Vicodin. But Sheindlin made it clear that she is far from finished, planning to keep passing judgment until her death RBG style. As so, she has already started working on a new show called Judy Justice, which she is shopping around on streaming platforms, hoping to get an entirely new generation hooked on the concept of televised American justice.

And that generation will be lucky because, unlike the old title Judge Judy, Judy Justice at least doesn't pretend that Judy Sheindlin is an actual judge -- which she isn't. Sheindlin hasn't been a sanctioned judge in decades, so the "Judge" in Judge Judy has as much judicial power as the Judge in Judge Reinhold or Judge Pontiac GTO. On TV, Sheindlin wields the power of an arbiter, the legal equivalent of your mom calling an end to whatever dumb thing you and your sister were fighting about. So the gavel, the robe, the bailiff, even the audience aren't real. As are her rulings, since they are easily and quickly overturned by actual judges -- something Sheindlin has gotten more than used to in her infamous career.

Infamous, since Sheindlin also has little to do with any sort of big J justice. In her show, just like most other court shows, the often dirt poor and unhealthy plaintiffs get their teeth painted and their clothes swapped so they don't evoke too much sympathy when Judy mocks them on TV for not having a law degree. The often overly harsh verdicts are by no means justice, but not because of the meanness, but because they don't matter. typically, the show will just pay the damages instead of the guilty party as a thank you for publically humiliating themselves on TV in return for a new keytar.

But her fake justice is still better than her real justice, which old colleagues, contemporaries and critics have all called "needlessly cruel." Those who knew her from her old family court days have alleged that judge Sheindlin waged a personal war on the disenfranchised and mothers, describing black youths like animals, distrusting foster parents for being welfare queens, and once jokingly making a remark about neutering an irresponsible young mother to "stop her from populating half the planet?"

Judy Justice will likely premiere somewhere in 2021 and will likely have the same level of popularity as Judge Judy. But please remember the only word that's she's allowed to repeat is her own name, because what you're seeing is not judicial justice, but a woman named Judy dispensing her brand of justice like the shittiest of shitty small-town sheriffs.

For more weird tangents and non-justice travesties, do follow Cedric on Twitter.