Chief Judge Barbara Hershey is a fictional character in the Judge Dredd series that appears in British comic 2000 AD. For nearly two decades she regularly appeared as Dredd's sidekick, before being promoted to become his superior in 1999. She also had her own solo series, Judge Hershey, in the Judge Dredd Megazine (1992–1996).

Biography

Shortly after her graduation from the Academy of Law in 2102 at age eighteen, Judge Hershey was the surprise choice to join the crew of the spaceship Justice 1 for the dangerous deep-space mission to find the Judge Child, who had been abducted by the Angel Gang. Working closely with Judge Dredd every step of the way, she came through the mission with great credit and was highly commended in his personal log. Hershey returned to the streets of Mega-City One a tougher and infinitely more experienced judge, but she was ill-prepared for the attack of Fink Angel some months later, when he came seeking revenge on the Judges responsible for the deaths of his brothers and his father. The young judge barely escaped, but she had already developed a knack for survival – a knack which proved useful during the Apocalypse War, when Hershey was called upon again by Judge Dredd to join his "Apocalypse Squad" for a daring commando raid which ended the war.

When Chief Judge McGruder resigned her position in 2108, Hershey became the youngest ever member of the Council of Five. Her meteoric rise up the Justice Department's "greasy pole" saw her hotly tipped to become chief judge in due course, but she denied any real ambitions in this direction. Even so, she soon experienced the power that goes with the office when she was asked to serve as acting chief judge while McGruder – back for an unprecedented second term of office – attended a crisis meeting of judges from all over the world to find a way to defeat Sabbat the Necromagus in 2114.

Around this time (1992) Hershey starred in her own spin-off series, written by Robbie Morrison, Paul Neal and Igor Goldkind, and illustrated by varying artists including Kevin Cullen, Xuasus, Marc Wigmore and Siku.

In 2116 Hershey was part of the delegation of Senior Judges who tried to convince McGruder to reform the Council of Five – inactive since McGruder's return to power – but the Chief Judge refused to comply, as she suspected Hershey was after her job. McGruder's judgement had definitely become questionable, but she insisted on remaining the only voice at the top of the Justice Department until one of the "Mechanismo" robot judges she was so enthusiastic about tried to kill her. Realising her error at last, McGruder wasted no time in tendering her resignation and she entrusted Judge Hershey – along with SJS Chief Niles and Psi Division Chief Shenker – with the job of running the Justice Department until a new chief judge could be elected. Hershey was the only one of those three who actually put their name forward for the post, expressing her desire for more open government. Her liberal views did not go down well with her colleagues, however, and she received only 13 votes in the ballot among Senior Judges, while the new chief judge, Hadrian Volt, won with 208.

Following the murder of Deputy Chief Judge Herriman in 2120, Volt appointed Hershey to that post. The following year she became acting chief judge following the suicide of Volt at the end of the Second Robot War. She was subsequently elected chief judge in her own right, trouncing the only other candidate, Judge Loblaw.

At over nine years, Hershey had the longest reign (2122–2131) of any chief judge since Clarence Goodman, and the longest since the comic strip began in 1977. She brought about several liberal reforms, and kept Dredd close as she still valued his advice and experience. She reigned through several major threats, such as the Total War bombings and a Xenomorph invasion of the Grand Hall of Justice, as well an attempted assassination by Armon Gill.

While slightly more moderate than earlier chief judges, she still made use of black operations and aggressive foreign policy. In 2128 she used a covert assassin to make neighbouring Neocuba's leader think East-Meg Two was trying to assassinate him, thus destroying the alliance between the two states and ensuring that Neocuba became more loyal to Mega-City One; the same assassin was also used to hack into Brit-Cit's computer systems for the purposes of espionage. In the same year, she oversaw the conquest of Ciudad Barranquilla under the guise of humanitarian intervention. Despite Dredd's misgivings over these acts, he has described her as "the best chief judge we've ever had."

In 2130 she repealed the anti-mutant laws (largely at Dredd's insistence), making her unpopular with the public and many judges. In the following year senior judges began a campaign to have her voted out of office and replaced with a hardline candidate who would reinstate those laws. Judge Dan Francisco won the election by a landslide, and appointed Hershey to a position on another planet.

Hershey returned to Mega-City One two years later and returned to street duty in Sector 95. She helped Dredd deal with a widespread terrorist massacre, and – as she was slightly rusty – she was wounded in the process.

In 2134 Francisco resigned and appointed Hershey to replace him and form an interim government. Hershey admitted she would rather not be there but could not refuse due to the mess created in the story Day of Chaos: she also wondered if the judges deserved another chance after this great a failure.

By the end of the year, Hershey had worked out a major reorganisation of Justice Department, merging multiple divisions into a larger Street Division and a new Undercover Operations Division. When Dredd protested at the appointment of Black Operations head Judge Bachmann to the new Undercover Division, Hershey finally snapped at him for his repeated attempts during her time to strongarm her into doing what he wanted: "If you want to be Chief Judge, the chair is yours... But if you don't want the responsibility – if you don't even want the burdens of Council membership – if you'd rather just barge into my office at regular intervals to blackmail me with a badge you'll never hand in, over issues whose complexity you refuse to engage with – then the door is that way.

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