# Justice Jack Doe — Poetry character guide

> Justice Jack Doe in Poetry by Ambrose Bierce.

**Role:** supporting

**Also known as:** Jack, Justice

**First appearance:** 0000-poetry

## Snapshot

A hired tongue for cut-throats and a windmill of courtroom eloquence, he grinds dead men's reputations to earn his fee and calls it justice.

## Who they are

Justice Jack Doe belongs to the tribe of lawyers who defend assassins for the liar's wage, calumniating the dead before a tribunal far more honorable than their Honors are. His energy in defending Powell is so vigorous that men marvel how so light a breeze could stir so great a windmill to so great a whirr, never guessing the mill was laboring to raise the wind. He embodies the poem's fury at legal ethics that confuse no judgment and no cheating aid, and his presence turns the Court of Honest Souls into the only bench where his kind can be tried.

## In the story

### [Justice](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_se/chapters/justice)

The murderer who kills his rival and is acquitted due to insanity.

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_se/characters/justice_jack_doe
- Book: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_se
- All characters: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_se/characters