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.

Cadaver Trial was a posthumous trial over Catholic Pope Formosus held in 897.

In the late 17th century, various people in Salem, Massachusetts were accused of practicing witchcraft and consorting with the Devil in the Salem witch trials. Nineteen people were executed, one was killed, and five died in prison.

The Dreyfus affair was a show trial in France in 1894, where a Jewish captain, Alfred Dreyfus, was accused of spying for Germany.

The trial of Sacco and Vanzetti in 1927 was one in which two anarchist Italian immigrants were accused of an armed robbery in Massachusetts. Both were executed, despite international appeals.