Maitland

Judge Maitland is an African-American Judge working for Accounts, and was created by Al Ewing and Nick Dyer. Much like Dredd, she constantly wears her helmet and when seen without it, she was wearing glasses.

She first appeared right after Chaos Day, where she had a 'meeting' with Dredd in the middle of a riot - he would not come to her office so she came to his. A highly lethal combatant, in mid-battle she berated Dredd for his contempt towards divisions like Accounts and his lack of paperwork, pointing out the necessity of "bean counters" like her to keep Justice Department functioning.

Dredd wouldn't acknowledge this and used her to intimidate a perp into surrendering, suggesting that she'd execute him to save on iso-cube money. He rated her enough to take her on a raid of an illegal nightclub. There, she discovered information leading to the Organisation but would never have the time to follow it up.

First time in Accounts Judge 'percentage' shoulder pads

Shortly after, she reported to Chief Judge Barbara Hershey about the city's crippled finances and advised nationalised the banks that had collapsed, then reclaiming their capital retroactively. Unknown to either of them, she was part of Dredd and Judge Smiley's team investigating Judge Bachmann: after tracking Black Ops' funds to Overdrive Inc, she was mindwiped so that Bachmann would not find out that he had recruited her. Her memory was returned when Black Ops' coup started, as Bachmann's office was right next to Accounts; she was able to rescue a wounded Dredd, patch him up, and hold off Black Ops agents until help arrived. After the coup was stopped, Dredd apologised for doubting her work in Accounts.

Maitland was subsequently promoted to head of Accounts Division, as the previous head (and "72.342%" of the division) had been killed in Bachmann's coup. Her work has been cited as one of the reasons that the city survived as polity at all.

One of her first jobs in 2135 was to deal with a contractual problem that - due to the contractor's insane fixation on business rules - led to a company threatening to let a nuclear silo melt down until Justice Department paid their late fees.

Maitland in battle with the Nixon creature

She was part of the decision to nuke Enceladus (and the Titan Judges on it) rather than allow the Sov block access to the alien technology there. Later, in 2137, Maitland was present in Hershey's war room when a Titan craft was aimed at the city. She indicated they might want to show mercy but Hershey overruled her. In the resulting ice storm, Maitland was the third Judge to be targeted by the transformed Aimee Nixon; having been aware this would happen, Maitland had spent her time making a flamethrower for self defence.

In 2138, Maitland was part of Hershey's team in crucial negotiations with the Klegg Empire. She had to sit through Sensitive Klegg's notoriously bad musical plea for brotherhood.

She was also one of Dredd's key allies in investigating Judge Smiley and Black Ops Division, under the nose of Hershey. When the true scale of Smiley's series of quiet assassinations was discovered, Maitland was worried that this implied that higher authorities must be approving it. The battle with Smiley would lead to Judge Sam's death and Maitland being on the outs with Dredd.

She carried out the forensic accounting that helped identify la Reine Rouge's attempted takeover of the Mediterrenean Free State. A contract was put out on her head afterwards.

Maitland had barely spoken with Dredd in a year by mid-2141, to the extent of telling him she was busy when he tried to seek her out. When Dredd was abducted by the psychotic SJS Judge Pin, Maitland noted she was no longer as trusted as she once was, as Chief Judge Logan hadn't told her Dredd was missing. Despite that, she tracked him down to Pin's collection of murder victims, but was surprised and severely wounded by the killer. Her distraction allowed Dredd to escape and take her to hospital, and the experience had them interacting again.

Logan and Council arguing with Maitland

In 2142, Maitland had to craft an emergency budget after a severe storm: figuring out where spending could be cut to prioritise repairs elsewhere. In the process, she accidentally modelled that a vast spending increase on education would heavily reduce crime, with evidence being what happened to juves of equal background moved during slum clearances to newer, nicer blocks and those who were not. Her proposal, to move Street Div funds to education and social security, was rejected by the Council and she was left despondent that they were propping up a failed system. Maitland instead planned to leak her model to the media, but then decided against it after being able to convince Dredd to talk to the Council on her behalf.

She was unaware the SJS Black Prism division monitored all servers for subversion - and unaware she was only spared a trip to Titan because Logan felt she was too valuable an accountant to sacrifice if it could be avoided. After her talk with Dredd, she was left under ongoing SJS surveillance.

By 2143, Maitland had done so much damage to La Reine Rouge that the crimelord arranged for a squad of international hitmen to strike at once. They made their move while Maitland was in Atlantis, struggling to finalise a Mechanismo trade deal with her Brit-Cit counterpart Khatri. Dredd met up with her to discuss going to the council about reforms, leading to both of them coming under fire. The two of them fought a series of hitmen and Maitland was horrified when the criminals blew out the Atlantis tunnel walls, flooding the place, in an attempt to get at her.

Notes

• In the "Enceladus" story, Maitland is implied (but not stated) to be in the Council of Five. This was dropped in later stories but she remains a recurring figure with Hershey's ear. It was around this time she was more often drawn without her helmet and given glasses, an art choice that has stuck.

• Maitland was mistakenly coloured as caucasian in "Enceladus".