https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrey_Vyshinsky#Procurator_General_and_Soviet_law_theorist
In his Theory of Judicial Proofs in Soviet Justice (Stalin Prize in 1947) he laid a theoreticial base for the Soviet judicial system, based on Marxist–Leninist principles, giving it a strong bias towards dialectical and collectivist thinking. Vyshinsky recommended that investigators and judges consider “the wider social perspective” of each individual case in the context of class struggle. As a result, an actual committing of a crime was not required for conviction: people could have been convicted for being perceived as bourgeois (”class responsibility”) or simply if that was considered to be beneficial for the Communist Party, for example in the “educational” role of the judicial system (thus, the importance of show trials, even with completely false accusations).
That sounds almost EXACTLY like what the judge in this thread said:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3690337/posts