parade of horribles

plural parades of horribles

1. A parade featuring a progression of people wearing comic and grotesque costumes, commonly accompanied by floats and models representing monsters.
2. informallawAny rhetorical device presenting a series of terrible results that notionally might follow from an act, instead of confining the argument to the explicit terms of any applicable law.

   The majority trotted out a parade of horribles in which judicial line-drawing concerning accommodation would displace legitimate democratic choices.

   1992, Geoffrey R. Stone, Richard Allen Epstein, Cass R. Sunstein, The Bill of Rights in the Modern State, page 356

   1 more example

   The Chief Justice was adamant, if alone: 'Nothing in the language or gloss previously placed on this provision of the Fifth Amendment remotely justifies the treatment which the Court today accords to the collateral-estoppel doctrine. Nothing in the purpose of the authors of the Constitution commands or even justifies what the Court decides today; this is truly a case of expanding a sound basic principle beyond the bounds — or needs — of its rational and legitimate objectives to preclude harassment of the accused.' His position rested on the proposition that a second prosecution was barred only if it was for the same offense and here the victims were different and, therefore, the offenses were different. After a parade of horribles, the Chief Justice concluded: 'What the Court is holding is, in effect that the second and third and fourth criminal acts are "free", unless the accused is tried for the multiple crimes in a single trial — something defendants frantically use every legal device to avoid, and often succeed in avoiding. This is the reality of what the Court holds today; it does not make good sense and it cannot make good law.' .

   1970, Philip B. Kurland, “Enter the Burger Court: The Constitutional Business of the Supreme Court”, in The Supreme Court Review, Vol. 1970, pages 48–49