Judge Holden, commonly known as The Judge is the main antagonist of the late Cormac McCarthy's 1985 horror/thriller crime and anti-Western epic novel Blood Meridian.

He is an enigmatic polymath who joins a cowboy gang in order to 'help them', only for it to be revealed he is a deranged serial killer and child molester, who enjoys causing as much suffering as he can.

Holden holds both a sinister side and a curious side. He enjoys harming and raping people but also has a fondness for geography, mathematics, reading, shooting, horses, and (his personal favorite) technical drawing. Holden is theorized to be a demon by most of fans, due to his almost monstrous appearance and hatred of religion, which is shown when he manages to convince a peaceful town to brutalize their local preacher for no reason. Holden also holds some form of enigmatic power over the people around him, as everybody wishes to shoot him but somehow find themselves compelled to not do so. In the end, Holden's goals are truly unknown, but his survival in the novel's ending indicates he plans to continue killing for the rest of eternity.