^I suspect it might have to do with what Dredd calls the "Big Lie". See: "A
Letter to Judge Dredd"
Urban has said in interviews that this is a direction he'd like to explore in any future films and the filmmakers have said they wouldn't tackle the dark Judges until at least the third film, with the second being about the Cursed Earth, so I think "Tale of the Dead Man" must have been on their minds. A shame that it's unlikely to happen now.