It's a trigger to thrash judge according to Spooner (8)

Independent Cryptic #11617 | 9 Across | 2024-01-04
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I haven't cracked this one yet — but the brilliant team at Fifteensquared have:

Spoonerism (for some people’s pronunciation, depending on how they pronounce WH) of WHIP (thrash) TRIER (one who tries a case = judge).

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