She’s never courted popularity.

The tough-talking jurist who refused a Manhattan prosecutor’s bid last week to coddle an alleged teen robber — sending the punk to jail instead of back on the streets — has a history of passing judgment as she sees fit, no matter how powerful the defendant or weak the prosecutor.

Singer Courtney Love, rapper Foxy Brown and International Monetary Fund head Dominique Strauss-Kahn are among those who have felt the ire of acting Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Melissa Jackson.

The latest case to land Jackson in the spotlight involved Hunter Robinson, 16, who was arraigned Feb. 12 on robbery and grand larceny charges. He was among a group of teens accused of stealing the wallet, phone, coat and shoes from a fellow student before hitting him in the face with a gun.

The victim was left “frightened, barefoot, coatless with no way to call for help on a cold afternoon in January,” said Assistant District Attorney Mary DeCamp during the court proceeding.

But DeCamp, who works for soft-on-crime Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg, nonetheless asked for Robinson to be released with only monitoring and a curfew.

“I am not granting it. I am not going to do all of that,” the judge said, adding, “I can’t understand why you are not asking for some form of monetary bail in a case as serious as this.”

Acting Supreme Court Justice Stephen Antignani echoed Jackson’s decision in two subsequent proceedings.

“I think the judges are getting fed up and [Jackson] was fed up. Especially when the DAs come in and recommend no bail,” said defense attorney Eric Nelson, a former prosecutor. “People are getting tired of the anarchy on the streets. And judges … are the last resort.”

Nelson added Jackson has always had a reputation of being tough.

Jackson, 69, a former prosecutor with the Brooklyn District Attorney’s office and a great-granddaughter of Theodore Roosevelt, was appointed to the bench in 2003 by then Mayor Michael Bloomberg. She was elevated to state Supreme Court in 2013.

Her days on the bench are coming to an end. As an acting justice, she must retire at the end of her 70th year in 2023.

When Love, the former Hole frontwoman, appeared before Jackson in 2004, the singer arrived five hours late to a hearing on a misdemeanor charge that she threw a microphone stand in a club.

“The rules apply to you as well as everybody else,” Jackson scolded her, noting she had already prepared an arrest warrant.

The judge took no guff from Brown in 2005 when the rapper appeared before her to reach a plea agreement on a charge she assaulted nail salon workers.

When Jackson thought she saw Brown chewing gum, she told her to spit it out. The defiant performer stuck her tongue out at the judge in an attempt to show her she did not have gum.

“I don’t like your client’s attitude,” Jackson snapped at Brown’s lawyer. “She’s making faces. She’s sneering.”

Jackson then ordered Brown handcuffed to a bench for 15 minutes and threatened to send the rapper to jail. Brown escaped lockup only by reluctantly apologizing.

Jackson and Brown tangled for years as the hip hop artist kept landing in court until the judge finally sent her to prison in 2007 for probation violations.

In 2011, she ordered Strauss-Kahn, who was accused of sexually assaulting a hotel housekeeper, be held without bail despite pleas from high-powered defense lawyer Ben Brafman that he wasn’t a flight risk. The case was later tossed.

Jackson, who declined to be interviewed, said in 2010 that decisions on setting bail “takes a relatively sophisticated analysis of each case.

“We do take seriously our jobs and hate to think we’re being unfair by keeping someone in [jail],” she told the Associated Press.

Mark Bederow, a former Manhattan prosecutor who is now a criminal defense lawyer, called Jackson “firm but fair.”

“I think that’s what the public wants in a judge,” he said.

She sentenced Princeton grad Thomas Gilbert Jr. to 30 years to life in prison in 2019 for killing his millionaire father over a $100 drop in his allowance. His mom begged for mercy saying her son was mentally ill, but Jackson wasn’t having it.

“You were not insane at the time you committed the crime and killed your father,” the judge told Gilbert.

When 18-year-old Saadiq Teague was busted for carrying an unloaded AK-47, a fully loaded magazine and a gas mask in a Times Square subway station, she sent him to jail without bail.

“This is an extremely serious case. The case is up to 15 years in prison,” Jackson said

Stephen Saracco, a prosecutor turned defense lawyer who is now retired, called Jackson “probably the worst judge I was ever in front of.” He recalled her stance during his opening statement defending accused rapist George Fay in 2018.

“She cut me off at the legs. She was completely incorrect. I don’t know where she was coming from or what she was thinking of,” he said.

But he agreed with what she did in the Robinson case.

“To tell you the truth, that was the right thing to do. We’re out of control here in New York,” he said.

But Jackson was a veritable pussycat in one of her first cases — that of Antoine Yates, the so-called “tiger man” of Harlem arrested in 2003 for keeping a 20-month-old tiger named Ming in his apartment. She released him, despite an ADA’s request for $15,000 bail.