Benefit of clergy

In English law, the benefit of clergy (Law Latin: privilegium clericale) was originally a provision by which clergymen could claim that they were outside the jurisdiction of the secular courts and be tried instead in an ecclesiastical court under canon law. Various reforms limited the scope of this legal arrangement to prevent its abuse. Eventually the benefit of clergy evolved into a legal fiction in which first-time offenders could receive lesser sentences for some crimes (the so-called "clergyable" ones). The legal mechanism was abolished in 1823 with the passage of the Judgement of Death Act which gave judges the discretion to pass lesser sentences on the first-time offenders.