Judgment of Death Act 1823

The Judgment of Death Act 1823 was an act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Passed at a time when there were over 200 offences in English law which carried a mandatory sentence of death, it gave judges the discretion to pass a lesser sentence for the first time. It did not apply to treason or murder. The act required judges to enter a sentence of death on the court record, but then allowed them to commute the sentence to imprisonment.

Provisions

Short title, commencement and extent

Section 1 of the act provided that the act would commence from and after the passing of the act.
Section 3 of the act provided that the act would not extend to Scotland.

Legacy

The act was repealed in England and Wales by section 56 of, and the schedule 11 to, the Courts Act 1971, in the Republic of Ireland by the Statute Law Revision Act 1983 and repealed in 1980 in Northern Ireland. By that time the death penalty in the United Kingdom had essentially ended: it had been abolished for murder in Great Britain in 1965, the last ones issued in Northern Ireland were soon commuted to life imprisonment, and no death penalties were subsequently handed down in Great Britain for the crimes that retained it.