| Short Title: | Judgment of Death Act 1823[1] |
| Type: | Act |
| Parliament: | Parliament of the United Kingdom |
| Long Title: | An Act for enabling Courts to abstain from pronouncing Sentence of Death in certain Capital Felonies. |
| Year: | 1823 |
| Citation: | 4 Geo. 4. c. 48 |
| Royal Assent: | 4 July 1823 |
| Status: | repealed |
| Original Text: | http://statutes.org.uk/site/the-statutes/nineteenth-century/1823-4-george-4-c-48-judgement-of-death-act/ |
The Judgment of Death Act 1823 (4 Geo. 4. c. 48) was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom (although it did not apply to Scotland). 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.
The Act was repealed in England and Wales by the Courts Act 1971,[2] in the Republic of Ireland by the Statute Law Revision Act 1983[3] and repealed in 1980 in Northern Ireland.