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 first-time offenders.

Prior to the 12th century, traditional English law courts had been jointly presided over by a bishop and a local secular magistrate. In 1166, however, Henry II promulgated the Constitutions of Clarendon which established a new system of courts that rendered decisions wholly by royal authority. The Assizes touched off a power struggle between the king and Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury. Becket asserted that these secular courts had no jurisdiction over clergymen because it was the privilege of clergy not to be accused or tried for crime except before an ecclesiastical court. After four of Henry's knights murdered Becket in 1170, public sentiment turned against the king and he was forced to make amends with the church. As part of the Compromise of Avranches, Henry was purged of any guilt in Becket's murder but he agreed that the secular courts, with few exceptions (high treason being one of them), had no jurisdiction over the clergy.

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