Judgment of Death Act 1823

The Judgment of Death Act 1823 (sic)[1] (c.48; repealed) was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom (although it did not apply to Scotland).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.

Judgment of Death Act 1823

Parliament of the United Kingdom
Long title	An Act for enabling Courts to abstain from pronouncing Sentence of Death in certain Capital Felonies
Citation	4 Geo. 4 c 48
Territorial extent	England and Wales Ireland
Other legislation
Repealed by	Courts Act 1971 (England and Wales) Statute Law Revision Act 1983 (Republic of Ireland)
Status: Repealed

The Act was repealed in England and Wales by the Courts Act 1971,[1] in the Republic of Ireland by the Statute Law Revision Act 1983[2] and repealed in 1980 in Northern Ireland. Since piracy with violence was still a capital crime, this had the (presumably unintended) effect of making the death penalty for that offence mandatory again, until the death penalty was totally abolished in 1998.