Talk:Benefit of clergy

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A person convicted by an ecclesiastical court could be defrocked and returned to the secular authorities for punishment, but over time, the English ecclesiastical courts became increasingly lenient, and by the 15th century, most convictions in these courts led to a sentence of penance.

I'm a bit confused by this. Since many of the people weren't actually clergy could they be defrocked? I guess perhaps the reasoning was that the only reason they could get the benefit of clergy was because they claimed to be clergy and could 'prove' it by reciting a passage from the bible so perhaps they were always considered clergy and therefore could be defrocked. But couldn't this person claim the benefit of clergy again or did being defrocked mean your weren't clergy no matter what you could recite? Also, was claiming to be clergy when you weren't legal? Was there any way to disprove you were clergy other then the reading test? For that matter if you failed the reading where you punished more then you would otherwise be? Finally, for people who weren't clergy so were branded (even though they were still considered clergy) what would happen if later after being branded they had the extra evidence that they were clergy (e.g. they became a real clergy in the mean time)? Nil Einne 18:41, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

In 1575 a statute of Elizabeth I radically changed the effect of the benefit of clergy. Whereas before, the benefit was pled before a trial to have one's case transferred to an ecclesiastical court, under the new system the benefit of clergy was pled after conviction but before sentencing, and it did not nullify the conviction, but rather changed the sentence for first-time offenders from probable hanging to branding and up to a year's incarceration.

Also, I guess this means that the ecclesiastical courts weren't even used any more? I.e. you claimed you were clergy but all it meant was that you were branded and jailed instead of hung, with no difference between real clergy or not, and no requirement to recite a bible passage? Nil Einne 18:46, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

States in which still survives?

Could anyone research in which states this still survives? --Daniel C. Boyer 19:16, 2 April 2006 (UTC) From what I understand, the federal government abolished this in 1790, so no, no states still have such a statute on the book.

Actually, a black man convicted of raping a white woman (but who was clearly innocent by the judge's assessment) was allowed to claim benefit of clergy in 1825 in Kentucky (White, Legal Antiquities, "Benefit of Clergy" pages 241-242). He was branded and freed. Seeing as this was after the 1790 abolition of benefit of clergy, it is possible this legal loophole could still be on the books somewhere in America. 74.134.255.73 22:10, 4 April 2007 (UTC)Meredith

I think that this issue you bring up might be an interesting addition to the article. I am a lawyer with 18 yrs experience in Texas & California. Benefit of clergy law has existed on some early American courts going back to pre-colonial times. However, such a thing would clearly go against the 1st Amendment seperation of church & state. Ecclesiastical courts, as Churchs are allowed to police their own (for lack of a better term) with regards to matters in the Church, such as kicking people out from a Church or what prayers to say first and stuff like that. Church internal matters. If a person gets kicked out of a church, they cannot run to state court and file a lawsuit over it. 1st Amendment again. So if you violate a law of the State (or the King), you are then subject to the King's justice.

• • • Congratulations on your 18 years experience. Too bad you can't read a simple Wikipedia page or any book on benefit of clergy. It was separated from the ecclesiastical version in 1536. After that, it was a totally secular tradition, completely separate from the Church, and encoded into law through over 100 statutes from 1530 to 1841. Its presence in American States was about common law, not separation of church and state. Benefit of clergy has nothing to do with churches.

In the 1825 publication of "A digest of the statute laws of Kentucky", section 13 was amended to remove this plea. Plus, in addition to removing the plea, they went back and repunished everyone who had previously taken that plea, as well!

Sec. 13. All claims to dispensation from punishment by benefit of clergy, shall be, and are hereby forever abolished; and every person convicted of any felony heretofore deemed clergyable, shall undergo an imprisonment at hard labor and solitary confinement, in the said jail and penitentiary house, for any time not less then six months, nor more then two years, and shall be treated and dealt with as is directed hereafter, except in those cases where some other penalty is prescribed by this act."

So this might be an interesting addition, if people are interested I can work on this.

The wording of the Kentucky statute seems to only affect future punishments; I do not think any U.S. Jurisdiction can change your sentence by changing the rules after your sentence. Think this article needs a lawyer.

Women and Benefit of Clergy?

Does anyone know why women were offered partial benefit of clergy in 162 that's when women got their rights

Literacy Test

If "In 1706, the reading test was abolished"...how would judges have "retained the discretion to ask the accused to read a text other than Psalm 51 where they suspected the privilege was being abused"?203.184.41.226 (talk) 23:26, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

Let's be sensible and take the word "abolished" here to mean "no longer mandatory" rather than "banned" then the whole thing makes perfect sense. 90.214.133.96 (talk) 12:59, 12 April 2016 (UTC)

Or, even more simply, the referenced case stating that judges had discretion to ask to read a different psalm was from 1689, so before the alleged abolition in 1706. 89.243.42.173 (talk) 20:47, 17 December 2019 (UTC)

Edit: April 2016.

I removed the two "alert" boxes from the top of this article because they are a) redundant and b) haven't actually been talked about on this talk page, which is where any such things should be discussed before they are added to an article. The opening sentence makes it very clear that this is pertaining to English law, and there is a further section discussing how this carried forward into the United States, so the boxes were actually not true. The more pertinent issues are: a) more citations. b) archiving the talk page because there is a lot of very old stuff here that appears to just be comments made by people who don't understand the article (maybe some previous incarnation of it) but it's not talking about how to improve the article or putting suggested edits forward so they should be archived. Is anyone regularly editing this page? 90.214.133.96 (talk) 13:05, 12 April 2016 (UTC)