clergyable การใช้

Clergyable discharge continued to be used when the accused could not be transported for reasons of age or infirmity.
Seen as a way to reduce crime in Britain felons who committed clergyable offenses could be transported for 7 years and receivers of stolen goods could be transported for 14 years.
Non-capital convicts ( clergyable felons usually destined for branding on the thumb, and petty larceny convicts usually destined for public whipping ) were directly sentenced to transportation to the American colonies for seven years.
The benefit of clergy was commonly applied as a means of judicial mercy : in Elizabethan England, courts might allow more than 90 % of clergyable offenders the benefit of clergy, which is extremely high in light of the literacy rate of the period.
The system started to change inexorably between 1660 and 1720, with attempts to replace the simple discharge of clergyable felons after James I, a committee of the Council had already obtained the power to choose from the prisoners those that deserved pardon and, consequently, transportation to the colonies.