Clemency
Definition
The power of a head of state or governor to commute a death sentence or grant a pardon, inherited from the royal prerogative of mercy.
Related terms
- Abolitionist State
- A country that has removed capital punishment from law entirely, or that retains it on the books but has not executed anyone...
- Death Penalty
- A criminal sanction in which the state ends the life of a convicted offender under a court-ordered warrant, distinct from extrajudicial killing.
- Deterrence Hypothesis
- The claim that the threat of execution discourages potential murderers more effectively than the threat of life imprisonment. Reviewed evidence does not...
- ICCPR Second Optional Protocol
- A 1989 United Nations treaty aiming at abolition of the death penalty; states that ratify it commit to carrying out no further...
- Rarest of Rare Doctrine
- The Indian Supreme Court's standard, set out in Bachan Singh v. State of Punjab (1980), that death may be imposed only when...
- Retentionist State
- A country whose law authorises capital punishment for at least one ordinary crime and that has not committed itself, in law or...
- Wrongful Conviction
- A conviction that is later determined to be factually incorrect, usually through post-conviction DNA testing or other newly available evidence. Bite mark...