Entitled to clemency: Mercy in the criminal law

✍ Scribed by Carla Ann Hage Johnson

• Book ID: 104640662
• Publisher: Springer Netherlands
• Year: 1991
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 452 KB
• Volume: 10
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0167-5249
• DOI: 10.1007/bf00144297

✦ Synopsis

Long neglected, the concept of mercy has been regaining philosophical respectability of late? The work of Jeffrie Murphy in particular has contributed to this gain in status. But while Murphy has been instrumental in giving mercy a place in discussions of social and legal philosophy, he has also promoted the view that this place is rather limited. Specifically, Murphy argues that while there is room for mercy in civil law, the place for mercy in criminal taw is very limited and generally the practice of mercy there is either vicious or redundant.

Murphy's claim that mercy is inappropriate in criminal law is most explicitly argued in Forgiveness and Mercy. 2 He argues that in criminal law doing justice is the sworn obligation of the judge. But there is a general problem with reconciling the concepts of mercy and justice which he describes thus:

If we simply use the term "mercy" to refer to certain of the demands of justice (e.g., the demand for individuation), then mercy ceases to be an autonomous