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R v Dudley and Stephens is an important English case regarding

the relationship between criminal law and morality. This case concern

about three seamen and a deceased boy whereby they were stranded at sea

on a small emergency boat and the deceased was killed in order to preserve

the others’ life. The case was decided in year 1884 in the Queen’s Bench

Division. Before looking into the principle of law, the fact of the case will

be discussed briefly.

On 5th July 1884, three able- bodied seamen, namely Thomas

Dudley, Edward Stephens and Brooks together with the deceased

Richard Parker, an English cabin boy who aged between 17 and 18 years

were cast away in a storm on the high seas 1600 miles from the Cape of

Good Hope. They had no choice but to put into an emergency boat of the

English yacht. In the open boat, there were no supply of water and food

except for 2 tins of turnips. The turnips helped them to subsist for 3 days.

On the fourth day, a small turtle was caught. After consuming the remains

of the turtle, they were starved for 7 days with no food and 5 days with no

water. Hence, on the next day, Dudley and Stephens suggested to Brooks

that someone should be sacrificed in order to save the rest. However,

Brooks disagreed and Richard Parker was not informed.


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Again on 24th July, Dudley proposed to Stephens and Brooks that

they should draw lots to decide who would be killed to save the others but

Brooks refused to do so. On that day, Dudley and Stephens spoke of their

families and Dudley pointed out that it would better to sacrifice Parker to

preserve the others’ life. Dudley suggested that Parker should be killed if

they were not succoured by tomorrow morning. On the next day, no vessel

appeared and Dudley told Brooks to have a sleep, and made signs to

Stephens and Brooks that Parker had better to be murdered. Stephens

agreed but Brooks still refused to consent.

Meanwhile, Richard Parker was lying at the bottom of the boat

helplessly. He was ill due to famine and the drinking of sea water. He was

too weak to resist, nor did he ever assent to be killed. After a prayer offered

by Dudley, he with Stephens’s assent, told Parker that his time was come.

Then, Dudley stabbed his throat using a knife and killed him. Consequently,

all three men cannibalised his body and drank his fresh blood for 4 days.

On the fourth day of the incident, three of them were rescued by a passing

vessel.
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Subsequently, Dudley and Stephens were brought to trial at Exeter.

Had they not fed upon the body of Richard Parker, they would probably

have died of starvation within four days. Richard Parker, being in an

extremely weaken stage, was likely to have died before them. At that point

of time, there was no passing veil, nor any reasonable possibility for them

to be rescued. Under such circumstances, there was no alternative chance

of saving life as they would die of famine unless they cannibalise Richard

Parker or any one of themselves. However, this case was adjourned until

25th November at the Royal Courts of Justice and further adjourned to 4 th

December sat under Lord Chief Justice Lord Coleridge.

The first issue in this case is whether killing under these

circumstances is murder or not. According to various definitions of murder

as provided in books, murder is implied as “if they do not state, the doctrine,

that in order to save your own life you may lawfully take away the life of

another, when that other is neither attempting nor threatening yours, nor

is guilty of any illegal act whatever towards you or anyone else.”

The doctrine receives no support from Lord Hale who viewed that

necessity which justified homicide is considered a justification. Private

necessity which justified the taking of one’s life to preserve his own is
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commonly regarded as "self-defence." The court cited the authority of Lord

Hale where Lord Hale opined that one who kills an innocent person under

assault and in the risk of death would not be acquitted from punishment of

murder. However, if he kills the assailant who committed the violence of

assault in order to save his own life, he will be protected by the law of

necessity. Nevertheless, the court felt that it could be doubtful upon Lord

Hale’s statement as he further stated that despite being under necessity of

food or clothes, the act of stealing goods from other people is felony and it

is a crime punishable with death by the laws of England. The court then

observed that if the extreme necessity of hunger does not justify larceny,

how could Lord Hale have said to the doctrine that it justified murder?

Thus, the court also cited Lord Bacon who lays down a principle that

necessity carries a privilege in itself. There are 3 types of necessity,

including the necessity of conservation of life, necessity of obedience, and

necessity of the act of God or of a stranger. Lord Bacon first explained the

conservation of life. It is neither felony nor larceny if a man steals to satisfy

his hunger. Similarly, if some divers are casted away of their boat, one of

them get to some plank, or on the boat's side to keep himself above water,

and a diver in order to save his life, thrust the other person from it, his act

is neither self-defence nor misadventure, but justifiable. Lord Bacon’s


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dictum was questioned by his equals and the superiors. The court agreed

that there is possibility of many conceivable states of things in which it

might be true. However, it is certainly not the law in the present day to

adopt the broad principle laid down by Lord Bacon that a man can save his

life by killing an innocent and unoffending person where it is necessary for

him to do so.

The court decided that the deliberate killing of this unoffending and

unresisting deceased was undoubtedly a murder, provided that the killing

can be justified by some reasonable excuse accepted by law. In addition,

the court admitted that there is no excuse, unless the killing was justified

by what has been called ‘necessity’.

Hence, the following issue is that whether the killing of Richard

Parker could be justified by ‘necessity’. Although the court recognised that

the law and morality are not the same, whereby an immoral thing may not

necessarily be illegal, the court stressed that it would cause fatal

consequence if the law is allowed to depart totally from morality. The court

held that “to preserve one's life is generally speaking a duty, but it may be

the plainest and the highest duty to sacrifice it.” The court went on to

explain that a war is an example in which it is a man's duty not to live, but
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to die. In a case of shipwreck, the duty of imposed on a captain to his crew,

on the crew to the passengers, on soldiers to women and children, were of

moral necessity, not of the preservation, but of the sacrifice of their lives

for others. Thus, there cannot be any absolute or unqualified necessity to

preserve one's life.

The court pointed out the danger implications if absolute necessity

were to be allowed. Uncertainties such as who should be the judge of this

kind of necessity and what is the parameter in measuring the comparative

value of lives. It is clear that the standard leaves to him who is to benefit

by it to determine the necessity which will justify him in deliberately

sacrificing another's life to save his own. In this situation, the weakest, the

youngest, the most unresisting boy, Richard Parker was chosen. The court

said it is not a necessity to kill him than one of the developed man.

The court went on to say that it is quite obvious that such a principle

once conceded may cause uncontrollable and undesirable crimes to happen.

The duty of the judges is to interpret the law to their best of their ability

and to pronounce it according to their judgment. If in any case the law

appears too harsh on individuals, is it upon the discretion of the Sovereign

to exercise the prerogative of mercy which provided in the Constitution.


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Considering all the principles and facts, the court held that Dudley

and Stephens to be guilty of murder and they were sentenced to the

statutory death penalty. Nonetheless, they were pardoned by the Crown and

were freed after six months of imprisonment. This case is significant in

English common history which laid down the precedent that necessity is

not a defence to a charge of murder.

1469 words.
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Sources:

Case Judgment

The Queen v. Dudley And Stephens (1884) 14 QBD 273 DC. Retrieved

from: https://www.justis.com/data-coverage/iclr-bqb14040.aspx

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