Regina V. Dudley

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I would love to hear your positions on this historical and landmark case. Being a Criminal Justice major, I come across these every now and then and I figured it would be a great case to talk about in here.

 

Wikipedia - Regina v. Dudley and Stephens

 

The Queen v. Dudley and Stephens is considered one of the most groundbreaking cases in which the necessity defense is used. Dudley, Stephens, Brooks and Parker (the victim), were stranded in the middle of the ocean on life boat. For twenty days, they sustained themselves on two one pound tins of turnips and a small turtle that one of them managed to catch. On the twentieth day without any food or fresh water and no rescue in sight, a decision was made to kill Richard Parker, a seventeen year-old boy, so that the others could feed upon his flesh to survive. The reason given for killing the boy instead of one of the other crew members was because the boy was so weak that he could not have survived any longer on his own. Also, this decision was based on part that the boy Parker was the only one of the lot that did not have nay family waiting for him back on land.

 

Mr. A. Collins, defending the prisoners, made many compelling arguments in defense of Dudley and Stephens. Even citing an American case from 1842 where American passengers were thrown overboard of a lifeboat in order to reduce the weight on board, thus saving the remaining passengers. The court passed judgment against Dudley and Stephens. They backed up their judgment by stating that by killing Richard Parker they stripped him of any remote chance of being saved by a passing ship. They made the argument that what if they had killed Parker and then been rescued the next morning by a passing ship. Then is would have been unnecessary to kill Richard Parker. The court sentenced both Dudley and Stephens to death. This sentence was shortly commuted to six months imprisonment by the Crown, the reason being that they had no other choice but to kill Richard Parker to survive.

 

I have several mixed feeling about this case. In one respect I can side with the court that they had no right to kill Richard Parker without his consent or knowledge. As the judge said, a man has no right to declare temptation to be an excuse. Dudley and Stephens may have been pushed to the limits of temptation due to their weak state of mind and great hunger that they were suffering, but it is still no excuse for murder. There have been many cases prior and similar to this where the necessity defense was used, but it was also under different circumstances. In prior instances, the survivors of a shipwreck who were beyond hunger made a pact that one of them be sacrificed to save the others. They then drew straws to determine which one of them would be killed. The person who was killed went into the pact knowing full well that they could be the one to be killed and they agreed to it. This was not done in the case of Richard Parker. The boy had no idea that he was going to be killed nor did he agree to it. There are other arguments however where I would be more inclined to agree with the side of Dudley and Stephens. I do not think it is at all possible to imagine the hunger that they were feeling. They must have been delirious with famine when they committed this act, because no reasonable man would have made a decision like that. I do not think I will ever understand the complexity of this unless I was to find myself in the same situation that they were in.

 

Dudley and Stephens defense was built around the necessity to commit the crime in order to survive. The argument that Mr. A Collins made was that Necessity will excuse an act which would otherwise be a crime. Necessity is still considered today to be a controversial defense. The reason being that the accused did commit a crime to survive for one reason or another, but at what cost it came to for the victims of the crime, which does not make in excusable under any circumstances. There have been other cases in recent years where the necessity defense was used where someone was forced to commit a crime because they were being made to by gunpoint or otherwise. In these cases again, it comes back to my original point that they still had the choice to not commit the crime and spare the victims the suffering.