REGINA V. DUDLEY & STEPHENS (1884)

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Citation	(1884) 14 QBD 273, DC
Date of Judgement	December 9, 1884
Court	High Court of Justice
Bench	Chief Justice Lord Coleridge
Appellent	Regina
Respondent	Dudley & Stephens
Case Type	Criminal Law

FACTS OF THE CASE

There were four men and their names were Thomas Dudley who was the captain of the ship, Edward Stephens, Ned Brooks and the Cabin boy Richard Parker. Richard Parker is the victim of this case. These four men were travelling in an English ship, Mignonette. Suddenly, a huge storm took place in the high seas when the ship was still 1600 miles away from the Cape of Good hope. Because of that they were compelled to shift in a small yacht along with their stuff and belongings.

They were starving to death. They had no fresh water or any kind of water for that matter, except for the rainwater. They were storing this water from time to time in their oilskin capes with no supply of food. They had nothing to survive on but two 1lb. tins of turnips, which could only be consumed for three days and after that they would die of hunger.

On the fourth day, they were so dead that they caught a small turtle from the ocean so that they could live for some more days. This was the only food they were living on till the twentieth day.

The boat was still drifting on the ocean. It was still 1000 miles away from the land.

All the members were getting weak with the days passing. At that point Thomas Dudley, the captain of the ship came up with an idea, i.e., lottery. He asked to draw a lottery, and the very person whose name would be drawn would have to sacrifice his life, in order to save the rest of them. He proposed that they will kill one of the members so that they could live on his flesh for some days. This idea was accepted by only one member, i.e Edward Stephens and the other member Ned Brooks refused to do so. The cabin boy Richard Parker who was also the youngest one, was not at all consulted.

After some days when they lost all hopes of getting rescued, Dudley and Stephens decided to kill Parker just because he was the weakest and youngest. Due to the weakness, the boy was lying at the bottom of the boat helplessly and unable to resist when Dudley put a knife into his throat and killed him without even taking his assent. They fed on his flesh for a couple of days. On the fourth day after the act had been committed, a vessel came to their rescue and picked the boat up. But after that they were charged with murder.

ISSUES

In the High Court of Justice , the following issues were raised:-

Firstly, whether the killing of Parker was murder considering the circumstances of this case;
Secondly, whether necessity can be claimed as a defence for murder and can it make the act permissible and;
Thirdly, whether killing of the boy to save one’s own life, in this case, be termed as an act of self-defence.

ARGUMENTS

There were many arguments that were raised in the course of this case. Some of them were:-

How can someone weigh the value of one’s life over another, or is it even possible to do so? Everyone’s life is important regardless of their age, capability and strength. Article 21 gives everyone a fundamental right to life. For a matter of fact, Parker was killed because his life was not given any priority just because he was the youngest and also the weakest. He was given least priority because he was an orphan and had no family to look after unlike the rest of three. Even if it is a necessity to kill someone in order to save themselves, it is very immoral to kill someone who is the weakest and has no capacity to resist any external force. If this method of surviving passes, there will be no one who will be charged for murder.
Another argument is that, this case deals with the application of Self-defence. This law gives a person a chance to justify himself/herself in case he or she kills someone but in the present case, there is no chance that Parker, who had no strength and was lying at the bottom, will attack or threaten those men. So Dudley and Stephens cannot claim self-defence as a justification because there was no provocation, implied or otherwise by the unresisting boy which may encourage the men to take such a drastic action.
Killing the boy was itself an immoral act. He was not given any chance to make himself live, he had no capacity to resist them. At the end of the day they were rescued, which made Parker’s death pointless.
The most important question is whether the murder is permissible when someone dons the coat of necessity? Necessity, in simple terms, is using violence to repel that violence which is reasonable, justified and necessary to stop the illegal act towards oneself. There are two conditions of necessity which justifies homicide,

Necessity which is of private nature and
Necessity dealing with public welfare.

The first kind which is relevant for the case of self-defence which has already been discussed. In the present case, there was a clear temptation of murder to which the defendants succumbed is not what law calls “necessity”. Necessity must be inevitable to justify homicide. Moreover, the concept of “necessity” should extend to everyone, not just the boy because he was in a disadvantageous position, i.e., weakest, youngest and also incapable of resisting any force.

JUDGEMENT

In the judgement of Parker’s death. The High Court of Justice held it absolutely to be under the provisions of murder. It was held that there is no right to declare temptation as a necessity and use it as a defence when you are charged in the matter of killing someone nor does it weaken the criminal charge that is lodged against such an serious offence of cannibalism. A man who wants to escape hunger when he is struck in a boat when it is being hit by a storm, kills another man, who can’t even fight for his life, neither he knew about the lottery plan, can never be deemed to be innocent even if there is reasonable ground, i.e., believing that it is the only chance of preserving his own life by murdering someone.

It was therefore a duty to declare the offence as a willful murder in this case.

According to the judgement the temptation of hunger which existed cannot be deemed a necessity according to law. There was no further proof that could justify the killing of the boy in order to feed themselves, over his flesh. Moreover, there was no greater necessity to kill the boy rather than any of the other three men , but in this case the weakest was chosen as he couldn’t resist their actions. It was an unfair practice when he wasn’t told that there is a planning about murdering someone so that they could live.

So the answer is definitely “No”.

According to law, where a private person acts upon his own judgement in order to take the life of a being, then his act can only be justified on the ground of self-defence against the person whose life is taken. This principle is extended to include the case where a man kills another person to prevent him from committing some greater crime upon a third person.

But this principle has no application in this particular case of cannibalism, as the prisoners were not protecting themselves against any act of the deceased. It was very evident from Parker’s situation when he was lying at the bottom of ship getting weaker day by day because of starvation, he was so exhausted and weak out of hunger that he couldn’t even resist the killing plan that was instituted against him by his fellow group mates. As we saw, Parker didn’t have any power to resist them when he was stabbed in his throat, so self defence couldn’t be used over here.

The Court then passed the death sentence upon the prisoners, i.e, Dudley & Stephens.

REFERENCES

This case analysis is written by Siddhika Chaudhary an intern under legal vidhiya.