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Criminal Law Keyed to Lee
Regina v. Dudley and Stephens
Citation:
14 Q.B.D. 273 (1884)
ProfessorScott Caron
CaseCast™ – "What you need to know"
Facts
Dudley and Stephens had a trial in which the jury laid out the following facts: Dudley and Stephens, along with Brooks and Parker, were stuck on a boat during a storm. They had no supply of water and quickly ran out of their small supply of food. On the fourth day of being stuck, they caught a small turtle to eat. They had no other food until the twentieth day of being trapped, in which the murder occurred.
Dudley proposed to Stephens and Brooks that they kill Parker to save their lives. Parker was the youngest and weakest among the men. Brooks refused, and no one asked for Parker’s opinion. Dudley proposed that if they did not see a vessel in sight by the morning, they will kill him. The next day, with no vessel in sight, Dudley and Stephens put a knife to his throat and killed him. All men fed upon his body and were rescued four days later.
The jury concluded that it was likely that all of the seamen would have died due to starvation before they were rescued, and that Parker would likely have died before the other three men. However, the jury was unable to reach a decision regarding their culpability and instead returned a special verdict for the Queen’s Bench Division to rule based on their findings of fact.
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