R v Dudley and Stephens (1884) 14 QBD 273 (9 December 1884)
R v Dudley and Stephens is a judgment from United Kingdom on 9 December 1884. Search it by the party names, or United Kingdom judgment.
united-kingdom
December 9, 1884
UNITED KINGDOM
R
v.
Dudley and Stephens
Proceeding. Judgment. United Kingdom.
Held. Necessity is not a defence to a charge of murder. The deliberate killing of an innocent person to save one's own life is unlawful.
R v DUDLEY AND STEPHENS (1884) 14 QBD 273 Queen's Bench Division 9 December 1884
Judges: Lord Coleridge CJ, Grove J, Pollock B, Huddleston B, Denman J
Facts
Four men were shipwrecked in an open boat. After many days without food, Dudley and Stephens killed the cabin boy, Richard Parker, and ate his flesh. They were rescued four days later and charged with murder.
Held
The court held that necessity is not a defence to murder. Lord Coleridge CJ stated that the deliberate killing of an unoffending and unresisting person is clearly murder, and that a man has no right to declare temptation to be an excuse. The were sentenced to death, later commuted to six months' imprisonment.
Key Principles
1. Necessity is not a defence to murder.
2. The sanctity of life precludes one person from taking the life of another innocent person to preserve his own.
3. The case remains the leading authority on the limits of the defence of necessity in English criminal law.
Why It Matters in Sierra Leone
Dudley and Stephens is cited in Sierra Leone criminal law as the classic rejection of necessity as a defence to murder. It is taught in the context of defences and the principle that human life cannot be weighed against other lives in this way.
Judges
The judges named in this report. Each page lists their other judgments on Lanbuk.