Dudley V.Stephens Essay

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Summary In the “Queen v. Dudley and Stephens (1884) (The Life Case) story, four men were on a yacht that casted away in a storm on a high seas and drifted away into the ocean. The yacht was at least more than 1000 miles away from land with no signs of help anywhere in site. The four men were stranded on the boat for more than eighteen days without food or proper water to drink except for the first few days when they fed on 2 1lb tins of turnips and a little turtle they had caught from before. After the little that they had to eat was finished, they began to starve over the next few days while stranded on the boat. One of the four men whose name is Dudley comes up with an idea that one of the men on the boat should be sacrificed and eaten in order for the rest of them to survive. Dudley speaks of this idea to two of the men who he felt shouldn’t be sacrificed. First he tells one of the men named Stephens about it and he agreed with the plan, then the both of them brought the idea to another one of the men on the boat named Brooks. Brooks disagreed with the idea. The person that these men are plotting to kill is a seventeen year old boy who Dudley and Stevens considered already weak and was going to die of famine. The men were coming to the decision to kill Parker because they figured that they had wives and children to take care of and the young boy did not. Therefore their lives were more important and should not be taken. So they cast lots (vote) on what to do and then the decision was made to sacrifice the boy. Parker was killed and eaten by all three men. Four days later, Dudley, Stephens, and Brooks were rescued by a rescue boat, questioned by police and then put to trial for the murder of Parker. Although the jury found them guilty of felony and murder, the men who are now prisoners did not consider their actions a crime. At the time when they

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