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Dudley And Stephens Case

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This case, R. v. Dudley and Stephens, surrounds the unfortunate events that surrounded the sinking of ship in 1884 far off the coast of Cape of Good Hope, South Africa. There are many facts that surround this case. The boat left with exactly four men (Tom Dudley, Edwin Stephens, Edmund Brooks, and Richard Parker). They were heading from Southampton, England to Sydney, Australia. They left on May 19, 1884. The boat sank on July 5, 1884, about 1600 miles off of Cape of Good Hope, South Africa. The four men all survived the sinking of the ship by getting into an open lifeboat. They had no water and only two 1-lb cans of turnip. The two pounds of canned turnip lasted for three days. On the fourth day, the men managed to catch a sea turtle. They ate this for several days. They drank sparse rainwater that they caught in their hats. After the twelfth day, they had no food to eat. Talk started to arise on the 18th day that a sacrifice could be made by one of them so that the other three could live. The conversation surrounded Richard Parker, who was often unconscious and sickly due to intense hunger and drinking seawater. Dudley and Stephens considered killing Parker …show more content…
The dispute was about whether the killing was necessary, and therefore should not be charged like a normal murder, or if the two men should face the full extent of law as if it was a normal circumstance. It was being argued that letting murder charges be dropped, even for such an extreme circumstance, could lead to courts in the future acquitting other forms of murder. The questions that remained were what should happen to Dudley and Stephens, and what impact it would have on society. Legal concepts involved in this issue were morality, sovereignty, and justice. The largest issue at stake was not the effect of the verdict on Dudley and Stephens, but rather the effect of the verdict on the whole of England and

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