The Queen v Dudley and Stephens, support the issue whether

criminal intent is present.

Throughout the years since the Speluncian Explorers was been laid by Dr.
Lon Fuller, there has been cases like it, cases as real can be.

A case way back in year 1884 The Queen v Dudley and Stephens, the
court states that “A man who, in order to escape from death from hunger,
kills another for the purpose of eating his flesh, is guilty of murder, although
at the time of the act is in such circumstances that he believes and has
reasonable ground for believing that it affords the only chance of preserving
his life.”

But before this case is being presented here for the acquittal of the
defendants on the Speluncian Explorers, a real case that reflects and a
heavy set of facts that we believe that these survivors should not be
punished by death for commencing the act.

In The Queen v Dudley and Stephens, this is the trial before Huddleston, B
at the Devon and Cornwall Winter Assizes on November 7, 1884, the jury
found facts of the case in a special verdict stated:

July 5, 1885, Thomas Dudley and Edward Stephens with Brooks, all able-
bodied English seamen and the deceased who is also an English boy ages
between seventeen and eighteen were cast away in a story on the high seas
1600 miles from the Cape of Good Hope and were compelled to transfer to
an open boat. This boat contains no supply of water and food, only two 1lb.
tins of turnips and for three days they have nothing else to feed themselves.
On the fourth day, they substituted a small turtle which they caught in order
to fill their hunger for a few days.

On the twentieth day, they were compelled to commence the act, they had
no fresh water except such rain pours from time to time caught in their
oilskin capes and still far from the shore; the three men comes to an
agreement that someone should be sacrificed to save the rest.

This is the same facts presented on the Speluncian Explorers where

Whetmore suggested the same idea on his co explorers and decides their
fates on the role of dice; the only difference on the case of The Queen v
Dudley and Stephen, the convicts Dudley, Stephen and Brooks came to an
agreement on sacrificing a life and they pertains the life of this English boy
without his consent. Before the commenced act, Brooks showed desistance
and did not take a part on killing. Dudley and Stephen fulfilled their intent
and commenced the act. Brooks was still sentenced to prison in lavishing the
flesh of the boy to survive even though he did not commit on the act. The
criminal intent to kill was present, mens rea and mens reus is present
results the presence of criminal intent.

In the case of the Speluncian Explorers, the killing of Roger Whetmore were
in the boundaries that he is aware of the intent of the crime for the defense
of self-preservation. We disagree on the punishment of death by hanging on
the defendants for the criminal intent to murder or kill someone is present.

All, no doubt, that can be said has been urged before us, and we are now to
consider and determine what it amounts to. It is said that it follows from
various definitions of murder in books of authority, which definitions imply, if
they do not state, the doctrine, that in order to save your own life you may
lawfully take away the life of another, when that other is neither attempting
nor threatening yours, nor is guilty of any illegal act whatever towards you
or anyone else.

The facts found on the special verdict show that the defendants were not
guilty of murder, at the time when they commenced the act under the
pressure of necessity does no conclude that criminal intent is present.

We are often compelled to set up standards we cannot reach ourselves, and

to lay down rules which we could not ourselves satisfy. But a man has no
right to shamelessly convict a person to be an excuse and shy away from
the eyes of the public in order to get pass it ignoring the facts present before
him.