14 Q.B.D. 273 (1884)
Thomas Dudley and Edwin Stephens, seamen, and Richard Parker, a boy between seventeen and eighteen years old, were cast away in a storm on the high seas and compelled to take to an open boat.1
The boat was drifting on the ocean and was probably more than one thousand miles from land.2 The boat had little food or water.3 Two one-pound tins of turnips were consumed.4 They caught a small turtle on the fourth day which lasted for a few days.5 Thereafter they endured many days without appreciable food or fresh water except such rain as they occasionally collected.6
On the eighteenth day, when they had been seven days without food and five without water, Dudley proposed to Brooks that lots should be cast to determine who should be sacrificed to save the rest.7 Brooks dissented and the boy was not consulted.8 On the 24th of July Dudley proposed to Stephens and Brooks that lots should be cast to determine who should be put to death to save the rest, but Brooks refused.9 There was in fact no drawing of lots.10
On the 25th of July, no vessel having appeared, Dudley, with the assent of Stephens and against the dissent of Brooks, went to the boy, told him his time had come, and put a knife into his throat and killed him.11 The three men fed upon the boy's body and blood for four days.12 On the fourth day after the act the boat was picked up by a passing vessel and the prisoners were rescued still alive but in an extremely prostrated state.13
The prisoners were taken to Falmouth and committed for trial at Exeter.14 Under the direction of Mr. Justice Huddleston the jury returned a special verdict finding the facts and referring the question whether the killing was felony and murder to the court.15
Whether the deliberate killing of an unoffending boy by shipwrecked seamen to preserve their own lives by feeding upon his flesh constituted murder under English law?16
The law of England does not recognize a defense of necessity that would justify the deliberate killing of an innocent person to preserve one's own life.17
Yes. The rule requires that any claimed necessity be limited to defense against unlawful force, yet the special verdict establishes that the boy was unoffending, helpless, and made no resistance when Dudley put a knife into his throat.18 The prisoners faced extreme temptation and suffering, but the authorities from Bracton through Hale confine necessity to self-defense and reject any broader justification for taking an innocent life to satisfy hunger.19 No lots were drawn, the boy was not consulted, and the selection of the weakest victim rested on no legal principle that would distinguish this case from wilful murder.20
The deliberate killing constituted murder under English law.21