I represent the Crown and am seeking a guilty verdict for Thomas Dudley and Edwin Stephens, who were involved in the brutal murder of defenceless Richard Parker. To prove the verdict of not guilty, the accused are invoking the Defence of Necessity as a means of justification for their thoughtless actions, which is inapplicable to this case. In order for the defendants to be proven not guilty, all three components of the Defence of Necessity must be satisfied. The first component of the Defence of Necessity states, “there must be an urgent situation of clear and imminent peril”. In this case, this component of the Defence of Necessity has not been satisfied, since the defendants were not in “imminent peril”. For nineteen days prior to Parker’s murder, Thomas Dudley, Edwin Stephens, Edmund Brooks and Richard Parker occupied the lifeboat. On the twentieth day, Stephens and Dudley mercilessly killed the defenceless Richard Parker, stabbing Parker in his jugular vein. After the murder, the three men fed off of Parker’s remains until their rescue on the twenty-fourth …show more content…
This component of the Defence of Necessity has not been satisfied. For Stephens and Dudley, the men could easily have waited for Parker to die of his illness before mercilessly taking his life. The occupants of the lifeboat were still physically capable of murdering Parker, and could have continued to wait for rescue or could have continued to fish until absolutely necessary to commit the crime. Since the men were still strong enough to butcher Parker, they still had the reasonable alternative of waiting for Parker to die, waiting for rescue, or continuing to fish. Edmund Brooks, the other occupant of the lifeboat took a different course of action than Stephens and Dudley, choosing not to murder Parker. Due to this, the second component of the Defence of Necessity has not been