As an exercise to explore the duties of the judicial branch of government, we examined a famous legal case in Socials. Here are the details, as well as my thoughts:
Case Citation
- Dudley & Stevens are being charged with the murder of a man on the seas under the jurisdiction of the Crown.
- Three men, Dudley, Stevens, Brooks and Parker were caught in a storm off the Cape of Good Hope.
- They had to abandon ship and jump into a lifeboat, but without water and only two cans of turnips.
- They caught a turtle on the fourth day, and it was eaten by the twelfth day.
- For the next eight days, they had nothing to eat and only had a little rainwater to drink.
- The three adults met and argued the best course of action. They wanted to draw straws to decide who would be eaten, Brooks disagreed, and Parker was not consulted.
- Dudley & Stevens were both convinced that Parker should be the one to be killed.
- Without further conference, Parker was killed and eaten over the next three days.
- On the fourth day, they were rescued, and transported back to England, and were charged with murder.
My Decision
They have already been found guilty of murder by a previous court, and sentenced to hanging. As such, my choice is between supporting the decision and let them be hanged, or reject the sentence and either let them live or find another punishment. My final decision in that regard is that they should be hanged.
Considerations
There are a few reasons that I found that solution. First of all, premeditated murder is illegal in all respects when taking law at face value. And secondly, there was no democratic discussion of who would be willing to give themself up, and instead Dudley, Stevens and Brooks all placed their lives at a higher value than Parker, which I am a firm believer they had no right to do.
Theory Reflected
My views generally align with positivism, a theory that always takes basic moral principals at face value, without too much power put in the circumstance.