Case brief summary
A person cannot use extreme necessity, such as starvation, as a legal excuse for intentionally killing an innocent person who posed no threat to them. Killing someone just to save your own life in this way is still murder.
Facts
Three sailors and a boy were stranded on a lifeboat with almost no food. Two men killed the boy so everyone could eat him and survive. They were rescued days later.
Procedural history
The jury didn't decide guilt themselves. Instead they listed the agreed facts and asked the judges to decide if those facts counted as murder under the law.
Issue
Does the defense of necessity, meaning the men believed killing the boy was the only way to save their own lives, excuse what would otherwise be murder?
Holding
No. The court ruled that necessity from hunger or threat to one's own life is not a legal justification for killing an innocent, non threatening person, so the men were guilty of murder.
Reasoning
The court found old law only excuses killing to defend against an attacker, not to save yourself by killing an innocent person. It warned this would let people decide whose life is worth less.
Opinions
Majority (Lord Coleridge, C.J., joined by all judges): Killing an innocent, unresisting boy to survive starvation is murder, because necessity to save one's own life does not excuse killing someone who threatens no one.