According
to Bentham’s cases in which mischief should not be punished the trial of
Stephens and Dudley should be thrown out because it meets two, and in a sense
three of Bentham’s cases for punishment not to be inflicted. The four cases Bentham presents for
punishment not to be distributed are: the punishment is groundless, or that
there is nothing to be punished, the punishment is ineffective, or will not
prevent the wrongdoing, the punishment is unprofitable or too expensive, the mischief
or cost it would produce would be greater then what it prevented, or finally
that the punishment is unnecessary, that the crime or wrong doing will stop
itself or fail to continue without a punishment being placed upon it.
The
case of Stephens and Dudley taking the life of their companion Parker on a boat
stranded at sea so they could consume his body for subsidence was brought to
English court and at first the two were convicted of capital murder. Their case failed to meet the first criteria
of Bentham for a punishment not to be inflicted because there was still mischief,
they took the life of a boy, regardless of why, it can still be said that the
action happened. The case did meet the
second and fourth criteria, the fourth because these men will most likely never
be in the same situation so the crime will not continue to happen, it meets the
second because any punishment won’t stop the wrongdoing from happening,
according to Bacon’s Defense of Necessity, a person cannot be held responsible
for doing something that was vital to their survival, and without this act
Stephens and Dudley would have died. The
case in a sense could also meet the third criteria, in the sense that keeping
them in prison could be more costly than just letting them go unpunished
because there is such an impossibly small probability of the crime occurring
again.
In my
opinion the men should not be punished.
Although they took the life of the boy without drawing straw’s or his
consent, they still did what was necessary for themselves and the fourth man on
the boat to survive. Without this
action, all four would have perished instead of just the boy Parker. It should also be justified because the boy
was at a point of dehydration and illness that he would have most likely died
before they could have been rescued one way or the other. The qualifications for punishment that
Bentham lays out also provide good support that the crime should go unpunished.
Bentham’s
qualifications for a lack of punishment are very solid, they give the proper scenarios
and circumstances the proper respect and thought they deserve, instead of just
punishment just be looked at by those who want some form of vengeance for what
has happened. The criteria are also
narrow enough so that it would be hard for people trying to justify getting out
of punishment with the criteria when they may in fact truly deserve punishment.
My
final paper proposal is to look at the case of Troy Davis. The man who was executed in the fall of 2011,
there have been many parts to this story that would make it worth looking
at. A few things include the fact that
his date of death was pushed back time and time again for over a decade, new
evidence was also found that may have helped free him but the court never
allowed it to be entered into his case.
Another interesting aspect is both the media’s ideas around it, musicians
held public rallies in support of him, reporters both before and after his execution
showed visible remorse about what had happened, the case is very interesting
and would be worth looking at.
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