The Case of the Spelungean Explorers Essay

For the first time, The Case of the Spelungean Explorers was published in the article by legal philosopher Lon L. Fuller in the Harvard Law Review in 1949. The form of this article is rather sophisticated, as it suggests to the readers an intricate philosophic puzzle and five possible solutions to it. These solutions were offered by five judges and expressed as their juridical opinions.

The case is related to five explorers, who remained locked in a cave because of a landslide. Thanks to the intermittent radio contact they got to know about their tragic perspective, because they did not have food to wait till they could be rescued. Thus they were supposed to starve to death. The only way to remain alive seemed to kill one of them and feed the other four. In order to choose the person, they used a pair of dice. After throwing it, they defined the four survivors and the one, whom they could kill. Although these four persons managed to stay alive in that terrible situation, they faced the danger of the death penalty after they were rescued. They sent an appeal to the Supreme Court of Newgarth and in addition, there was strong public pressure, as people were convinced that the remaining explorers should not be sentenced to death for their murder.

There were five possible judicial responses, all published in the article. Each of them was different in relation to the conclusion and reasoning for this conclusion. Two of the judges affirmed the conviction on the basis of their interpretation of the notion of separation of powers and literal approach to statutory interpretation. The other two judges overturned the convictions, each of them finding his unique arguments for this decision, either on the basis of “common sense” or according to the “natural law tradition”. The fifth judge was not able to find the conclusion and recused himself. The Court’s decision is a tie and correspondingly the original convictions were upheld and the four explorers were sentenced to death.

All the opinions of the five judges were different. The most rational seems to be the opinion, offered by Justice Foster. Foster stated that this case was unique and that it could not be treated so narrowly as relating only to this group of explorers, rather it was related to the law of the Commonwealth of all people. It is important to consider the fact that these individuals were in a “state of nature”, which means that it is not possible to apply usual Newgarth laws to them. Remaining under the impact of wild nature, they took the corresponding decision, namely, they were ready to sacrifice one life for the sake of saving the other four lives. If still to make an attempt to apply the Newgarth’s laws, then it is necessary to focus upon a purposive approach. There are numerous cases when judges are able to find the exception to the law on the basis of unique circumstances. The same system works for cases of self-defense. If an individual has to kill somebody, who presents a real danger to his life and health, then he is not sentenced to death for killing him. Another important aspect, which needs to be considered here, is that the key aim of the criminal law is to secure deterrence, if to apply death sentence for the four explorers, this purpose would not be served. These are the two major reasons, why the opinion of Justice Foster seems to be the most rational and correct. It is also possible to add here that those explorers were taking this decision being all alive and this means that each of them had to calculate the possibility of his immediate death for the sake of saving the rest of the group.