However,  it  is  idle  to  lose  oneself  in  speculations  of  this
description.  I  am  bound  to  tell  you  that  if  you  are  satisfied
that  the  boy's  death  was  caused  or  accelerated  by  the  act  of
Dudley,  or  Dudley  and  Stephens,  this  is  a  case  of  deliberate
liomicide,  neither  justifiable  nor  excusable,  and  tlie  crime  is
murder,  and  you,  therefore,  ought  to  find  a  true  bill  for
murder  against  one  or  l)oth  of  the  pi'isoners."  ^

1  The  clef cndnnts  were  indicted  and     commuted    to    imprisonment    for     a
convicted  of  murder  and  sentenced  to     period  of  six  months,
be  hanged  ;  but  their  punishment  was


SEC.  198.]  DEFENCES   TO   HOMICIDE.  225

Sec.  196.  Homicide  from  eominilsion.  —  "While  the  prin-
ciple that  an  act  done  involuntarily  and  under  duress  or  com-
pulsion places  no  responsibility  upon  the  person  so  doing  it,
but  only  upon  the  person  commanding  it  to  be  done,  applies
to  crimes  of  homicide  as  well  as  all  other  offences,  yet  the
mere  fear  of  threatened  violence  cannot  excuse  a  man  for  a
homicide  at  the  instance  of  another  man.i  And  the  same  is
true  where  the  slayer  is  under  the  lawful  authority  of  the
person  committing  the  act  of  killing,  for  he  is  bound  to  obey
oidy  the  lawful  orders  of  his  superior.  But  the  wilful  killing
of  a  soldier  by  the  sergeant  of  the  guard,  while  on  his  duty,
is  not  necessarily  a  justifiable  homicide,  because  a  soldier  is
bound  to  obey  only  the  lawful  orders  of  his  superior  officers,
and  an  order  of  a  superior  military  officer  to  an  inferior  will
not,  of  itself,  justify  the  wilful  killing  of  another.^  It  is  said,
however,  in  the  case  of  United  States  v.  Clark,^  that  if  a
homicide  be  committed  liy  a  military  guard  without  malice,
and  in  the  performance  of  his  supposed  dut}^  as  a  soldier,  such
homicide  is  excusable,  unless  it  was  manifestly  beyond  the
scope  of  his  authority,  or  was  such  that  a  man  of  ordinary
sense  and  understanding  would  know  that  it  was  illegal.
