Freaky Friday – LAWYERS & LIQUOR

Freaky Friday Finale: Cannibalism and a Biased Court – The Trial of R v. Dudley and Stephens

Welcome back to Freaky Friday here on Lawyers & Liquor, where we make the legally macabre public knowledge! Generally each Friday has a different theme here, but this month we’re finally, after a six month hiatus, finishing up our review of some principles of maritime murder and the eating of your fellow crew. From just straight up murdering your passengers in U.S. v. Holmes to carving up the cabin boy last time in our first part of Regina v. Dudley and Stephens, the high sea is apparently deadly when everyone decides your life is worth less. Which is why, today, I’ve decided to highlight a less macabre but just as frightening occurrence arising out of the latter case, namely how the trial was essentially rigged to ensure that sailors could never again claim a defense of necessity when they kill and eat their crewmates.

I’m your host, the BOO-zy Barrister, and this is Freaky Friday.

Freaky Friday (Again): This Clown Tastes Funny – The Cannibalistic Case of R. vs. Dudley & Stephens, Part 1.

Welcome back to Lawyers & Liquor for another Freaky Friday, where we toss open the crypt doors and invite you, dear reader, to descend into the dungeon of the legally macabre. I’m your ghost host with the barely sufficient most, the BOO-zy Barrister, and in a special two-time Freaky Friday month of April we’re going to continue the theme we talked about last week in discussing a case of high seas passenger murder and expand it out to ask what happens when, instead of drowning passengers, the crew simply decides to dine on a delectable all you can eat buffet of seaman.

Stop giggling.

Seriously.

Stop giggling, because we have a lot of ground to cover as we explore the English eatery that is the case of Regina v. Dudley and Stephens this time on Lawyers & Liquor: Freaky Friday! But first, a general disclaimer.

Freaky Friday: Of High Seas Murder and Cannibalism

Welcome back to Lawyers & Liquor, as we strive to stay on schedule from here on out and fling open the doors to the afterlife with another edition of Freaky Friday, the monthly macabre legal review of cases, precedents, and stuff that’s just downright creepy in the law! I’m your ghost host, the BOO-zy Barrister, and do we have a ghoulish set of morning reading for you today, all regarding the legal principles of two countries that state while a seaman may go down with the ship, they can’t kill or eat passengers and get away with it at law!

That’s right.

Maritime Murder is today’s topic, so break out those gold-fringed admiralty flags and start denying the authority of the court as we explore the macabre principles and precedents of U.S. v. Holmes and Regina v. Dudley this month on Freaky Friday.

QQH Designs Presents: Freaky Friday – Coffin Trouble

Welcome back for a Freaky Friday here at Lawyers and Liquor, once again brought to you by Quack Quack Honk Designs! We’ve been decomposing in the cemetery of the internet for a while, so I’m going to spend very little time on the lead in this month and just let you know that this time, we’re back for good! I have a backlog of articles, and the site is now back and running at full tilt with your host, the Boozy Barrister, back at the helm having finally found a happy medium between running around and staying up until four in the damn morning to work on an update. But first, go check out our sponsor, Quack Quack Honk Designs, who has waited months for the next time I would sit down and get going.

Now, as you may or may not recall, Freaky Friday is when we open up the crypt doors and talk about the more macabre aspects of law and specific legal cases. Everything that would get your case file possessed by a demon chanting “Billables by the tenth of an hour” is fair game for coverage here, and in the past we’ve covered instances like bone snatchers, haunted houses, the real estate of the damned, and funeral home ghouls. But what happens once the body is in the ground and someone decides that there’s a profit to be made from disinterring the final resting place of the infamous?

No, we’re not going to rehash some weird stuff about Burke and Hare. That’s been done to death more than once on various blogs, news articles, etc. We’re not even going to talk about body snatching in general. No, we’re flipping the phantasmagorical script this month to talk about what happens when instead of a body, someone steals the casket.

Specifically, the casket of Lee Harvey Oswald, less-than-beloved presidential assassin.

QQH Designs Freaky Friday: The Case of the Brooklyn Bonesuckers

Join us today as we delve into the Ghoulish World of stolen bones and desecrated corpses in the Big Apple for modern day body snatching in QQH Designs Freaky Friday.

Welcome to yet another Freaky Friday ere on Lawyers & Liquor, where we explore the ether of the macabre meanderings the law and legal cases may sometimes take. I’m your ghost host, the Boo-zy Barrister, here with another tale from the crypts of the legal world to chill and thrill you courtesy of Quack Quack Honk Designs. Even a rotting corpse deserves a treat every now and again, and some amazing art from the inimitable artisan at Quack Quack Honk Designs is the perfect way to treat yourself on those evenings where your dungeon looks a little drab. Shamble over to their shop to look at their wares, commission an original work, or find out where in the world they may be at an upcoming convention or art show – and be sure to thank them for sponsoring this site when you do.

Funerals are a time of remembering the recently departed, filled with tears of sorrow and laughter at the memories of times past. To help this process of grief and healing, we often turn to funeral directors and funeral homes to guide the mourners through the experience and to provide a little tender care to them. However, as we’ve seen before, the funeral industry is – at its bones – an industry, beholden for many not to the loving care of the deceased and those they leave behind but rather the bottom line. To this end, funeral homes and funeral directors are always looking to turn a profit in the trade of death, and come under criticism for doing so at times. Be it attempting to upsell a more expensive casket, a larger funeral package, a special headstone, or simply removing all the bones from the body of dear old Grandpa and selling them off to the highest bidder, a business has to engage in some minor practices that folks may find detestable to stay in business.

Wait.

What was that last one?