The court held in Bristow v. Commonwealth that "...

a man must be taken to intend that which he

does, or which is the immediate or necessary consequence of his act." The same position was
reinforced in the case of State v. Saunders[10], which held that if the act is dangerous and shows a
disregard for human life, resulting in the death of another, the act is murder even if he did not
intend to kill. There is no doubt about whether or not these men murdered Whetmore.

They committed a heinous crime, and the law must be followed in such cases. We believe that the
trial court satisfied all three requirements for criminal proceedings outlined in Commonwealth v.
Kravitz, 400 Pa. 198 (1960)[11]. The Kravitz case, supra, cited the leading case of Commonwealth v.
Gardner, in which the court stated: 'In all criminal proceedings, it is incumbent on the
Commonwealth to establish beyond a reasonable doubt three elements: (1) the occurrence of an
injury or loss, in homicide, a person deceased; (2) a criminal agency, in homicide, for example, that
the death was caused by a beating, gunshot, or circumstances indicating a felonious act these two
combined show a crime has been committed by someone); (3) that the defendant is the responsible
party.”

The court in this case also referred to the case of Commonwealth v. Bausewine, in which the court
held that facts and circumstances proven (in a criminal case) must "be such as to establish the guilt
of the defendant, not. . . as being completely incompatible with his innocence, but at the very least
beyond a reasonable doubt." This legal statement was repeated in Commonwealth v. LaRue and
Commonwealth v. Rogozinski.

We had the opportunity to review the case of R v Dudley and Stephens (1884) 14 QBD 273 DC, which
is a leading English criminal case that established a precedent throughout the common law world
that necessity is not a defense to a murder charge. It was about survival cannibalism after a
shipwreck in which Dudley and Stephens killed and ate a young boy for food. The court ruled that
necessity was not a defense to a murder charge, and I believe the same reasoning should apply in
this case. If necessity is a valid defense to murder, then a woman who kills her abusive husband
should be exonerated of the crime. If we use necessity as a defense, then everyone can conjure up
their own interpretation of the word. To save ourselves the trouble, we could just declare that
Newgarth is now a lawless jungle, based on the opinions of my brothers Foster and Handy.

This act of murder, in our opinion, is so heinous that nothing can justify or support it. I am adamant
that it is neither legal nor moral to murder another human being. It is obvious that a murder has
occurred. As a result, we conclude that the conviction should be upheld.