Note 337 — Chapter XVII · LIABILITY.

The question is fully discussed in the case of Reg. v. Keyn, 2 Ex. D. 63, in which the captain of a German steamer was tried in England for manslaughter by negligently sinking an English ship in the Channel and drowning one of the passengers. One of the minor questions in the case was that of the place in which the offence was committed. Was it on board the English ship, or on board the German steamer, or on board neither of them? Four of the judges of the Court for Crown Cases Reserved, namely, Denman, J., Bramwell, B., Coleridge, C.J., and Cockburn, C.J., agreed that if the offence had been wilful homicide it would have been committed on the English ship. Denman, J., and Coleridge, C.J., applied the same rule to negligent homicide. Cockburn, C.J., doubted as to negligent homicide. Bramwell, B., said (p. 150): “If the act was wilful, it is done where the will intends it should take effect; aliter when it is negligent.” For a further discussion of the matter, see Stephen’s History of Criminal Law, II. pp. 9–12, and Oppenhoff’s annotated edition of the German Criminal Code (13th ed. 1896), p. 28. The German doctrine is that an act is committed in the place where it is begun. See also Terry, Principles of Anglo-American Law, pp. 598–606, and Edmundson v. Render, (1905) 2 Ch. 320.