Odger's English Common Law

PRINCIPALS AND ACCESSORIES.
283
The fact that the deceased contributed to his own death is, as we have
seen, no defence. 1
Any one, who is convicted of being either a principal in the
second degree or an accessory before the fact to a murder, is
deemed as guilty as the principal in the first degree and must
also be sentenced to death. An accessory after the fact to
murder may be sentenced to penal servitude for life.
An attempt to murder was a misdemeanour at common law, bat it has
been made a felony by statute and is now punishable with penal servitude for
life. 2 A conspiracy or incitement to murder any person is a misdemeanour
punishable with penal servitude for ten years. It is immaterial whether
the person, whose life is thus threatened, is a British subject or not, or is
within the King's dominions or not ; but the conspiracy must take place
in England. 3
A murder is always triable in the county where it takes place, 4 and
murder on a British ship on the high seas is triable in the county in which
the ship first touched land. Murder committed by a British subject on any
land abroad may be tried in this country. 5
* Ante xt 267.
» 24 &'26 Vict. o. 100, sa. 11—15 ; see post, p. 305.
8 lb. b. 4 ; see post, p. 307.
i See R. v. Bexley (1906), 70 J. P. 263.
» See 24 & 26 Vict. c. 100, s. 9, and ante, pp. 137, 138.