In a decision with implications for criminal trials here, the Supreme Court has ruled that neither the prosecution nor the defence may be prevented from raising issues in new trials because those same issues had been decided in an earlier trial which had been aborted.
Mr Justice Nicholas Kearns yesterday delivered the unanimous judgment of the five-judge court in proceedings involving a Limerick man charged with manslaughter. Enda Lynch (31), Clarina, Limerick, has denied killing Anthony Casey (48), Griffith Avenue, Limerick, who died on August 12th, 2001.
The High Court in July 2005 refused to grant Mr Lynch an order quashing a ruling by Judge Carroll Moran of the Circuit Court following a trial involving Mr Lynch in February 2004 in which the jury failed to reach a verdict.
In December 2004, Judge Moran had ruled that certain issues in the retrial could not be relitigated because they had already been decided in the aborted trial. Lawyers for Mr Lynch objected but the High Court, in July 2005, upheld Judge Moran's ruling.
An appeal was brought to the Supreme Court. Delivering the court's reserved decision overturning the High Court ruling, Mr Justice Kearns said the appeal concerned the role, if any, of "issue estoppel" - meaning an issue can no longer be litigated - in criminal proceedings here.
The appeal concerned the survivability of rulings made during a trial where the outcome was either a conviction quashed on appeal and followed by a retrial, or an aborted trial where the jury failed to agree, he said. As the law stood, rulings made in the course of a trial which resulted in an acquittal did not give rise to a right of appeal by the DPP, as occurred in certain other jurisdictions.
After reviewing the relevant law here and in other jusridictions, the judge concluded there was no basis for "issue estoppel" in favour of either prosecution or defence and that issue estoppel had no role in Irish criminal law.
He noted that the correctness of original rulings could never be tested on appeal if issue estoppel was applied. Where a first trial was aborted or where a jury disagreed, there was no conviction and therefore no recourse to the appeal court.
If issue estoppel applied, an accused would lose a clear legal right of appeal in relation to what could be the most critical point of the case against them, the judge said. This was in breach both of the Constitution and the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms.