The jury in the trial of a Limerick man who denies murdering a carpenter will resume its deliberations tomorrow.
The nine women and three men were sent home this evening after failing to agree a unanimous verdict in the murder trial of Kenneth Collopy following under two hours of deliberations at the Central Criminal Court.
Collopy (20) of Kilonan, Ballysimon, has pleaded not guilty to murdering Daniel Fitzgerald on December 8th, 2009. The 25-year-old was shot in the head and leg as he left his uncle’s home at Ballysimon.
The defence argues that Collopy had only intended to shoot at the caravans the Fitzgerald family were temporarily staying in at the time, after he was mistakenly led to believe that a family member was responsible for an arson attack on his mother’s van, which she used in her job as a market trader.
Addressing the jury, senior defence counsel, Brendan Grehan SC said Collopy was a “hot-headed teenager, foolish, stupid, with a misconceived perception of retaliation, acting recklessly and dangerously, but without the necessary intent of killing.”
He said Daniel Fitzgerald died because “he was in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
Mr Grehan said his client was responsible for the death of Mr Fitzgerald but did not have the necessary intention for murder. He said the shooting was “not something that has any of the hallmarks of serious planning” and that it was “a reckless act” that had to be distinguished from an act with serious intent.
However, Mary-Ellen Ring SC, for the prosecution told the jury a “true verdict in accordance with the evidence is one of guilty (of murder)”.
In charging the jury, Mr Justice Barry White said the verdicts of either murder or manslaughter were open to them.
He said the central issue for them was “not the intention of the accused man when he might have gone out to Fitzgerald’s home, but what his state of mind was when pulling the trigger.” He instructed the jury to return a unanimous verdict.