A Tallaght man accused of committing a murder after his brother was knocked down in a hit-and-run incident in 1996 was found guilty of manslaughter but not guilty of murder by a Central Criminal Court jury yesterday.
Andy Wall (22) had pleaded guilty to manslaughter, but not guilty of the murder, of Mr John McCarthy (35) at a halting site at Fortunestown Lane, off Brookfield Road, on July 15th, 1996.
He had admitted having a .22 sawn-off rifle and ammunition without lawful purpose at the time of the incident.
The jury also found him not guilty on counts of having the rifle and ammunition with intent to endanger life or cause damage to property.
During his trial, Wall fully accepted that Mr McCarthy had had nothing to do with an earlier hit-and-run incident in which the accused's brother was knocked down. Evidence was given that those responsible for the hit-and-run came neither from Mr McCarthy's family nor from the travelling community.
The jury of eight women and four men took just over 1 1/2 hours to return the verdict yesterday evening.
The verdict was greeted with applause by members of Wall's family. Members of Mr McCarthy's family were also in court throughout the trial.
The prosecution case advanced by Mr Denis Vaughan Buckley SC was that Wall "knew quite well what he was doing" when he shot Mr McCarthy in a caravan in the early hours of July 15th.
But Mr Michael McDowell SC, for Wall, told the jury that after seeing the brother he loved lying on the ground apparently dead after a hit-and-run, Andy Wall was "deeply confused and massively traumatised," especially as another brother had died in a traffic accident eight years previously.
He said Wall's first response was to try to get into the ambulance that was taking his brother to hospital.
The scene at the accident was "hysterical," said Mr McDowell, and "more than blood and flesh could endure.
"These were horrific moments in the lives of the young people who witnessed them," but he fully accepted that those scenes were exceeded by what the young McCarthy children had to endure only minutes later.
However, Mr McDowell said, when he went in a car to the halting site and shot John McCarthy, Andy Wall was not in a state to form an intention to kill anyone. Rather, "he was acting like a man out of control, suffused by a rage that drove him on."
After yesterday's verdict, Mr Justice O'Higgins put back sentencing to March 12th pending the receipt of probation reports. He warned Mr McDowell: "Without pre-empting anything, your client is facing a very substantial sentence."