The Court of Criminal Appeal overturned a murder conviction yesterday after finding the conduct of two members of the Garda with the jury in the case rendered the trial unsatisfactory. The court directed a re-trial in the case of Martin McDonagh.
The CCA heard the members, whom it has directed may be identified only as "members", were drinking with some jurors in a hotel bar until about 2 am and one member, referred to as member X, had afterwards allegedly gone to the room of a woman juror who later complained he had sexually assaulted her.
Member X has denied the allegation in a statement and no criminal proceedings have been taken. His counsel told the CCA yesterday member X was also denying that he was drunk.
While finding the conduct of the members rendered the conviction of Mr McDonagh unsatisfactory, Mr Justice Hardiman said it would be wrong to place the blame entirely on the jury keepers in the absence of any guidelines or proper instructions for gardai who are charged with keeping juries. He noted that, in other jurisdictions, the function of jury-keeping is performed by independent officials and not police officers.
There should be more directions as to the proper mode of jury-keeping, he said. It would be desirable, if possible, to have a woman Garda among the jury keepers. Women gardai had previously undertaken such duties.
The three-judge court quashed the conviction of Mr McDonagh (31), formerly with an address at Hampstead, England, for the murder of Patrick 'Deuce' Ward after a funeral at Ballymote, Co Sligo, on May 10th 1999. Mr Ward died after he was shot during a row between traveller families. Mc Donagh was convicted of murder by a majority 10/2 verdict at the Central Criminal Court on February 23rd 2002.
Mr Justice Hardiman, sitting with Mr Justice O'Sullivan and Mr Justice McKechnie, directed there should be a retrial in the case. Mr McDonagh was remanded in custody pending the outcome of a bail application to be made shortly.