RTE finds District Court discrepancies

District Court sentencing is a "lottery" in which punishment depends more on the judge than on the nature of the offence, an RTÉ investigation has concluded.

The Prime Time documentary, broadcast last night, found huge discrepancies in the sentencing records of judges in neighbouring districts. It also claimed that while the overall success rate for District Court appeals in the first half of 2004 was 63 per cent, county rates ranged from 20 per cent in Longford to 92 per cent in Donegal.

The programme claimed that discrepancies in sentencing had given rise to a widespread phenomenon of "judge-shopping" by defendants, especially in Dublin, where several different judges are available to hear cases. In this practice, lawyers avoid judges likely to take a harsh view of the offence in question by continually seeking adjournments - ostensibly for technical reasons - until they get the judge they want.

Prime Time found that the only official comparisons on District Court sentencing are recent computer records from a pilot scheme in Dublin and Limerick. These suggest that drunk drivers and public order offenders are 80 per cent more likely to be jailed in Limerick than in Dublin. On the other hand, drug offences are twice as likely to attract a prison sentence in Dublin.

In the absence of official sentencing data, the programme compiled its own figures, drawn from 1,500 provincial newspaper court reports for the first half of 2004. Conceding that this was "not scientific", it nevertheless found startling disparities between sentencing records of neighbouring judges.

For example, the north midlands-based Judge John Neilan - recently criticised by the Minister for Justice for threatening all drunk drivers with seven days in prison - was found to have jailed 25 per cent of all offenders coming before him. This compared with 3 per cent for the neighbouring Judge David Maughan.

Both judges were acting within their remit, the programme stressed, but on public order offences the contrast was even more stark.

Ninety-five per cent of those convicted by Judge Neilan acquired a criminal record, compared with 2 per cent in the case of Judge Maughan, who let the remainder off with contributions to the poor-box.

The investigation concluded that District Courts were seriously overburdened, with Prof Dermot Walsh, of the University of Limerick's Centre for Criminal Justice, suggesting that the system only functioned because an overwhelming majority of defendants pleaded guilty.

However, the programme also criticised the system for not requiring judges to record the reasons for their sentences, in contravention of the European Convention on Human Rights.

It was "almost bizarre" that courts could deprive a person of liberty and that the judge was not required to give written justification, Prof Walsh said.

A spokeswoman for the Minister for Justice declined to comment last night, saying that Mr McDowell had not had a chance to see the programme.