DPP v Cahill

• Jurisdiction: Ireland
• Court: Court of Criminal Appeal
• Judgment Date: 01 January 1980
• Docket Number: [C.C.A. No. 31 of 1979]
• Date: 01 January 1980

Court of Criminal Appeal

[C.C.A. No. 31 of 1979]

The People v. Cahill

The People (at the Suit of The Director of Public Prosecutions)

and

Michael Cahill

Cases mentioned in this report:—

¹ The State (Woods) v. The Attorney General [1969] I.R. 385:

² The State (Morris) v. Governor of Mountjoy Prison (Supreme Court — 16th December, 1970).

³ The People (D.P.P.) v. Fagan (C.C.A.— 7th November, 1977 — extempore).

⁴ The People (Attorney General) v. Cronin [1972] I.R. 159.

⁵ The People (D.P.P.) v. O'Toole (C.C.A. — 26th May, 1978 — extempore).

Criminal law - Sentence - Review - Nor the function of the trial judge - Trial judge purporting to reserve power to review sentence of imprisonment imposed by him - Criminal Justice Act, 1951 (No. 2), s. 23.

Criminal Appeal.

The facts have been summarised in the head-note and they are stated in the judgment of Henchy J., infra.

Article 13, s. 6, of the Constitution of Ireland, 1937, provides:— "The right of pardon and the power to commute or remit punishment imposed by any court exercising criminal jurisdiction are hereby vested in the President, but such power of commutation or remission may, except in capital cases, also be conferred by law on other authorities." Section 23, sub-s. 1, of the Criminal Justice Act, 1951, states:— "Except in capital cases, the Government may commute or remit, in whole or in part, any punishment imposed by a Court exercising criminal jurisdiction, subject to such conditions as they may think proper." Sub-section 3 of s. 23 of the Act of 1951 states:— "The Government may delegate to the Minister for Justice any power conferred by this section and may revoke any such delegation."

The order made by the Central Criminal Court (Hamilton J.) on the 27th April, 1979, stated:— ". . . the Court doth order that accused be imprisoned for 7 years but doth direct that when 36 months served accused is to be brought back before the Court and if in the meantime he has obeyed normal prison discipline and has shown a willingness to co-operate in preparing himself for integration into normal society the Court will consider suspending the then balance of said sentence . . ." Similar orders were considered in The State (Woods) v. The Attorney General¹ [1969] I.R. 385: and in The State (Morris) v. Governor of Mountjoy Prison.² (Supreme Court — 16th December, 1970).

Cahill's application for leave to appeal against the above sentence was heard by the Court of Criminal Appeal (Henchy, D'Arcy and Keane JJ.) on the 17th July, 1979.

The accused was convicted in the Central Criminal Court of burglary. In sentencing the accused to seven years imprisonment, the trial judge directed that the Court would "consider suspending the then balance of said sentence" if the accused were to be brought before the Court after the expiration...