The Central Criminal Court: The Limerick Experience

Pages2-6
Cork Online Law R eview 2006
Carney J, The Cen tral Criminal Court: the
Limerick Experien ce
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THE CENTRAL CRIMINAL COURT: THE LIMERICK EXPERIENCE1
This article has been included specially to commemorate the launch of our
fifth edition.
The paper was written to be delivered at a conference in King’s Inns a
couple of years ago. The circumstances which gave rise to its not being given
on that occasion are detailed in an article in the current issue of the Journal of
the Institute of Judicial Studies. Re–reading the paper for the first time in a
couple of years, I cannot for the life of me understand what all the fuss was
about. This is the banned paper:–
This time last year there was such a backlog of murder cases from
Limerick awaiting trial in the Central Criminal Court that we would never be
without a Limerick murder trial at hearing. A murder trial may involve one
hundred witnesses, many of them members of An Garda Siochána, proving
preservation of a scene, service of tea and biscuits pursuant to the Treatment
of Persons in Custody Regulations and negativing ill–treatment of prisoners
in custody.
In the normal run of cases, these witnesses will be dispensed with by
agreement between the parties. We were told, however, at the Fennelly
Commission that in conditions of backlog and delay such agreement would
not be forthcoming because legal teams feared that they might not ultimately
be in the case due to another case running on and might be blamed by their
successors for making an erroneous concession. In this situation, it seemed
that for the foreseeable future it would not be possible to police the streets of
Limerick due to manpower being tied up in Dublin. Accordingly, it was
decided that the Limerick problem would be tackled in Limerick with the
Central Criminal Court sitting outside Dublin for the first time since the
foundation of the State.
There was a lead–in time to the first sitting to avoid clashes with the
Circuit and District Courts and to summon a Central as distinct from a Circuit
Court panel of jurors. During this time I was told on a daily basis, by almost
everyone I met, how the venture could not succeed:–
No jurors would come to court;
No jury would convict;
The jurors would all know the accused;
There would be insufficient jurors in the county;
The juries would be intimidated.
The first murder trial in Limerick was heard at sittings in July, 2003.
Counsel agreed that a juror coming from certain areas connected with the case
should justify a challenge for cause shown. In fact there was not the slightest
difficulty in empanelling juries for any case at these sittings. The jury panel
seemed to me to have a steely determination to reverse the city’s bad press.
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1 The Honourable M r. Justice Paul Carney delivered this paper on 20th October, 2005 , to the
Faculty of Law, Un iversity College, Cork. This versio n also appears in the December ed ition of
the Bar Review 20 05 at p 218.

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