John O Brien not guilty?

Sully

eoin_s wrote: »

That was a civil case, not a criminal one. Beyond reasonable doubt turns into "more likely than not".

Meg Walshs family are said to be considering doing a civil case against John OBrien as they were not happy with the outcome of the case in the High Court.

johnnyskeleton

kearnsr wrote: »

I thought you couldnt be charged for the same thing twice?

You can be charged twice (or in theory several times), but if you are tried and found not guilty you cannot be retried on the same charge or a lesser charge arising from the same facts (e.g. assault after being acquitted with murder).

So if you are charged again you can raise the plea in bar of autrefois acquit, and will therefore not be retried.

So "double jeopardy" does exist in Ireland.

kreuzberger

I dont think this domestic stuff is newsworthy at all . Of course its a big issue for the families involved but its noithing to feckin do with the rest of us . We are being ripped off daily and the media are shoving this soap opera stuff down our throats instead . Its not news , its drama . A private family incident with all sorts of voyeuristic hoo ha .
Meanwhile the healthservice , shell , Tony Oreilly and all the rest , stuff that actually affects us and we need to know about gets relegated to behind it .
This is just dumbed down soap opera stuff .

johnnyskeleton

loyatemu wrote: »

i'd be very surprised if he could be tried again - I recall the DPP entering a "null prosequie" (or whatever its called) in cases in the past when they realised they had little chance of getting a conviction but wanted to have the option to prosecute again in the future.

If a nolle prosequi is entered that is the end of the matter.

TheNog wrote: »

[you can be retried]on foot of new evidence only

Not if found not guilty by a jury. There was a proposal to allow the DPP to appeal an acquittal, but I don't think it was passed.

However, an accused can appeal a conviction based on new evidence coming to light.

This might appear unfair, or in favour of the accused, but the reality is that the prosecution have the burden of presenting the evidence and they must do so in as complete a manner as possible.

is_that_so wrote: »

I am sure there was a local or two where I grew up who would have had a less than salutary opinion of me and who would claim to know me well. "Locals" thrive on gossip and half-formed opinions and it grows legs faster than bacteria.

This is it; the evidence here wasn't even what you could call circumstantial - it's just speculation and "Go on, he obviously did it, I mean look at him" type evidence.

is_that_so wrote: »

Did no-one see, in the prosecution of this case, that there was an awful lot of circumstantial evidence in conjunction with an awful lot of unknowns? Under the legal system I would suggest that "guilty beyond reasonable doubt" was always going to be tough.

Probably, but the DPP's attitude of late has been to send these high profile murder cases to trial and let a jury sort it out. It's probably a correct policy to take, although garda investigations (in general, not in this case) can be quite lazy at times.

eoin_s wrote: »

I was listening to a solicitor talk to Matt Cooper this evening, and she made the point that circumstantial evidence should not be underestimated or considered weak. It just means that one has to draw an opinion from any number of facts.

Circumstantial evidence is evidence which could point to guilt, but it could also be explained by any number of reasonable explainations. For example, I might have been seen hanging around outside a bank the night before it was robbed, but that is not evidence that I robbed it.

This solicitor seems to be mixing circumstantial evidence up with a recent CCA decision on how a jury can find that someone "intended" to do an act. A jury can draw inferences of what a person was thinking from looking at a number of surrounding facts, but they cannot infer other facts from these facts. So while the facts that someone who is caught with a pile of heroin is holding a weighing scales, a lot of money, and a phone with text messages saying "will you sell me some gear" and the like can be used to infer that he intended it for the purpose of sale or supply, but if he is found without the heroin, it can't be inferred from the fact that he was holding the weighing scales, lot of money and the phone that he is in possession of heroin sufficient for a conviction.

Circumstantial evidence should definately be underestimated and considered weak, moreover it should be considered to be highly misleading.

eoin_s wrote: »

My understanding is that unless someone actually saw the deceased being killed, then any evidence could only be considered circumstantial (bar expert testimony I think).

Non-circumstantial evidence could be:
1) someone seeing the event
2) cctv capturing the person at the scene
3) admissions made to the gardai
4) forensic science evidence from the body
5) forensic science from the scene
6) forensic science from the accused
7) murder weapon
8) clothes worn by the murderer
and that is just in a case of alleged murder such as this one. There are many different kinds of evidence, and in my view circumstantial evidence (for example, him having 2 sets of keys for the car, him making a mistake in accounting for his whereabouts, someone seeing a person go to a car etc) should only ever be used to bolster a prosecution case, not to make it.

In my view, again just based on the evidence as presented in the media, the jury were completely correct, and the finding of not guilty was completely correct. Irish murder trials are usually very weak on forensic science/pathology evidence, whereas in America these can often be the main part of the prosecution.

Eoin

johnnyskeleton wrote: »

Circumstantial evidence is evidence which could point to guilt, but it could also be explained by any number of reasonable explainations. For example, I might have been seen hanging around outside a bank the night before it was robbed, but that is not evidence that I robbed it.

This solicitor seems to be mixing circumstantial evidence up with a recent CCA decision on how a jury can find that someone "intended" to do an act. A jury can draw inferences of what a person was thinking from looking at a number of surrounding facts, but they cannot infer other facts from these facts. So while the facts that someone who is caught with a pile of heroin is holding a weighing scales, a lot of money, and a phone with text messages saying "will you sell me some gear" and the like can be used to infer that he intended it for the purpose of sale or supply, but if he is found without the heroin, it can't be inferred from the fact that he was holding the weighing scales, lot of money and the phone that he is in possession of heroin sufficient for a conviction.

Circumstantial evidence should definately be underestimated and considered weak, moreover it should be considered to be highly misleading.



Non-circumstantial evidence could be:
1) someone seeing the event
2) cctv capturing the person at the scene
3) admissions made to the gardai
4) forensic science evidence from the body
5) forensic science from the scene
6) forensic science from the accused
7) murder weapon
8) clothes worn by the murderer
and that is just in a case of alleged murder such as this one. There are many different kinds of evidence, and in my view circumstantial evidence (for example, him having 2 sets of keys for the car, him making a mistake in accounting for his whereabouts, someone seeing a person go to a car etc) should only ever be used to bolster a prosecution case, not to make it.

Do you have any links that show this definition of circumstantial evidence? It differs from what I have read anywhere else. Any definitions I have seen just mean that some inference is required by the judge / jury.

2) cctv capturing the person at the scene

Surely this is circumstantial? It shows the person was at the scene (as per your own bank example). If there is a ton of other circumstantial evidence, then it could be quite reasonable to infer that someone is guilty.

johnnyskeleton

eoin_s wrote: »

Do you have any links that show this definition of circumstantial evidence? It differs from what I have read anywhere else. Any definitions I have seen just mean that some inference is required by the judge / jury.

I should say that "circumstantial" evidence does not form a discrete type of evidence (such as "hearsay evidence" or "direct evidence"), but a good description comes from Sands' Criminal Law which states:

"It is evidence of surrounding circumstances which by undesigned coincidence is capable of proving a proposition with the accuracy of mathematics. It is no derogation of evidence to say that it is circumstantial. A jury may convict on purely circumstantial evidence but to do this they must be satisfied not only that the circumstances were consistent with the prisoner having committed the act but also that the facts were such as to be inconsistent with any other rational conclusion than that he was the guilty person""

The reason I say that it could be explained by any number of other reasons is that is the nature of the beast, rather than part of its definition. Because circumstantial evidence is not direct evidence, there is invariably another or several other reasonable explainantions for it. It is only when several pieces of circumstantial evidence are combined that they can be correctly used to establish a fact, and even then it is very hard to do with any kind of certainty. It is insufficient to simply form an opinion from the circumstances that the person is guilty. I would go further and say that purely circumstantial evidence should never be sufficient, but apparently 2/3 juries disagree with me.

So while if the circumstances indicate that the only rational conclusion is that the accused is guilty a jury can correctly convict on circumstantial evidence, they cannot correctly convict if there is any alternative explaination of the circumstantial evidence, nor can they infer additional facts or form the opinion that something else could have happened from those circumstances.

Furthermore, if facts A, B, and C need to be proved for a conviction, and the circumstancial evidence indicates that fact A occured, they cannot use this to form the opinion that A happened if there is any other rational possibility to be drawn from them, and also they cannot form this opinion in respect of fact A and use it to infer that fact B also happened. Circumstantial evidnce used to find one of the facts is much stronger when the other 2 facts are found on the basis of direct evidence (e.g. inferring intention from the circumstances where the other facts of the offence are found on direct & physical evidence), but to find all of the 3 facts on the basis of circumstantial evidence is wrong because there are so many alternative explainations and it is inadequate to simply say that the weight of these circumstances makes me believe that he is guilty.

eoin_s wrote: »

2) cctv capturing the person at the scene

Surely this is circumstantial? It shows the person was at the scene (as per your own bank example). If there is a ton of other circumstantial evidence, then it could be quite reasonable to infer that someone is guilty.

I meant CCTV capturing the person at the scene while doing the deed as opposed to merely being there at the time. Again, circumstantial evidence can only be used to find guilt where there is no other rational explaination possible.

Eoin

I have little doubt that you have more legal knowledge than me, but it seems you are contradicting yourself (through the Sands' Criminal Law bit you quoted).

"It is no derogation of evidence to say that it is circumstantial"

and

"I would go further and say that purely circumstantial evidence should never be sufficient, but apparently 2/3 juries disagree with me."

So, it is possible that a jury could be shown a huge amount of circumstantial evidence that could not reasonably leave a conclusion of innocence?

johnnyskeleton

eoin_s wrote: »

I have little doubt that you have more legal knowledge than me, but it seems you are contradicting yourself (through the Sands' Criminal Law bit you quoted).

"It is no derogation of evidence to say that it is circumstantial"

and

"I would go further and say that purely circumstantial evidence should never be sufficient, but apparently 2/3 juries disagree with me."

There is no contradiction because while I accept the legal definition I don't think it matches up with reality, in that I can't see any amount of circumstantial evidence leaving me with the unescapable conclusion that a person is guilty without any sort of direct, real or forensic evidence. It almost beggars belief that while we have access to cutting edge forensic science technology and wide ranging garda powers, sometimes we still seem to be relying on "Come on, of course he did it, sure who else could it have been?" The situation is different if circumstantial evidence is used to prove one fact of several (typically intention), but to use it to gloss over the complete lack of any "proper" (for want of a better word) evidence is wrong in my view.

It is cases based entirely on circumstantial evidence that leads to incorrect convictions, far more so than people who make false complaints. While you can cross examine a person who falsely claims rape or assault and prove them to be a liar, you cannot (generally) cross examine circumstantial evidence with a view to showing that it has an alternative interpretation. High profile cases of injustice such as the birmingham 6 were based on falsified confessions and circumstantial evidence

eoin_s wrote: »

So, it is possible that a jury could be shown a huge amount of circumstantial evidence that could not reasonably leave a conclusion of innocence?

Legally yes, but if I were a jury member I simply wouldn't accept it. With circumstantial evidence, you really are at the mercy of the prosecution's say so. The state can use hundreds of gardai to dig up all sorts of circumstantial evidence, and circumstantial evidence rarely means anything from an inductive point of view. It's only if you have predetermined that someone is guilty and are trying to get any sort of evidence to show this that circumstantial evidence takes on any kind of meaning. But worse, I'm sure if an accused person had a team of dozens of detectives, a handful of superintendents, the top legal teams in the country and any number of ordinary gardai to do his bidding, he could equally present enough circumstantial evidence to prove that he wasn't there, or that it was someone else, or that there are so many odd unexplained things in the world that it's simply impossible to know what any of it means.

Eoin

Do you not consider forensic evidence to be a form of circumstantial evidence?