help me find the name of a case ?

smalone21

hi there, im doing an assignment for my first year in law, i was wondering if anyone would be able to tell me the proper name and citation for this particular case:

the case is about a woman named Danielle Kerrigan and her boyfriend Eamonn Harkin, he savagely beat her up for 90 mins straight, Ms Kerrigan challenged Judge John O'Hagan after he sentenced Harkin to 240 hours community service last November.

i tried to find it on some legal websites but i've had no luck and in order to use it in my essay i need to get the proper citation for my legal referencing.

my essay topic is do irish judges have to much power when sentencing criminal offences so if anyone has any other cases or articles that could help me i would be very appreciative

can anyone please help?

thank you

MarkAnthony

Don't be too hung up (as many first year law students are) on using wikipedia or google. It's not acceptable to cite these sources but they can be a useful jumping off point.

If you google the Judge in that case for example you're going to find he's a circuit court Judge, as such there won't be a written judgement. You may find the case on courts.ie but the case is likely unreported and DPP v Harkin or similar.

234

Unless it was in the CCC or on appeal then it's unlikely to have been reported and therefore entirely useless for sentencing purposes. Also, if you are writing an essay and hope to hang a point on a singe case: don't.

Peregrinus

And, when you say that the victim "challenged" the judge, do you mean that she took some legal proceedings to try and have the sentence reviewed or set aside, or she took some political action to try and have the law changed, or that she was reported in the media as criticising the judge? These are three very different things. If you do write an essay on this you'll need to know which kind of challenge was involved.

The other problem is the facts. If the case is unreported you are reliant on media coverage for the facts. In media reports, these are invariably given selectively. In a case such as this, it's likely that the facts which point towards a heavier sentence will get a lot more voverage than the facts which might have made the judge incline towards lenience. I'm not saying the sentence was right or fair; just that it's very difficult to come to any reliable conclusion about this if all you have are media reports, esp. In a case that has become controversial.

If you want to right an essay on this topic, best not to base it on this case. Look for reported cases on sentencing and sentencing considerations and work from there.

NUTLEY BOY

smalone21 wrote: »

hi there, im doing an assignment for my first year in law, i was wondering if anyone would be able to tell me the proper name and citation for this particular case:

the case is about a woman named Danielle Kerrigan and her boyfriend Eamonn Harkin, he savagely beat her up for 90 mins straight, Ms Kerrigan challenged Judge John O'Hagan after he sentenced Harkin to 240 hours community service last November.

i tried to find it on some legal websites but i've had no luck and in order to use it in my essay i need to get the proper citation for my legal referencing.

my essay topic is do irish judges have to much power when sentencing criminal offences so if anyone has any other cases or articles that could help me i would be very appreciative

can anyone please help?

thank you

Try looking at appeal cases. Here is a link to the Court of Criminal Appeal : http://www.courts.ie/Judgments.nsf/FrmJudgmentsByCourtAll?OpenForm&l=en Click on Court of criminal Appeal.

You have 10 years worth of judgments there. A quick trawl through those might provide some helpful material in terms of judicial thinking including criticisms of the sentence under appeal and the principles or sentencing guidelines being applied. It's a bit of coal mining exercise but that's research for you !

You don't need to read every judgment - a quick scan of the opening paragraphs of the judgments will tell you if the case is of any use or relevance.