Jury finds O'Reilly guilty of murder

Huggles · 21-07-2007 09:33PM

Amazotheamazing wrote:

So, who here would be happy if they were convicted on that evidence?

He almost certainly did it, but it's not a case I'd like to see tried again.

Thats the thing albeit circumstantial evidence as the prosecution said in the intro to their case, when its all put together it paints quite a disturbing picture.

When he said he was in Phibsboro his phone was near the Naul....he lied....that clinched it for me.

So I think the circumstancial evidence on the whole in this case was a little stronger.

Wertz · 21-07-2007 09:43PM

Capt'n Midnight wrote:

Do the mobile operators record all calls like the Brits do with Echelon ?

3 yrs data retention which is readily available without court order to Gardaí for investigation purposes. They want to do the same with internet usage as well.

is_that_so · 21-07-2007 09:43PM

The SC on the RTE News gave a good summary of the use of circumstantial evidence in cases. It is also extremely puzzling why he never took the stand.

Dudess · 21-07-2007 09:43PM

The SC said circumstantial evidence in some cases - particularly murder - is sufficient.
This was particularly "strong" circumstantial evidence too. The gardaí said there never really was any other suspect - and it was a mammoth investigation.
The view on O'Reilly not taking the stand was that he simply couldn't stand there and say he didn't do it.

road_high · 21-07-2007 09:47PM

Great, delighted for the Callely family. But know it won't bring her back of course.

mobby · 21-07-2007 10:00PM

I feel for the two boys. lost their Mother and now their Father will spend life in jail. Some future for them.Imagine the questions they will ask themselves when they get older. Congrats to the Guards on some class investigation also.

Hobo Sapiens · 21-07-2007 10:09PM

TheGooner wrote:

Jesus, can you elaborate for those that missed it.

EDIT: Just heard it, now I'm watching an interview with him two weeks later....cool as a cucumber...her mother couldnt even look at him.

Have you got a link to that video? I can't find it in the rte archives. My friends who saw it were fairly convinced that he was behind the murder - tho' if you could be convicted on your demeanour, half the country would be in gaol!

Huggles · 21-07-2007 10:12PM

Hobo Sapiens wrote:

Have you got a link to that video? I can't find it in the rte archives. My friends who saw it were fairly convinced that he was behind the murder - tho' if you could be convicted on your demeanour, half the country would be in gaol!

Sorry no, was just on the RTE 9 O'Clock News...

I know what you mean but for a man that lost his wife two weeks earlier in the most violent way, he seemed grand, I mean really grand. I know it comes down to how folk deal with grief but I'd expect more...

Dudess · 21-07-2007 10:18PM

TheGooner, you're right. So many people - I included - were particularly taken with his Late Late interview - you couldn't make up how calm he was. As I said, not "shocked" calm, but he may as well have been talking about his luggage going missing at the airport. I believe that's when the suspicion started and interest in the case went through the roof.
If he hadn't appeared on the Late Late, I wouldn't be surprised if the case was far more low-profile. His ploy to appeal on national television seriously backfired.
Remember Ian Huntley appeared on television. And did Wayne O'Donoghue?

Huggles · 21-07-2007 10:21PM

Dudess wrote:

TheGooner, you're right. So many people - I included - were particularly taken with his Late Late interview - you couldn't make up how calm he was. As I said, not "shocked" calm, but he may as well have been talking about his luggage going missing at the airport. I believe that's when the suspicion started and interest in the case went through the roof.
If he hadn't appeared on the Late Late, I wouldn't be surprised if the case was far more profile. His ploy to appeal on national television seriously backfired.
Remember Ian Huntley appeared on television. And did Wayne O'Donoghue?

Spot on. Its something that came up in the Madeline McCann thread to, the parents, particularly the father seemed grand, but we won't dig that up all over again.

mike65 · 21-07-2007 10:22PM

Does this mean after the media PMs tomorrow and Monday everyone will now
shut the fcuk up about this case? :eek:

Mike.

Dudess · 21-07-2007 10:25PM

To me, Madeleine McCann's parents were calm but due to being in shock/drugged up. There was a big difference between their demeanour and that of Joe O'Reilly's. But yeah, that's enough of that.
Mike, I've a feeling this one won't go away for a long, long time.

BostonB · 21-07-2007 10:29PM

mobby wrote:

I feel for the two boys. lost their Mother and now their Father will spend life in jail. Some future for them....

Terrible.

The Late Late was a red flag for me. There something odd about it.

ziggy · 21-07-2007 10:36PM

This post has been deleted.

seamus · 21-07-2007 10:38PM

Definitely the mobile phone that secured it I think.

I had the pleasure of hearing a summary of the evidence every 30 minutes on the radio, and initially it all looked like weakish evidence. When the guy from Viacom gave his evidence though, the loose threads started to appear. Then when his colleague's alibi was pretty much annihilated by the prosecution, it all unravelled.

Still not convinced it's the safest conviction though.

Dudess · 21-07-2007 10:47PM

ziggy67 wrote:

This is the guy who was on trial for the last couple of weeks for having an affair and owning a mobile phone isn't it? :rolleyes:

And who had a motive, lied about his whereabouts at the time of the murder, spewed bile in a series of emails about the wife that "repulsed" him, didn't take the stand to defend himself...

Huggles · 21-07-2007 10:50PM

Dudess wrote:

And who had a motive, lied about his whereabouts at the time of the murder, spewed bile in a series of emails about the wife that "repulsed" him, didn't take the stand to defend himself...

interferred with the crime scene, was ****ting slabs about the cctv in the quarry, was telling all who'd listen was that the weapon was in the sea, wrote a letter begging for forgiveness and put it in the coffin...

ziggy · 21-07-2007 10:57PM

This post has been deleted.

mike65 · 21-07-2007 10:58PM

TV movie-of-the-week material

Mike.

Schlemm · 21-07-2007 11:04PM

At least now we won't have so many criminals carrying their phones around with them...

cichlid child · 21-07-2007 11:09PM

hope all in yhe joy watching the news on their plasma screens beat the **** out of him

davelerave · 21-07-2007 11:09PM

Schlemm wrote:

At least now we won't have so many criminals carrying their phones around with them...

the phone may have to be registered i think to tie it to the owners movements.lesson learned i'm sure for some of these scumbags
.he didn't take the stand to explain his movements on the morning .i'm sure he killed his wife if he didn't arrange to have her murdered which i doubt

Piste · 21-07-2007 11:11PM

This trial has ben very interesting because most of the evidence we have heard is purely circumstancial and very weak on its own. From a legal perspective I think the evidence was far too weak to convict him, but from a Let-there-be-Jutice point of view I am sure he did it as his demeanour must have given away far more than the evidence did, even though they're uposed to convict on evidence alone I think the Jury must have noticed how he has been acting and taken that into consideration.

whassupp2 · 21-07-2007 11:14PM

Can he appeal??
If he can, I would expect he will because he's come this far......

Dudess · 21-07-2007 11:15PM

ziggy67 wrote:

Hope your never a juror if i'm up for anything?

Hang 'em high!

Horse sh1t. I just listed some of the litany of evidence against him - so that makes me a Herald reader type? Couldn't be further from the kind of person I am.
Yes, it was circumstantial, but a legal expert on the 9 o'clock news said circumstantial evidence is sufficient in a lot of cases - especially murder. And particularly circumstantial evidence like this.

This was already posted but is worth posting again as so many people don't seem to read through all posts:

Wikipedia wrote:

A popular misconception is that circumstantial evidence is less valid or less important than direct evidence. This is only partly true: direct evidence is generally considered more powerful, but successful criminal prosecutions often rely largely on circumstantial evidence, and civil charges are frequently based on circumstantial or indirect evidence. In practice, circumstantial evidence often has an advantage over direct evidence in that it is more difficult to suppress or fabricate.

Much of the evidence against Timothy McVeigh was circumstantial, for example. Speaking about McVeigh's trial, University of Michigan law professor Robert Precht said, "Circumstantial evidence can be, and often is much more powerful than direct evidence".

Huggles · 21-07-2007 11:15PM

whassupp2 wrote:

Can he appeal??
If he can, I would expect he will because he's come this far......

No the judge said no appeal.

davelerave · 21-07-2007 11:15PM

whassupp2 wrote:

Can he appeal??
If he can, I would expect he will because he's come this far......

the judge refused leave to appeal does this mean its final ? any lawyers here

cichlid child · 21-07-2007 11:15PM

whassupp2 wrote:

Can he appeal??
If he can, I would expect he will because he's come this far......

no the judge said no grounds for appeal

nesf · 21-07-2007 11:19PM

Dudess wrote:

Yes, it was circumstantial, but a legal expert on the 9 o'clock news said circumstantial evidence is sufficient in a lot of cases - especially murder. And particularly circumstantial evidence like this.

If you listened closely he pretty much said that you needed to pile up so much evidence to make escape impossible. Circumstantial evidence only works when there's so much of it that it cuts off any potentially plausable alibi or excuse. Though, whether you could convict "beyond reasonable doubt" here troubles me. I'm really not that sure, even after hearing the litany of evidence. I definitely think he did it, but I don't know if you could prove it.

He was denied leave to appeal also which is interesting.

gilroyb · 21-07-2007 11:22PM

The judge will (almost) always deny an appeal, this is not the same as not having a right to appeal. If you think the judge didn't do his job, then obviously he's not the one who gets the last word on whether he did a bad job or not.

He can make an appeal based on legal grounds rather than on the actual evidence of the case. For instance he can try and say that because it was only 11 jurors he should get a retrial. I wouldn't say this will be given as grounds seeing as it was a unanimous verdict in the end, so even if the other juror thought he was innocent, it still would have been 11/1, and a strong enough majority to convict.

People keep saying "I'm sure he did it", but don't think the evidence was strong enough. If the evidence is strong enough to make you sure he did it, then it's strong enough. CSI is not real life. In a murder there are always and usually only two witnesses, the murderer and the victim. In this case there was litterally no smoking gun, but ALL the evidence pointed towards his guilt, and no credible evidence supported JOR's account of what happened. Of course he had the right not to take the stand, but the only evidence given towards his defence was a co-worker who said that he was likely mistaken. So on the evidence it's strong 99% in favour of him being guilty, iffy 1% saying he might be innocent. The jury don't have to find beyond a circumstancial explanation, they have to find beyond a reasonable doubt. Justice has been done, and even though I wasn't in court for the case, I see no grounds to suggest the conviction was in any way unsound.

Jury finds O'Reilly guilty of murder

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