The Court of Appeal has dismissed an appeal by anonymised appellant CC against his conviction for murdering Urantsetseg Tserendorj, finding no error in the challenged trial rulings and concluding that the complaints about the trial’s conduct did not make the verdict unsafe.
The court delivered judgment on 2 November 2023. CC was convicted by a majority jury verdict on 11 November 2022 of murdering Tserendorj. He had pleaded guilty to attempted robbery and producing an article capable of causing serious injury. The judgment says he was a minor at sentencing and received detention for life, with a review after 13 years, backdated to 21 January 2021.
The appeal concerned whether CC intended to kill or cause serious injury. He accepted that he stabbed Tserendorj and that the injury caused her death. The prosecution relied in part on evidence that, about 25 minutes after the fatal attack, CC tried unsuccessfully to take an iPhone from another woman and then showed her a knife while warning that matters could have been worse. The Court of Appeal held that the incident was relevant to the jury’s assessment of his state of mind, including the defence suggestions of panic and intoxication. It also found that the trial judge had properly directed the jury to consider the evidence only for that limited purpose and that its probative value outweighed its prejudicial effect.
The court described the prosecution’s opening remark that CC had “gone for the jugular” as unnecessary and “on the high side”. It nevertheless agreed that the remark reflected the prosecution case on intent and was not so prejudicial that the jury should have been discharged or the conviction quashed.
The appeal also challenged the admission of Tserendorj’s statements to her husband after the attack as a dying declaration. The trial judge had found that she had a settled, hopeless expectation of death. The Court of Appeal upheld that ruling, citing her repeated statements that she was dying while blood poured from her neck. It said the legal test was met despite evidence that a taxi driver thought she appeared normal and that she spoke with emergency services and gardaí before going to hospital.
CC also complained about the trial judge’s approach to him as a child accused. The appeal court said those complaints did not affect trial fairness or render the verdict unsafe. Having rejected all grounds, it dismissed the appeal against conviction. The judgment does not determine a separate appeal against sentence in its concluding order.