The Court of Criminal Appeal reduced Garrett Cooney’s 14-year prison sentence for manslaughter to eight years, after finding that the sentencing judge had erred in principle.
In a judgment delivered on 27 July 2004, the court treated Cooney’s application for leave to appeal as the appeal itself, allowed it and imposed an eight-year sentence. It did not disturb his manslaughter conviction.
Cooney had pleaded guilty to manslaughter after the fatal stabbing of Christopher Farrell in the front garden of Cooney’s home at Cloonmore Park, Tallaght, on New Year’s Day 2002. The Director of Public Prosecutions accepted the plea. Cooney had originally been charged with murder. He was sentenced to 14 years’ imprisonment in the Central Criminal Court on 27 June 2003.
The appeal court said the sentencing judge’s brief remarks focused on the effect of Farrell’s death on his family and the prevalence of knife attacks. The judge made no reference to Cooney’s immediate and consistent admission of guilt, remorse, personal circumstances or prospect of rehabilitation, although those matters had been raised in mitigation and addressed in a psychiatric report.
The appeal court said sentencing should account for both the seriousness of the crime and the convicted person’s circumstances. It found the sentencing judge had been overly influenced by the victim’s family’s presence and evidence, and had treated the case too much as one between the accused and the victims, rather than between the State and the accused.
The court also found an error in placing undue emphasis on knife attacks as a category requiring greater sentences. It said manslaughter by stabbing should not be treated as a separate, more serious category from other forms of manslaughter.
In setting the replacement sentence, the court described the offence as extremely serious and acknowledged its profound effect on Farrell’s relatives. It also noted Cooney’s immediate admission of guilt, lack of prior violent offending or previous custodial sentence, remorse, work and family commitments, and the psychiatric opinion that he did not appear violent in ordinary circumstances. The court said there was a reasonable hope of rehabilitation.
The court concluded that 14 years was excessive and imposed eight years’ imprisonment. The judgment records that the DPP had entered a nolle prosequi on two lesser charges of possessing an offensive weapon and affray.