The Court of Criminal Appeal dismissed Jonathan Dunne’s appeal against his murder conviction, ruling that the shooting of Ian Kenny contributed to his death in more than a minimal way, despite Kenny dying almost two years later from pneumonia.
Kenny was shot twice at close range in a parked car on Lakelands Road, Stillorgan, on 4 July 2007. Dunne, who was in the driver’s seat, later admitted shooting him and pleaded guilty to attempted murder and possessing a firearm with intent to endanger life. Kenny remained in a permanent vegetative state and died in Beaumont Hospital on 31 July 2009.
A jury convicted Dunne of murder on 19 January 2012. On appeal, he argued that the decision by Kenny’s family and doctors not to provide certain intensive treatments when his condition worsened broke the chain of causation. He also argued that duress should have been available as a defence, saying he had acted under threats to his life and his family’s lives. Those threats were his claim; the appeal court did not determine them.
The court said the governing test was whether the injuries caused by an accused were related to the death “in more than a minimal way”. Medical evidence was that Kenny’s brain injury from the gunshot wound left him in a permanent vegetative state, which made him vulnerable to infections including pneumonia. The Deputy State Pathologist attributed the bronchial pneumonia to that condition, itself caused by the brain injury, and said the arm wound was also a contributing factor.
The court held that the treatment decisions were accepted as lawful and proper and did not completely break the connection between the shooting and Kenny’s death. It dismissed the causation ground.
The court also rejected the duress ground. It said Irish law, as set out in earlier decisions, did not permit duress as a defence to murder, and that changing this position was for the legislature. It noted that the Law Reform Commission’s 2009 report recommended that duress not be available for murder or attempted murder.
The appeal court acknowledged that parts of the trial judge’s answer to a jury question described Kenny as already “killed”, although causation was the question for the jury. It said that wording, viewed alone, could be considered an error. But read in the context of the full charge and the trial, it did not affect the trial or mislead the jury. The murder conviction appeal was dismissed.