The Court of Criminal Appeal set aside Ian Horgan’s convictions for robbery and unlawfully taking possession of a vehicle after ruling that evidence seized from his home came from a search carried out outside the authority of the warrant. The court directed a retrial.
Mr Horgan had been convicted after a five-day trial and sentenced to eight years for robbery and three years for the vehicle offence. The sentences were to run concurrently, but consecutively to a sentence he was already serving.
The appeal concerned the use of DNA evidence and the search warrant. The prosecution had initially intended to rely on DNA samples taken from Mr Horgan on 7 September 2005, the day after the offences. The judgment says proceedings were not started within six months and no extension was sought to retain those samples, which should therefore have been destroyed. The prosecution instead relied on a sample taken in 2000, when Mr Horgan was 16, in connection with separate offences.
The appeal court rejected the argument that relying on the earlier sample breached basic fairness. It said the prosecution had changed its approach before trial and had not acted to circumvent a decision by the trial court. It also declined to consider a separate challenge to whether the 2000 sample was lawfully taken, because that issue had not been raised at trial. The trial judge had been told, without dispute, that the sample was lawfully obtained, and the parties had agreed that the DNA evidence could be presented as non-contentious.
The court allowed the challenge to the search. The warrant form left blank the space for the name of the Garda member authorised to conduct the search. Although the warrant identified the detective who applied for it and was addressed to a superintendent, neither attended the search. The superintendent had endorsed it to a sergeant, but the court held that the legislation did not permit that reassignment. It ruled the search did not comply with the statutory requirements and that its fruits were inadmissible.
Despite excluding that evidence, the court said there was abundant evidence on which a properly directed jury could find Mr Horgan guilty. It granted leave to appeal, treated the application as the appeal hearing, set aside the convictions on both counts and ordered a retrial. The judgment does not state the outcome of any later proceedings.