The Supreme Court has dismissed Gary Campion’s appeal against his conviction for the 2002 murder of Brian Fitzgerald in Limerick, finding no basis to stop the trial or withdraw the case from the jury over concerns about the mental health of the main prosecution witness.
In a judgment delivered on 30 July 2018, Ms Justice Iseult O’Malley said the trial judge had been right that he could not compel James Martin Cahill to undergo a psychiatric examination. The reports available to the trial judge did not show that Cahill had a mental illness that raised a real possibility of affecting his ability to give evidence, the Supreme Court said.
Cahill had pleaded guilty to the murder and was sentenced to life imprisonment. The prosecution’s case against Campion relied primarily on Cahill’s evidence that Campion agreed to provide and drive a motorcycle used to take him to and from the scene. Other evidence the trial judge considered potentially corroborative included CCTV clips and a taxi driver’s account. Campion was the only one of four defendants convicted at the 2007 trial; the jury acquitted Desmond Dundon and Anthony Kelly, while the trial judge directed a not guilty verdict for John Dundon.
Defence lawyers had sought an examination based on prison medical records describing, among other matters, anxiety, distress and reports of voices. The Supreme Court noted that no doctor had diagnosed Cahill with a mental illness in the records before the trial judge. It also said the defence had been allowed to use the medical material in cross-examination and could have sought to call appropriate expert evidence, but did not do so.
The Court rejected the argument that the examination refusal made the trial unfair or that the evidence against Campion was so unreliable that the judge should have directed an acquittal. Whether to believe Cahill, and whether the prosecution had proved guilt beyond reasonable doubt, were matters for the jury under proper directions and warnings, the judgment said. The trial judge had warned the jury about the risks of relying on an accomplice’s uncorroborated evidence and specifically cautioned them to consider whether Cahill’s account reflected recollection or mental affliction.
The Supreme Court said expert psychiatric evidence about a witness’s reliability may be admissible in appropriate circumstances, but it did not resolve the full limits of that evidence because none was proffered at trial. It dismissed the appeal, leaving Campion’s conviction in place.