The Court of Criminal Appeal set aside John McGovern’s conviction for producing a weapon after finding that the jury had not been told clearly enough that self-defence could answer that charge. It refused him leave to appeal his manslaughter conviction.
The court delivered its judgment on 21 July 2010. McGovern had been tried in the Central Criminal Court over a fight in Ennis, Co Clare, on 23 June 2007. He was charged with murdering Michael Doherty and with producing a knife during a dispute or fight.
The appeal concerned directions given to the jury by the trial judge. McGovern challenged the handling of several requests by his counsel for the judge to clarify or repeat parts of the charge. The appeal court rejected the complaints concerning the murder count and several other directions, saying those points lacked merit and did not raise an injustice.
The court treated the request concerning the second count differently. The trial judge had told the jury that the charge alleged McGovern produced a knife in a way likely unlawfully to intimidate another person, but said the words were self-explanatory and required no particular comment. Defence counsel had asked the judge to clarify that producing a weapon to deter an ongoing assault could be lawful self-defence. The judge did not agree to that request.
The appeal court said the charge, considered as a whole, had not made sufficiently clear that self-defence could also provide a defence to the weapon charge. It granted leave to appeal on that ground, treated the leave application as the hearing of the appeal, and set aside the conviction on Count 2.
The court rejected a separate argument that the error affected the murder count. It said the jury had been clearly and explicitly directed that the conduct underlying that count had to be unlawful. The court refused leave to appeal the conviction described in its final order as manslaughter. The judgment’s opening account refers to a murder charge; it does not explain the intervening verdict.