The Supreme Court has ruled that Enda Lynch must be free to challenge evidential issues again at his forthcoming manslaughter retrial in Limerick, despite rulings against him during an earlier trial.
Lynch was tried for manslaughter before Limerick Circuit Criminal Court in February 2004. During that trial, his defence challenged the admissibility of evidence from an identification parade and identification evidence from a particular witness. Judge Carroll Moran rejected those challenges and ruled that the evidence could be admitted.
The jury later failed to reach a verdict and was discharged.
When the case was listed for retrial in December 2004, the prosecution argued that the earlier evidential rulings had already been finally determined and could not be litigated again. Judge Moran accepted that argument and held that "issue estoppel" applied in favour of the prosecution. Issue estoppel is a legal rule which, in appropriate circumstances, prevents a question already decided between parties from being reopened.
Lynch challenged that decision by judicial review. The High Court refused to quash the ruling in July 2005, relying on an earlier Court of Criminal Appeal decision which had recognised issue estoppel in a criminal case.
Mr Justice Kearns, delivering the Supreme Court judgment, took a different view. He held that applying issue estoppel against an accused could deprive that person of an effective appeal against an evidential ruling made during an aborted trial. Where a jury disagrees, there is no conviction and therefore no route to the Court of Criminal Appeal to test whether the original ruling was correct.
The court also identified practical problems with carrying rulings from one trial into another and said a criminal trial should remain a self-contained process.
Because issue estoppel depends on mutuality, Kearns J concluded that it should not operate for either side. The defence therefore cannot claim an automatic benefit from favourable rulings made in an earlier aborted trial either.
The appeal was allowed and Judge Moran’s ruling of 14 December 2004 was quashed.