The High Court has refused Eleanor Joel’s application to prohibit a second trial on a manslaughter charge arising from her mother’s death. Mr Justice Charleton said disclosure disputes and questions about who caused the death should be dealt with by the trial judge and jury.
Mrs Evelyn Joel died in hospital on 7 January 2006, after being brought there six days earlier. The judgment recounts competing claims about her care and cause of death. The prosecution case was that neglect, malnutrition and bed sores contributed to her death. The defence position, as described by the judge, was that the Health Service Executive bore substantial responsibility. The judge made no finding on those disputed claims.
The first trial began in October 2011. The jury was directed to return no guilty verdict on a reckless endangerment charge, while the manslaughter charge went to the jury. After a six-week trial and deliberations, the jury reported on 6 December 2011 that it was deadlocked.
Joel’s judicial review application raised continuing disclosure concerns, complaints about the Garda investigation and a challenge to the constitutionality of criminally negligent manslaughter as too vague. The judge said disclosure during a prosecution was primarily for the trial judge, and that judicial review to stop a trial required a real risk of an unfair trial that ordinary trial safeguards could not overcome.
He also held that responsibility for the death was a causation question for a jury, not judicial review. Rejecting the vagueness challenge, he said criminally negligent manslaughter required a very high degree of negligence and an objectively apparent, unjustified serious risk to life.
The court refused the application after considering the parties’ submissions and answers. It did not decide the disputed care, investigation or causation allegations. The judge said the appropriate course was to raise fair-trial protections with the trial judge.