The Court of Appeal has quashed the directed acquittals of S.M. and J.B. on charges arising from the shooting of a 17-year-old in Dublin 8, ruling that the prosecution case should have gone to a jury. It ordered a retrial.
The judgment, delivered by President Birmingham on 26 February 2024, concerns the trial judge’s decision to withdraw the charges after the prosecution closed its case. The judge had concluded that, even taken at its highest, the evidence was too tenuous for a properly directed jury to convict. The Director of Public Prosecutions appealed under section 23 of the Criminal Procedure Act 2010, which permits an appeal on a question of law.
The Court of Appeal found that the trial ruling focused on weaknesses in individual strands of evidence without specifically considering their cumulative effect. It held that the evidence, viewed at its highest, required consideration by a jury. The court quashed the acquittals because withdrawing the case was an error of law and ordered a retrial. It did not decide whether either respondent committed the offences.
The charges followed the shooting of a teenager who was a passenger in a taxi on Eugene Street, Dublin 8, shortly before 11pm on 24 February 2021. A black Hyundai hatchback was seen on CCTV leaving the area and was later found on fire, with a Beretta pistol inside. Ballistics evidence at trial linked that pistol to the shots fired at the teenager. No witness placed either respondent at the shooting scene.
The prosecution case relied on CCTV tracking vehicles, the identification of S.M. running from the Sandford Gardens area hours before the shooting, and firearm residue found on gardening gloves in J.B.’s pocket when he was stopped with S.M. in a black BMW about 20 minutes after the shooting. The prosecution also relied on evidence connecting the BMW and Hyundai through a person associated with both vehicles, and on the respondents’ failure to answer questions after inference provisions were invoked. The court said that failure alone could not support a conviction, but could potentially support other evidence.
The respondents had argued that the DPP’s appeal did not identify a legal error and instead challenged factual assessments. The Court of Appeal rejected that position, finding the withdrawal of the case was a question of law. Its ruling restores the case for trial; the acquittals have been quashed, but no finding of guilt has been made.