Stephen Geraghty’s 12-year drug sentence set aside
This report is a localnews.ie summary based on public court reporting and records; sources are listed below.
The Court of Appeal set aside Stephen Geraghty’s 12-year sentence for drug offences. The proceedings were reported on 1 December 2014.
The charges concerned possession for sale or supply of cannabis worth more than €4 million at Nutstown, Clonee, on 27 November 2003, and cocaine worth €350,000 in May 2004. He pleaded guilty to both charges. He was arraigned on both charges on 2 February 2010 and convicted of both that day.
Judge Martin Nolan imposed the 12-year sentence at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court on 13 December 2011. The court heard that Geraghty committed the second offence while on bail and before conviction for the first. He absented himself from the jurisdiction in September 2004 and handed himself in to gardaí in 2009.
His barrister, Ciaran O’Loughlin, asked whether someone could commit or be convicted of a second offence under the Misuse of Drugs Act without having been convicted of a first offence.
The DPP accepted that a prior conviction was required before a mandatory minimum sentence could be considered for a second or subsequent offence. DPP counsel Roisin Lacey said the sentencing regime applicable in 2003 and 2004 should have applied.
Roisin Lacey said the Director accepted that the 2007 amendment could not retrospectively affect sentencing, expressly limiting that position to this particular legislation. She maintained that the errors did not make the sentence unfair, citing the seriousness of both offences, the drugs’ value and the aggravating factor of offending while on bail.
Ms Justice Mary Finlay Geoghegan, sitting with Mr Justice Gerard Hogan and Mr Justice Garrett Sheehan, said errors in law amounted to an error in principle requiring the sentence to be vacated.
A new sentence was due on 15 December, with full reasons to follow in a reserved judgment. Geraghty was absent for legal argument; the court heard he had a terminal illness.