Judge Carney, a high-profile case and yet another rebuke by the Court of Criminal Appeal
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Dearbhail McDonald Legal Editor
NOT for the first time, the Court of Criminal Appeal has rebuked Judge Paul Carney over a sentence he has handed down in a high-profile trial.
The relationship between Carney (the only judge permanently assigned to the Central Criminal Court) and the three-judge CCA is often strained, to say the least.
He is extremely sensitive about the tampering with his sentences by the CCA and frequently expresses annoyance about it.
And yesterday's finding that he had erred in law when he failed to consider probation and psychiatric reports before he sentenced "Scissor Sister" Linda Mulhall will probably feature, in some form, in future cases presided over by the controversial judge or in any of his numerous academic addresses.
Handing down a four-year sentence to convicted killer Wayne O'Donoghue (a term that was upheld by the CCA), Carney complained that he wasn't a "free agent" but subject to the appeal court's rulings.
He also claimed that the CCA -- a three-judge court with no jury, presided over by a judge of the Supreme Court and two judges of the High Court -- had "decimated" many of the manslaughter trials that he and two colleagues imposed at the Central Criminal Court.
When he hands down sentences, Judge Carney -- who hears seven out of 10 rape cases and over 50pc of all murder trials in the State -- often makes explicit references to the jurisprudence of the CCA.
And in return, the CCA has publicly noted Carney's "unfortunate" remarks about the court.
In one case, Supreme Court Judge Adrian Hardiman said that remarks Judge Carney made about the CCA during a trial in the absence of the jury were "altogether unfortunate and undignified".
Last November, Judge Hardiman once again reprimanded Judge Carney when the CCA reduced a rapist's sentence because of comments Carney made during the trial of rapist David Mullen.
Moving Mullen's appeal, Patrick Gageby, SC, argued that Judge Carney made inappropriate comments at the sentencing hearing and had erred in principle by repudiating the authority of the appeal court.
Mr Gageby argued before the appeal court that Judge Carney had said at the sentence hearing that the case was "too important to rush because the DPP wants to do it on the cheap".
Mr Gageby also referred to comments by Judge Carney that he (Carney) was "attacked behind his back in another place". Mr Gageby said that Judge Carney also stated that Mr Gageby had "persuaded the Court of Criminal Appeal to make some exotic findings in relation to me".
Judge Hardiman said Judge Carney's comments were simply indefensible, irrelevant, inappropriate and personalised before he set aside Carney's original sentence and imposed a lesser term.
Last year, when Judge Carney said that a victim impact statement given in court by Majella Holohan, had frustrated his intention of providing for the reconstruction of Wayne O'Donoghue's life, many lawyers believed that his real target was the CCA and not the dead boy's mother.
The CCA ruled that grieving relatives who do not adhere to strict conditions when reading aloud a victim impact statement in the aftermath of a trial may face jail for contempt of court.
Carney retorted in his now infamous address at University College Cork that there had never been any problem about victim impact statements before the O'Donoghue case and none since -- a veiled dismissal of the CCA's guidelines.
Despite the apparent conflict between Judge Carney and the CCA, there is no rush to relieve him of his considerable workload. Judge Carney is noted as an effective administrator who has reduced waiting times for rape and murder cases and for each rebuke he receives in one appeal, he is vindicated in another.
- Dearbhail McDonald
