Move Central Criminal Court to other cities, says lawyer
Brendan Nix, senior counsel for the State in the Limerick-based trial of Johnny McNamara who was convicted last July of the 2001 murder of John O'Sullivan told a weekend conference fears that juries would be unwilling to convict "one of their own" were unfounded.
He said the experiment of bringing the Central Criminal Court to Limerick had been a success and had proved local juries were robust enough to deal with the criminals in their midst. He said the initiative should be repeated in Galway, Cork, Waterford and other major population centres.
Mr Nix stood in at the conference for Mr Justice Paul Carney, the presiding judge in the Central Criminal Court who was instrumental in moving the court to Limerick, and who withdrew from the event at the last minute after being asked by the Chief Justice, Ronan Keane, to revise his intended speech.
In his undelivered speech, Mr Justice Carney also declared the Limerick experiment a success and criticised the media for raising doubts about it. He blamed conspicuous garda security and "enormous press hyping" in advance of the Kieran Keane murder trial for the eventual removal of that trial to Dublin after potential jurors kept producing medical certs declaring them unfit to serve.
The Chief Justice would not take questions about his disagreement with Mr Justice Carney but a source close to him said he was concerned by the judge's intention to refer to cases which might come back before the courts on appeal, and that he considered it inappropriate for judges to comment on cases over which they had presided.
In his own address, Mr Justice Keane praised the Limerick experiment and Mr Justice Carney for the dent made in the backlog of murder and rape cases awaiting trial.
