Garda’s son denied appeal against manslaughter conviction
A Garda’s son, who was jailed for six years for the manslaughter of a talented teenage boxer, has failed in a bid to take his appeal against his conviction to the Supreme Court.
John McGovern (aged 21) of Ballyduff, Barefield, Co Clare used a Swiss army knife given to him by his grandparents to stab 14-year-old settled traveller Michael Doherty outside a Supermacs restaurant in Ennis on June 23, 2007.
McGovern denied a charge of murder but was sentenced to six years imprisonment in March 2009 after a Central Criminal Court jury found him not guilty of murder but guilty of the manslaughter of the young boxer from Ashline, Ennis.
Mr Justice Paul Carney also imposed a concurrent three-year sentence on McGovern for producing a knife on the same date.
Although McGovern failed in a bid to have his manslaughter conviction overturned in July last year, the three judge court of criminal appeal did set aside his conviction for producing a knife.
Lawyers for McGovern subsequently submitted an application to have his case referred to the Supreme Court on a point of law as a matter of public interest.
Counsel for the applicant, Mr Michael O’Higgins SC, argued that because there was an error in one of the trial judge’s charges to the jury this had “contaminated” the other and that both charges should be set aside.
The Court of Criminal Appeal previously found that one of the judges charges had made it “less than clear” that there was a requirement to prove McGovern’s conduct in producing the knife was unlawful.
Mr O’Higgins also said that case law in New Zealand had found that the delivery of a charge should entail more than just the reciting of evidence and should tie evidence before the court to the arguments of the defence, providing the jury with “signposts” along the way to assist them.
Presiding judge Mr Justice Joseph Finnegan, sitting with Mr Justice Declan Budd and Ms Justice Elizabeth Dunne, said that the court was not satisfied that both of the judge’s charges had to be set aside in circumstances where a conviction was overturned based on one of the charges.
He said the court found that the legal points raised could not be said to be of public importance and that the applicant had not met the proper requirements for a referral to the Supreme Court.
Mr Justice Finnegan said that “no real issue” had arisen with regard to the judge’s charge as it had adhered to Irish law, which does not require a “mechanical setting-out” of evidence as practised in jurisdictions such as New Zealand.
