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Case Commentary

Document Cited authorities 1 Cited in Related
Vincent
AuthorMichael Plaxton
Published date01 July 2018
Date01 July 2018
DOIhttp://doi.org/10.1177/1365712718785080
Subject MatterCase Commentary
EPJ785080 314..316 The International Journal of
Evidence & Proof
Case Commentary
2018, Vol. 22(3) 314–316
ª The Author(s) 2018
Article reuse guidelines:
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DOI: 10.1177/1365712718785080
journals.sagepub.com/home/epj
Michael Plaxton
University of Saskatchewan, Canada
Cautions; directed verdicts; views – Ireland
The defendant, in Director of Public Prosecutions v O’Loughlin, [2018] IECA 25, was charged with
murder. It was apparently agreed that he had ‘forcibly pushed the deceased into a rubbish chute’ in an
upper-storey floor of his apartment building. He claimed, however, that he had not intended to harm the
deceased; he ostensibly believed that the deceased would ‘slid[e] safely down into the basement area and
then [leave] the building’. Instead, the deceased became stuck in the chute and asphyxiated.
The defendant was convicted at trial. On appeal to the Irish Court of Appeal, he argued that there had
been several errors of law. We will focus here on the three evidentiary issues.
The first issue concerned the absence of a police caution. Once the deceased’s body was discovered,
Gardaı´ interviewed a number of residents in the apartment building. Detective Garda Harrington and
another officer interviewed the appellant. The notes of that interview were subsequently admitted into
evidence.
The appellant argued on appeal that this was in error, since he had not been appropriately cautioned.
According to the Judges’ Rules, once ‘a police officer has made up his mind to charge to charge a person
with a crime he should first caution such a person before asking any questions or any further questions as
the case may be.’ The appellant claimed that Detective Garda Harrington had indeed made up his mind.
On the evening of the interview, the officer ‘noticed what appeared to be a blood smear on the wall inside
the door and a cut to a knuckle of the appellant’s hand’. He also noticed that the appellant’s hands were
shaking. Under the circumstances, the appellant argued, it...

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