The Irish District Court: A Social Portrait

Notes and References

PROLOGUE 1 This and all names used in respect of defendants, judges, solicitors, barristers , probation officers and Gardaí are pseudonyms. 2 A court presenter is a Garda of the rank of sergeant or higher who presents the case for the prosecution for the majority of offences adjudicated upon in the District Court. 3 Dóchas Prison is a women’s prison in north Dublin City. 4 References to field notes are indicated throughout the text by the designation FN. 5 The 2001 annual report of the IPS was the first annual report to include information regarding the nationality of persons committed to Irish prisons. 6 The number of committals is higher than the number of persons committed to prison as some people are committed to prison more than once in a year. In 2008, for example, total committals to prison were 13,557 but only 10,928 people were committed to prison. Similarly, in 2009 total committals to prison were 15,425 but only 12,339 people were committed to prison. 1. ANATOMY OF A WORKHORSE 1 The maximum term of imprisonment that can be imposed by the District Court for a single offence is twelve months. The court can impose a term of imprisonment of up to twenty-four months in respect of two or more offences. 2 The unit of analysis used by the Courts Service is the court office. 3 Information is not provided which would make it possible to compare the severity of penalties imposed. 4 In the database offenders are designated as ‘Irish’ or ‘foreign nationals’. 5 Recommended in both the consultation paper (LRC, 2002) and the ultimate report (LRC, 2003). 6 Vaughan sent a questionnaire to District Court judges and achieved a response rate of 33%. Some 50% of those who responded indicated support for a prohibition on short-term sentences (under three months), except in exceptional circumstances. 7 There has also been debate recently regarding the use of short-term prison sentences in England and Wales. See the report published by the National 223 Notes and References 224 NOTES TO PAGES 21–28 Association of Probation Officers in June 2010 (Short-term Jail Sentences: An Effective Alternative, available online at http://www.napo.org.uk/publications /Briefings.cfm). 8 One could also point more recently to the very significant increase in the numbers committed to prison for the non-payment of fines; an 88% increase in committals for non-payment of court-imposed fines is revealed in the 2008 annual report of the Irish Prison Service (IPS, 2009:22) and in 2009 a further 91% increase on the 2008 level was reported (IPS, 2010:6). 9 In 2008, for example, €2,039,000 was collected for the Poor Box through District Court offices while only €262 was collected in Circuit Court offices and no Poor Box donations were collected in the High Court (CS, 2008:97). 10 A total of twenty-three judges participated in the research. Of these, eight were Circuit Court judges and fifteen were District Court judges. 11 ‘Sentence’ is defined by the LRC in the consultation paper on Prosecution Appeals from Unduly Lenient Sentence in the District Court (LRC, 2004). Schweppe highlights that a sentence as defined by the LRC includes sentences made upon conviction and what the Commission terms ‘conditional acquittals’, which are sentences imposed following a finding of guilt without the making of a conviction (2005). 12 Fewer Gardaí are present in RC than in other courts as evidence of arrest charge and caution has normally already been given in another court. 13 However, during courtroom sittings observed, the probation officer in NEC sat with or beside the solicitors/barristers and had a much more collegial relationship with other courtroom regulars than was the case in other courts. 14 A request by the defence to be supplied with prosecution witness statements is known as a Gary Doyle order. The scope of the duty of disclosure in summary prosecutions has been defined by the Supreme Court in Director of Public Prosecutions v. Gary Doyle [1994] 2 IR 286. There is no general duty on the prosecution to provide the defence with statements of intended witnesses in advance of trial. The test to be applied by a court on an application by the defence to be furnished pre-trial with the statements on which the prosecution case will proceed is whether ‘in the interests of justice on the facts of the particular case’ this should be done (Gary...