A young Galway barrister has played a key role in freeing a man convicted in 1996 of the murder of his sister-in-law in Florida two years previously, writes Patsy McGarry.
Marcus Joyce from Renmore, then a 24-year-old law student, spent the summer of 2004 as an intern with the Innocence Project in New York. It deals with miscarriage of justice cases. He was assigned to the case of Chad Heins who in 1996, and then 22, was sentenced to life imprisonment when convicted of the murder of his sister-in-law Tina Heins.
The evidence in the case had been circumstantial and his family had approached the organisation for assistance.
It had previously been established through DNA testing that tissue recovered from the dead woman's fingernails was not from Chad Heins. In trawling through the trial manuscript Marcus Joyce found three hairs also recovered at the murder scene.
DNA testing found that these too belonged to the same person as the tissue under the victim's fingernails.
The murder conviction against Chad Heins was overturned last year and a date set for a retrial.
It was to begin last Tuesday but the prosecution decided not to proceed with the case and he was freed. Speaking to RTÉ Radio's News at One yesterday from London where he now works, Marcus Joyce said Chad Heins had been living in the same apartment as his sister-in-law at the time of the murder but had always claimed he was drunk and asleep when it took place.