Judgment was today reserved in the appeal case of a Co Mayo farmer jailed for six years for shooting dead a member of the Traveller community on his land.
Padraig Nally, who was last year sentenced for the manslaughter of father-of-eleven, John 'Frog' Ward, was present in the three-judge Court of Criminal Appeal during his attempt to have his conviction overturned.
Padraig Nally outside the Court of Criminal Appeal today
In July 2005, a jury found the 61-year-old of Funshinaugh, Cross, Co Mayo, not guilty of the murder of Mr Ward. Defence counsel Brendan Grehan SC said he was seeking to appeal against Mr Nally's conviction of manslaughter on a single very important constitutional point.
Mr Nally's legal team queried the trial judge Paul Carney's decision to refuse the jury to consider a verdict of not guilty when an unlawful killing had not been admitted or conceded by the defence.
He said it was the constitutional right of a jury to consider its verdict alone and the jury must always be given the option of acquittal unless the defence had agreed it was an unlawful killing.
He referred to a number of precedents which he said highlighted this absolute and fundamental right.
"In my submission the judge explicitly told the jury there were only two verdicts, murder or manslaughter and they could not acquit the accused," he said.
Mr Grehan also said the judge refused to allow a full defence argument of self-defence to be raised in the trial, which could have seen Nally walk free.
Paul O'Higgins SC, for the prosecution, argued that a trial judge can split the defence of self-defence and can make this ruling to a jury. He said that Nally could not plead full self-defence over an apparent perceived threat that his victim's son — who earlier fled the scene — may come back to get him.
Presiding judge Nicholas Kearns reserved judgment in the case.
Nally, who sat on a bench to the side of the court, was accompanied by his sister, and a small number of friends. The farmer who entered the court handcuffed, sat quietly during the hearing wearing a suit and a dark check open necked shirt.
During the trial last year, the jury heard 42-year-old Mr Ward had been shot twice and beaten 20 times with a stick. The second and fatal shot was fired after Mr Ward, from Carrowbrowne Halting Site, on the outskirts of Galway city, had left the farmyard in October 2004 and was limping down the road.
During his trial Nally told the Central Criminal Court in Castlebar he had not intended to kill the Traveller. He said in the 18-months before the shooting there were two break-ins at his property and he was growing increasingly fearful.
PA