Killing Time

Life Imprisonment and Parole in Ireland

Diarmuid Griffin

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN:
  9783319726663
• eBook ISBN:
  9783319726670
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Criminology
• Index: Social Sciences

© The Author(s) 2018

Diarmuid GriffinKilling Timehttps://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-72667-0_1

Begin Abstract

1. Same Crime, Different Time

Diarmuid Griffin¹

(1)

National University of Ireland, Galway, Ireland

I immediately discovered she wasn’t breathing – I was terrified. I started to shake her and was crying and telling her I loved her. I still love her.

Robert Brophy

People (DPP) v Brophy 1970.

Keywords

Life imprisonmentParoleTime servedRiskPunitivismPoliticsIreland

End Abstract

Introduction

In 1969, Robert Brophy, a 23-year-old man, was found guilty of the murder of his fiancé, Anna Porter. Brophy had been in a relationship with Porter for approximately four years, although it was somewhat tumultuous. Porter had been in receipt of psychiatric treatment. The on-going nature of this and its effect on the arrangement of their wedding was causing conflict in the relationship. Prior to the murder, Porter had told Brophy that she had met ‘another fellow’ and she had organised a date with him. In a diary entry the day before the murder, Brophy documented suicidal feelings as well as thoughts in relation to killing Porter. This diary entry also detailed his desire to continue the relationship. The following evening, Brophy and Porter had an argument regarding their engagement and Porter’s mental health treatment. Brophy grabbed her by the arm, she pulled away and fell to the floor. Brophy knelt down and strangled her. After realising he had killed her, Brophy called the police, gave a full statement to the Gardaí (Irish police) and was remanded in custody. Although Brophy pleaded guilty to manslaughter , the prosecution did not accept this plea and a murder charge was pursued at trial.

After six hours of deliberation, the jury sought clarification on the legal distinction between murder and manslaughter . Mr. Justice Pringle directed the jury: ‘If you are satisfied, beyond reasonable doubt, that the accused intended to kill or to cause serious injury to Anna Porter, then you must convict him of murder ; if you are not so satisfied then you convict him of manslaughter’ ( People (DPP) v Brophy 1970). Two hours later the jury returned a verdict of guilty of murder. They took the unusual step of adding a note to their verdict stating that they ‘strongly’ and ‘unanimously’ recommended mercy in sentencing. Directly after the verdict was delivered in court, Mr. Justice Pringle stated: ‘ Robert Brophy, you have been found guilty of murder. I have no option but to sentence you to penal servitude for life’ (the equivalent of life imprisonment at that time). He added that the recommendation of the jury would be conveyed to ‘the proper authorities’. The proper authority in this instance was the Minister for Justice (Minister), who had the discretion to release a person serving such a sentence. In 1975, the then Minister, Patrick Cooney, exercised this discretion releasing Brophy back into the community, having served just six years in prison. The average time served by offenders subject to this sentence during the 1970s was 7.5 years (Prison Service 2010, p. 17). Following his release, Brophy set up a small shop dealing in stamps, had a relationship with another woman and fathered a child ( People (DPP) v Brophy 1992). In 1990, Brophy was convicted of indecent assault and was sentenced to five years’ imprisonment. The severity of the penalty imposed by the trial judge was not too far off the actual time served by Brophy for the murder of Porter. The Court of Criminal Appeal subsequently quashed the conviction for indecent assault due to the infirmity of the evidence against Brophy, finding it to be ‘unsafe and unsatisfactory’ ( People (DPP) v Brophy 1992, p. 721).

In 1997, Steven Davis was found guilty of the murder of Mary Doogue, his girlfriend of two years. Davis was 17 when he started seeing Doogue, ten years his senior. He was father to one of her six children . On 19 October 1995, Doogue went drinking at midday and continued to drink alcohol in various locations for the rest of the day. Davis returned from work at 7 p.m. and when he discovered Doogue was not at home, he went out to find her. He began drinking himself. At midnight, witnesses saw Davis and Doogue have an argument on the street, with Davis assaulting Doogue. The Gardaí intervened and told the couple they should go home. At 3 a.m. Davis and Doogue returned home. Davis had slung Doogue over his shoulder and brought her upstairs to bed, according to the babysitter. The following day, at approximately 4 p.m., Davis sent one of the children to find a doctor. On arrival, the doctor discovered Doogue to be in ‘an appalling condition’. She was taken to the hospital in an ambulance and suffered a cardiac arrest in transit, dying shortly thereafter. According to the pathologist giving evidence at the trial, Doogue died from delayed shock due to injuries sustained from being violently assaulted (Irish Times 1995, 1997a, b, c, d, e).

At the trial, the jury returned a majority verdict (eleven to one) of guilty of murder , following seven hours of deliberation. Mr. Justice Budd stated that he had no discretion in the imposition of a mandatory life sentence for murder . The trial judge expressed his concern regarding the intrusive media coverage of the trial, particularly the publication of photographs by a number of newspapers of Davis handcuffed and chained to a prison officer during the trial (Irish Times 1997d). The Court of Criminal Appeal subsequently held that the publication of such images was prejudicial to an accused person standing trial but, given the weight of the evidence against Davis , it was not appropriate to quash the conviction ( People (DPP) v Davis 2001). Davis was released in 2012 by the then Minister, Alan Shatter , having served 16 years in prison, a decade longer than Brophy . Davis served significantly less time than other life sentence prisoners released that year, with the average time served reaching 22 years in 2012 (Dáil Question No. 403: Alan Shatter, 22 October 2013). Following his release from prison, Davis successfully reintegrated back into society and took up employment in the construction industry (Donald 2014).

There are parallels between the cases of Brophy and Davis . In fact, Brophy and Davis are representative of many of those serving life sentences: a young male that has killed a partner or family member in a domestic context. Neither had a history of violence or criminality prior to the incident and both had shown remorse for their offending behaviour. On conviction, they were subject to the mandatory sentence for murder and were released back into the community at the discretion of the Minister. But, given the similarities in their profiles, why did they serve such different periods of time for the same crime? The disparity in time served by Brophy and Davis is not an anomaly. A life sentence prisoner committed in recent times can expect to serve significantly longer in prison than his counterparts committed in the preceding decades. But what is driving this trend? This monograph explores the factors influencing the increase in time served by life sentence prisoners.

From Leniency to Severity

There has been a transition from leniency to severity in Ireland over the last forty years, if time served by life sentence prisoners is taken as a measure. There has also been a significant increase in the life sentence prisoner population . Life sentence prisoners constitute 11.4 per cent of sentenced prisoners in custody, a ratio of one in every nine sentenced prisoners (Prison Service 2016, p. 24). The life sentence prison...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Front Matter
• 1. Same Crime, Different Time
• 2. The Rise of Life Imprisonment
• 3. The Cycle of Life
• 4. The Risk Factor
• 5. Punishment, Public Opinion and Politics
• 6. The Realities of the Situation
• 7. Different Process, Same Outcome?
• Back Matter