The Supreme Court will today sit with a rare full complement of seven judges to hear a case considering a controversial rule of evidence in criminal trials.
The so-called “exclusionary rule” means that evidence obtained through a breach of a person’s constitutional rights, even if this breach was inadvertent and of a technical nature, cannot be used by the prosecution.
This rule led to a trial not going ahead in the attempted prosecution of Circuit Court judge Brian Curtin for the alleged possession of child pornography in 2003.
The rule has also led to prosecutions collapsing in a number of less high-profile trials.
Judge Curtin’s house had been searched and his computer seized under a warrant which, at the time of the search, had just expired.
The trial ended when, after legal argument, the trial judge ruled that the evidence taken in the search amounted to a deliberate and conscious violation of the accused’s constitutional right to the inviolability of his dwelling.
This meant that nothing on the computer could be used in the case, and there was no other substantial evidence against him.