The mobile phone trail was probably the decisive issue in the minds of the jury that convicted Joe O'Reilly of his wife Rachel's murder, writes Vincent Browne.
It undermined his alibi for the time the murder occurred - instead of being at Broadstone it showed him in the broad vicinity of his home where his wife had been murdered.
He is appealing his conviction to the Court of Criminal Appeal almost certainly on points of law or related to the judge's direction to the jury.
The idea that the Court of Criminal Appeal would substitute its judgment of the facts of the case for the jury's verdict is entirely unlikely.
The Court of Criminal Appeal will have no insight into the mindset or reasoning of the jury. It will be unable to detect whether the jury based its conclusion on facts other than those presented in evidence. Or whether the jury drew unreasonable deductions from facts it found to be true.
That is the difficulty with jury verdicts. There is no written record of its reasoning, no possibility of going behind the reasoning to find it was logical or fair.
Remember the case in December 1997 of a west of Ireland man, Pat Gillane, who was convicted of soliciting two persons in January 1994 to murder his wife, Philomena? Philomena Gillane's body was found in the boot of a car at Athlone railway station in May 1994. She had been stabbed and shot through the head.
Two men, both of them petty criminals, both sleeping rough at the time and intoxicated, were approached in Thomas St, Dublin by a man they identified as Pat Gillane, whom they never previously had met.
They said he asked them to murder a woman on his behalf. One of these two witnesses said he had had a microchip inserted in his brain several years previously and the microchip was connected with his mouth.
A jury convicted Pat Gillane of soliciting these men to murder his wife, solely on the basis of the evidence of these two witnesses. He was sentenced to eight years imprisonment.
It is difficult to see how a jury could find "beyond reasonable doubt" that Pat Gillane solicited these two men on the basis of their evidence alone.
Around the same time as the Pat Gillane case there was the judgment of the non-jury Special Criminal Court (comprised of three judges) in the Paul Ward case.
Paul Ward was convicted of the murder of Veronica Guerin and convicted almost entirely on the evidence of a person who had admitted to having had a part in Veronica's murder, but who was given immunity from prosecution in return for giving evidence against Paul Ward, John Gilligan and Brian Meehan. This witness was also given money by the Garda and given other favours by the authorities.
I thought the conviction of Paul Ward was wrong, because I thought it was wrong to rely on the evidence of a supergrass, as it had been wrong for the judicial authorities in Northern Ireland during the conflict there to rely on such evidence. That case was appealed to the Court of Criminal Appeal and there the appeal court overturned the verdict of the Special Criminal Court and did so on finding a flaw in the reasoning of the Special Criminal Court judges as revealed in their written judgment.
I think I may be in a small minority in being faintly disquieted by the finding "beyond reasonable doubt" that Joe O'Reilly was guilty of his wife's murder.
On the basis of the evidence as I know it, I think the balance of probability is that he murdered his wife, but that is not the test in criminal cases, there is the higher threshold to cross, the "beyond reasonable doubt" threshold.
Is there not a reasonable doubt that a person, who never previously had been involved in serious crime or violence of any kind (as far as the court was made aware at least), could have gone to his home, struggled with his wife (there was clear evidence of a struggle and that she attempted to defend herself), brutally assaulted her and finally murdered her, and then removed from his person and clothes all evidence of a struggle and of blood (which otherwise was all over the place), got back into his car, left no trace of blood there and resumed his daily activities as though nothing had happened?
Yes it is possible he did that, but how plausible is it a jury could believe that beyond reasonable doubt? Yes, let me emphasise I think it is likely he killed his wife, but . . . beyond reasonable doubt?
Which brings me to the observation: would it not be better for all such contentious trials to be tried by the Special Criminal Court by three judges who would have to give a written judgment explaining why they arrived at this decision, thereby leaving it open to an appeal court to analyse their reasoning.
Yes, I was one of those who complained about the very existence of the Special Criminal Court over the years and indeed it came to some very hairy verdicts, but, given the possibility of an analysis of its reasoning, is there not a case for all contentious cases to be tried there?