Joe O'Reilly

[brokencrossbar1]

How is it flimsy, he admitted having his phone with him all day.
His phone was not where he was claiming to be ?
Where was he?
Why is he lying?

It puts him in the vicinity at the time.  He lied about that but that goes to his credibility not his guilt.  Standing on its own it is not much to base a conviction on.  BTW, I do believe he is guilty but the area of circumstantial evidence is so vague that there needs to be something more substantial to warrant a person having to spend 20 years of their life in a prison cell.

[Bogball XV]

How is it flimsy, he admitted having his phone with him all day.
His phone was not where he was claiming to be ?
Where was he?
Why is he lying?

It puts him in the vicinity at the time.  He lied about that but that goes to his credibility not his guilt.  Standing on its own it is not much to base a conviction on.  BTW, I do believe he is guilty but the area of circumstantial evidence is so vague that there needs to be something more substantial to warrant a person having to spend 20 years of their life in a prison cell.

How reliable is the phone evidence?  In that how do we know that the phone company records are correct, untampered with etc.  How do we know that in 3 years time, some new telephonic expert isn't going to come forward and say that actually we've been misinterpretating the accuracy of phone records...  Have any of you ever had errors in your bill??

I agree with most of ye that he probably did it (he seems to be a bit pyschopathic actually), but I just don't think he ever had a chance of getting off in a jury trial.  The Evening Herald had him convicted 2 years ago ffs.

[inisceithleann]

How is it flimsy, he admitted having his phone with him all day.
His phone was not where he was claiming to be ?
Where was he?
Why is he lying?

It puts him in the vicinity at the time.  He lied about that but that goes to his credibility not his guilt.  Standing on its own it is not much to base a conviction on.  BTW, I do believe he is guilty but the area of circumstantial evidence is so vague that there needs to be something more substantial to warrant a person having to spend 20 years of their life in a prison cell.

How reliable is the phone evidence?  In that how do we know that the phone company records are correct, untampered with etc.  How do we know that in 3 years time, some new telephonic expert isn't going to come forward and say that actually we've been misinterpretating the accuracy of phone records...  Have any of you ever had errors in your bill??

I agree with most of ye that he probably did it (he seems to be a bit pyschopathic actually), but I just don't think he ever had a chance of getting off in a jury trial.  The Evening Herald had him convicted 2 years ago ffs.

Have to agree, this was very much a trial by media. How could there ever have been an impartial jury who knew nothing about the case? To be convicted the case against the accused must be proven beyond all reasonable doubt. Surely this means the jury must have been 99.9% certain that he did it. Could anyone ever be this sure basing their decision on circumstantial evidence? It seems unlikely. Don't get me wrong, I think he did it, but the law needs to be protected. A dangerous precedent has been set. I just can't help feeling that in future cases somone is going to be convicted on the same level of evidence when they're innocent.

[Dinny Breen]

How reliable is the phone evidence?  In that how do we know that the phone company records are correct, untampered with etc.  How do we know that in 3 years time, some new telephonic expert isn't going to come forward and say that actually we've been misinterpretating the accuracy of phone records...  Have any of you ever had errors in your bill??

As someone who use to look after a Billing system for a mobile Telco, records from the switches can be altered, they're generally just large UNIX flat files. Billing c**k-ups happen all the time and Telco's would have large teams working on revenue assurance trying assure it doesn't happen, it's not something I would trust 100%...

[magickingdom]

How is it flimsy, he admitted having his phone with him all day.
His phone was not where he was claiming to be ?
Where was he?
Why is he lying?

It puts him in the vicinity at the time.  He lied about that but that goes to his credibility not his guilt.  Standing on its own it is not much to base a conviction on.  BTW, I do believe he is guilty but the area of circumstantial evidence is so vague that there needs to be something more substantial to warrant a person having to spend 20 years of their life in a prison cell.

How reliable is the phone evidence?  In that how do we know that the phone company records are correct, untampered with etc.  How do we know that in 3 years time, some new telephonic expert isn't going to come forward and say that actually we've been misinterpretating the accuracy of phone records...  Have any of you ever had errors in your bill??

I agree with most of ye that he probably did it (he seems to be a bit pyschopathic actually), but I just don't think he ever had a chance of getting off in a jury trial.  The Evening Herald had him convicted 2 years ago ffs.

Have to agree, this was very much a trial by media. How could there ever have been an impartial jury who knew nothing about the case? To be convicted the case against the accused must be proven beyond all reasonable doubt. Surely this means the jury must have been 99.9% certain that he did it. Could anyone ever be this sure basing their decision on circumstantial evidence? It seems unlikely. Don't get me wrong, I think he did it, but the law needs to be protected. A dangerous precedent has been set. I just can't help feeling that in future cases somone is going to be convicted on the same level of evidence when they're innocent.

the greatest legal term of all 'reasonable'. dont think it requires 99.9% inisceithleann but 85-90% in most peoples mind would 'probably' do it..

[inisceithleann]

Technically yes, beyond reasonable doubt is around 90% certain, but if i were a juror I would have great difficulty in sending someone to jail for the rest of their life when I wasn't 100% certain of their guilt. It's someones life we're talking about. In this case I'm dubious as to how the burden of proof was discharged with the abscence of any DNA or other scientific evidence.

[Double Cross]

Joe O'Reilly`s appeal has been dismissed. http://www.rte.ie/news/2009/0306/oreillyr.html

[magickingdom]

great news, really thought he had a good chance of walking. there was a line of wife killers with a good chance of walking if he won

[johnpower]

great news, really thought he had a good chance of walking. there was a line of wife killers with a good chance of walking if he won

I agree . Keep him locked up

[TacadoirArdMhacha]

great news, really thought he had a good chance of walking. there was a line of wife killers with a good chance of walking if he won

Is that really true? Given that O'Reilly seems to have been convicted on less evidence than probably any other murderer in the State I can't see how a successful appeal would have affected other cases.

[magickingdom]

in a number of cases lately there has only been circumstantial evidence against the killer. if o'reilly won the up coming appeals would have had a lot better chance of success