The Gazette 1991

JULY/AUGUST 1991

GAZETTE

BEYOND ANY REASONABLE DOUBT? [by Kenneth E. L. Deale, Gill & McMillan, 1990. £6.99]. This book of Irish murder trials was first published in 1960 by the late Mr. Justice Kenneth Deale, a Circuit Court judge on the Eastern Circuit for many years before being elevated to the High Court towards the end of his long judicial career. This was Judge Deale's second book of that genre, the first being MEMORABLE IRISH TRIALS. To older legal practitioners, Judge Deale is better known as the author of the seminal work on the Irish Landlord & Tenant Act 1931. His son, Julian, has followed in his father's footsteps with his recent book on Irish Landlord & Tenant Law. Julian has also written the foreword to the 1990 re-publication of BEYOND ANY REASONABLE DOUBT? Among the ten murder trials des- cribed and analysed in detail (of varying gruesomeness), is the trial of David O'Shea in 1931, for the murder of Helen Sullivan at Rathmore on the Cork/Kerry border. This trial is memorable for one particular incident where, after a number of gardaf had visited the suspect's house, all but one left, the one hiding himself under a bed from where he allegedly heard an incriminating conversation between the suspect and his sister. Another of the trials described is entitled the Malahide Mystery (A.G. -v- Henry McCabe), when, in March 1926, 'La Mancha', the Malahide residence of the McDonnell family, was set alight after the murder in it of no less than six people. Parts of the ruin of 'La Mancha' remain visible to this day. All in all, a very easy, if necessarily morbid, read. Because they are all Irish cases, the Irish reader will probably feel a sense of identification with the 'locus-in- quo' of each crime, whether that 'locus' be in rural Cork, Kerry, Louth or Roscommon or in urban Booterstown, Drumcondra or Rathmines. Also, those familiar with today's criminal process will be conscious of the much shorter time that elapsed in those times gone by between the arrest and

charging of the accused and the trial by judge and jury; and, following conviction, the hearing of the subsequent appeal by the Court of Criminal Appeal; and (where it occurred) the execution of the convicted murderer. Nowadays, the wheels of justice grind much more slowly, if more humanely in terms of the untimate outcome. Obliquely, Mr. Justice Deale, by highlighting areas of doubt in some of the cases, was an advocate of the abolition of that most final of legal conclusions, the death penalty. • Michael V. O'Mahony NORDIC STUDIES IN INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY AND LAW Edited by P. Blume. [Kluwer, 1991, xii + 223 pp. Dfl 90, - /US$54 (excl. VAT)] The Nordic countries comprise small jurisdictions, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Iceland and Norway. Their legal traditions emphasise statutory law, but they are not civil law countries. Court- made law is important but these countries cannot be classified as case-law jurisdictions. The Danish, Swedish and Norwegian languages are sufficiently similar for com- munication to be carried out without interpretation. Legal informatics plays an im- portant part in the legal studies of the Nordic lawyer. (a) the production, storage, retrieval and use of legal information in all its forms, (b) the implementation of com- puter technology and the implications of its use for the duties and working pro- cedures of lawyers, the courts and public corporations; (c) the implementation of com- puter technology and the implications of its use for a reform of the general doc- trines and recommended interpretations of different fields within law, and (d) changes in legislation neces- sitated by the implementation and use of computers.

The book opens with an article on "The Right to Know" by Peter Seipel, Professor of legal infor- matics at the University of Stockholm. He argues for an "adequate openness structure" making a new level of participatory democracy possible. Ahti Saarenpaa writes on "Computers and Legal Life". Peter Blume, the editor, writes on legal information systems. Jon Bing, Professor of legal informatics at the University of Oslo, writes on rules and representation. The fifth article is entitled "Problems of description in Computer Tort Law". Data protection, the methods of teaching legal informatics at the different Nordic universities and a description of the legal information service in the Nordic countries are also described. This book forms part of Kluwer's Computer/Law series. Dr. Robert Clark, Statutory Lecturer in Law, University College, Dublin is on the distinguished international board of editors. Telecommunication technology will soon function as the backbone and nervous system of national and international commerce. Yester- day's legal arrangements (still applicable in Ireland) have lost and will continue to lose relevance in the face of modern modes of telecommunication. Eamonn G. Hall

A G E N T I N A U S T R A L I A Melbourne firm Includes Irish Solicitor practicing In Australia (five jeers) seeks egencj work/linkege with Irish Lawyers. We cover Company and Commercial Law, Property, Tax, Finance, Immigration, Litigation and Probate matters. Contact • Jimmy Lardner. Lardner & Associates 100 Mt Eliza Way, Mt Eliza, Victoria. Australia Phone: 16-61 37874511 Fax: 16-61 37879799

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