CRIMINAL defence lawyer Ted McCarthy has represented every kind of accused person in his almost 40 years in practice, from murderers to flower-pot flinging feuding neighbours. But he didn’t start out wanting to be a criminal lawyer. It crept up on him.
“I started out in practice doing conveyancing, civil work. One day, two women came into the office and asked me to represent them in court on a shoplifting charge. They persuaded me. It turned out they were prolific shoplifters so I appeared for them many times after that and they sent other people my way.”
Down the road, one of his most respected legal aid criminal defence colleagues retired and asked Ted if he would take his place on the legal aid panel for Limerick.
“His client list came to me and increased year on year. The general side of the practice, including civil claims etc, are now handled by my other colleagues in the office while I concentrate and specialise solely in criminal law,” he told the Limerick Post.
Since then, Ted has stood in court thousands of times, making a case for people, whether they plead guilty or not guilty, and he speaks for them, outlining how they came to break the law, perhaps because of the influence of drugs or alcohol, or testing the evidence brought against them if they to maintain their presumption of innocence.
His clients have included alleged murderers, sex offenders, drug mules, arsonists – there’s hardly a crime on the statute books that he has not defended at every level in the court system from District right up to the Supreme Criminal Court.
“I don’t judge. If a person wants me to represent them I will. But I don’t sugar-coat anything. I look at the case and the evidence and I advise them on what their best course of action is. If they take my advice, I’ll work with them. If they don’t I can’t represent them,” he said.
Sometimes, Ted’s advice is for the client to admit they’ve been caught bang to rights and to offer a guilty plea. But the one thing he has to walk away from is the client who says he’s guilty but asks Ted if he can get him off.
“That’s not really what you should say to your solicitor – I can’t represent someone who wants to plead not guilty if they tell me they’ve committed the crime,” he said.
At the height of the infamous Limerick feud, Ted was an extremely busy man.
“I was involved in most of the murder trials arising over that year. And I remember there was one summer there were six murder trials that I was involved in. I’d quit cigarettes for a couple of years prior to that. During that August, I went back on the cigarettes from exhaustion or stress or whatever,” he recalled.
One thing Ted never had to deal with were threats from either side, despite there being some extremely violent people involved.
“Right or wrong thing to say, I’m a hired gun. I do a job, no matter what, or who, I do a professional job for whoever. People know that,” he said.
Ted agrees that the feud which plagued the city was a turf war over drugs, with family allegiances thrown in.
‘I found it very hard’
In all the murder trials he has been involved in, the one which he still finds really upsetting is his first, the defence lawyer said.
“I was representing two teenage girls on shoplifting charges. I remember being with them for a consultation and they were laughing and joking – they were best friends,” he recalled.
“A week later, one of them was dead, stabbed 40 or 50 times in a savage attack by the other girl and a third woman.
“It was the weirdest thing ever. I mean, I found it very hard. I still don’t understand it, to be honest with you, how that could happen in a week? From being the best of buddies one day to assaulting and killing her”.
Having worked in the criminal end of the justice system for decades, he is vociferous in his belief in it and in the fairness of trial by jury.
“People should be of the view that going in front of court that you will be dealt with properly, and justice is generally, you might say, administered fairly and properly.
“There are a few judgments made that are questionable, but we have an appeal system. The system checks. There are checks and balances within that system itself, and the system itself is a check and balance.”
Ted has little time for politicians who look for the sound bite, criticising judges and the courts for being too lenient: “It annoys me greatly that they will publicly, either in the Dáil chamber or in the media, criticise individual judges, knowing that judges can’t answer back”.
“I think it undermines our democracy and any politician that does that should take themselves aside and have a chat with themselves and remind themselves of what the basis of democracy is, because the last thing I want to see in this country is what happens in other countries. In the United States, at the moment, we have a president who believes that the separation of power is just an annoyance to step through.”
He is also a huge supporter of the media reporting on court cases, and in doing so, explaining the justice system to the public. Justice not only being done but being seen to be done.
“It’s important that the procedure in the court and what happens in the court, generally speaking or in individual cases, is reported on so the public can see exactly what happens and that there’s no unfairness,” he said.
The jury system, he says, is still the best there is.
“It’ a very high standard, to prosecute, bring evidence and prove beyond a reasonable doubt that an individual is guilty of a crime and for a jury of ordinary sensible people to decide on that,” he said.
There’s isn’t one law for the rich and another for the poor, Ted says, with everyone answerable for breaking the law if they are found out.
With access to legal aid, an accused person is getting representation from “people who specialise in criminal law. Nowhere else in the world do you get this.”
Breaking the cycle
He muses that, at this point in his practice, he has represented several generations of some families, “I’m currently close to representing the great grandchildren of clients,” he says.
Does that legacy of criminality cause him disappointment?
“It does a bit. It tends to indicate that people are born into a certain life, with a certain result,” he opined.
“I would have to say, being cynical, there can be bad parenting in there and, sure, lack of opportunity. But having said that, we have one of the best education systems in the world, if people avail of it and if people don’t avail and don’t encourage their children to avail of it, what is there?
“If you could get the kids interested in education, it would move them beyond the sort of cycle they’re in. There’s no doubt about it. And in order to do that, you have to have role models beyond their parents or family circle or their environment that pushes them towards that end. Whether they be sports figures like Paul O’Connell or Keith Earls or business figures like JP McManus who can show them that with ambition, determination, and education they can achieve anything.
“We need more then to try and break the cycle. We almost have to get down and dirty a bit more with the lost children”.
Many of Ted’s contemporaries have been elevated to the bench or have gone over to work with the State prosecutions team, but it’s not something he has considered.
“There were opportunities to be on the bench, but I feel it’s a very isolated position. I don’t think I could sit up there, looking at the court and not be down on the floor representing people.”
– Court Reporting Scheme