A jury has begun deliberating this morning in the trial of law professor Diarmuid Phelan, who denies murdering a trespasser on his farm in Tallaght.
Before sending the jury out to begin their deliberations at 10:33am on Tuesday, presiding judge Ms Justice Siobhan Lankford asked them to be unanimous in their verdict.
She also thanked them for their attendance in the Central Criminal Court on Tuesday morning saying: "You have been exemplary throughout the trial".
The judge had gone through a "path to verdict" document with the panel of nine men and three women on Monday evening with the three verdicts open to them. The document contained questions that the jurors must ask themselves in arriving at their verdict.
Referring to the document this morning, Ms Justice Lankford reminded the jury that it is "a suggested way of arriving" at their verdict and that they should do "whatever you think is best with the guidance you have been given".
The judge reminded the panel that there were three verdicts they could return in relation to the murder charge against Mr Phelan, namely; guilty of murder, not guilty of murder but guilty of manslaughter or not guilty.
The jurors were given 12 copies of the "path to verdict" document. "This document will take you through a proposed method of arriving at those verdicts but that's a matter for yourselves," she continued.
Ms Justice Lankford told the jurors to let the jury minder know if they had "any questions of any description" and in terms of breaks that this was the part of the trial that they now ran.
Ms Justice Lankford had concluded her charge on Monday evening to the 12 jurors, nearly three weeks after the Central Criminal Court trial broke on December 12 due to juror unavailability and the case running over its allotted time.
The judge had previously told the jury in week nine of the trial that they would be accommodated as they were initially told the case would last six weeks.
Prior to Christmas, the judge had spent four days delivering her charge and summarising the evidence in the case.
Ms Justice Lankford had told the jurors on December 12 that because they "were breaking for a long period" she would leave two matters over until they returned to the Central Criminal Court on December 30th; a summary of the prosecution and defence cases and a document setting out "the legal questions" they must ask themselves, which would "give them a path to follow to come to the verdict".
Mr Phelan (56), has pleaded not guilty to murdering father-of-four Keith 'Bono' Conlon (36) at Hazelgrove Farm, Kiltalown Lane, Tallaght, Dublin 24 on February 24th, 2022.
Jury consideration
The accused man is a barrister, law lecturer and farmer who owns Hazelgrove, formerly a golf course in Tallaght.
Previously in her charge on the law, the judge had told the jury they must consider whether the State has proven it was not reasonably possible that Mr Phelan unintentionally hit a trespasser on his farm with a third shot from his revolver.
Ms Justice Lankford has also told the jury that if they found Mr Phelan did intend to kill or seriously injure the trespasser, they must consider the issue of self defence raised by the defendant.
If the jury considered a reasonable person would have used the degree of force employed by Mr Phelan in the circumstances in which the accused genuinely believed them to be, Mr Phelan was entitled to an acquittal on the basis of self defence.
If they find the force used was not reasonable but that Mr Phelan had an honest belief that force was necessary, they should return a verdict of not guilty of murder but guilty of manslaughter.
The jury had heard that on the day in question three men - the deceased Keith Conlon, along with Kallum Coleman and Robin Duggan - had trespassed on a wooded area of Phelan's land while hunting foxes or badgers.
Mr Phelan told gardaí in his interviews that he became concerned about a dog running loose on his land towards his sheep. When he got a view of the dog, he shot it with his Winchester rifle, whereupon he said three men immediately "exploded" from the woods and began threatening him.
Mr Phelan said he was shaking with fear and had "scrambled" up a bank to get away but when the two men kept coming he believed they were "coming to fulfil the threats they had made".
As they got closer, Mr Phelan shouted at two of the unarmed trespassers on his farm to "get back" before he fired three shots from his Smith & Wesson revolver and said he was "stunned when one man went down".
It is the State's case that two of the three shots were fired into the air, while the third connected with Mr Conlon.
It is also the prosecution's case that when the third shot was fired by Mr Phelan, the gun was pointed in the direction of the deceased who was shot in the back of the head when he had turned away to leave.
It is in those circumstances, the prosecution say, that the accused intended to kill or cause serious injury to Mr Conlon.
It is the defence's position that Mr Phelan accidentally hit Mr Conlon while firing three "warning shots"
