A 24-year-old man has been found not guilty of murder but guilty of the manslaughter of a Limerick man who died after he was punched and kicked during a fight in Co Kildare more than two years ago.
Calvin Dunne, from Abbeyview in Monasterevin, had denied murdering Dylan McCarthy who died after the incident outside a pub in the town in July 2022.
The prosecution said Mr McCarthy died after being punched to the ground and kicked in the head.
A jury found Dunne guilty of manslaughter by a 10-2 majority after deliberating for three days.
The jury also unanimously found him guilty of violent disorder.
The jurors had been told that if they decided Dunne had used unreasonable force in self-defence but that he might have believed it was necessary, they should acquit him of murder but convict him of manslaughter.
Dunne had told gardaí he only got involved in the fight to defend his friend.
He said he kicked Mr McCarthy in the chest and not the head and was acting in self-defence.
The jury was told that Mr McCarthy had been involved in violence that night as he was thrown out of a pub.
Dunne and his friend Sean Kavanagh, 26, were walking past the pub when Mr McCarthy and his father emerged onto the street.
Dunne's co-accused Kavanagh, from St Mary’s Lane, Church Avenue, was found not guilty of murder by direction of the trial judge earlier in the case.
He pleaded guilty to assault causing harm to Dylan McCarthy’s father Eamon on the night.
In closing arguments to the jury, prosecuting counsel Seoirse Ó Dúnlaing said CCTV footage showed Dunne turning Mr McCarthy around and hitting him with "a sucker punch".
He said that Mr McCarthy was on the ground facing downwards when he was kicked in the head, which caused a motion that pathologist Dr Heidi Okkers told the jury could have caused the fatal injury.
Mr Ó Dúnlaing said one witness said the kick sounded like a car door shutting while another said it sounded like someone kicking a football.
He said Dunne could not have had the honest belief that he was acting in self-defence and using reasonable force and that he had the opportunity to retreat, but he instead took "a running kick at him".
Lawyers for Dunne had told the jury in closing arguments that the McCarthy family had started a fight inside the Bellyard pub and that Dunne and Kavanagh were passing by at the time.
Senior Counsel John Fitzgerald said when Dylan and Eamon McCarthy came onto the street Dunne only got involved to defend his friend.
Mr Fitzgerald said one eyewitness accepted it was possible Dunne had kicked Mr McCarthy in the chest and the State Pathologist could not say if it was a punch or a kick that caused his death.
He said if there was any doubt that he had kicked him in the face the jury must decide in his favour.
"If you have a doubt that he kicked him in the face, you decide in his favour. That’s the law," Mr Fitzgerald told the 12 jurors.
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Mr Fitzgerald said that the law did not require a person to stand back and take a punch or watch your friend take a punch, adding that a person is entitled to defend themselves or another from an attack or continued attack.
He said that Mr McCarthy "had offered violence", so Dunne's decision to use the force of a kick had to be viewed in real time as Mr McCarthy was getting back up after being punched by the accused.
In her charge to the jury, Ms Justice Caroline Biggs said that there were three verdicts open to them: Guilty of murder; not guilty of murder but guilty of manslaughter; or not guilty of murder or manslaughter.
She said that for a verdict of guilty of murder, the jury had to be convinced that Dunne's actions substantially contributed to the death of Mr McCarthy and that he intended to kill or cause him serious injury.
On the issue of self-defence, Judge Biggs said a person may lawfully use force to defend themselves or another person under attack, but the force must be reasonable in the circumstances.
She said the jury must look at the circumstances from the point of view of Dunne and ask how he perceived things at the time that he threw the punch and kick.
Dunne has been remanded in custody and will be sentenced at a later date.
