MR, W. A. MACDONALD (Queen's County, Ossory)I bog to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether it is true that Dennis Connell, who has been tried four times for the murder of James Daly, and who was to have been tried for the fifth time at Mary borough next month, has been released, and sent out of the country?
§ MR. A. J. BALFOURIt is the case that Council has been released and has left the country. On the advice of his legal advisers he made application to the Government in this behalf, at the same time undertaking if released to leave the country and not return thereto. This application, after careful consideration by the Law Officers of the Crown, was acceded to.
§ MR. ALFRED PEASE (York)I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether his attention has been called to the case of a young man named Dennis Connell, who was tried before a special jury under the Criminal Law and Procedure (Ireland) Act at the last Assizes held at Tullamore, in King's County, for the murder of one Dennis Daly, at Ballyknock, County Kerry, on 22nd November, 1888, for which murder a man named Hickey had already been tried, found guilty, and hanged, and in whose case the jury disagreed; if it is true that this same Dennis Connell had been already tried on this same capital charge on three previous occasions, on each of which the jury had been unable to agree upon a verdict; whether in each instance the venue was removed from the county in which the murder took place, and the jury, a special one, empannelled under the Criminal Law and Procedure (Ireland) Act; if it is a fact that at the third trial 41 Catholic jurors, and at the fourth trial 47 Catholic jurors, were 746 ordered to stand aside by the Crown, and that on both these occasions the prisoner was tried by a jury exclusively Protestant; and if the newspapers are correct in stating that after being tried for the fourth time, and the jury being unable to agree upon a verdict, the prisoner was ordered back by Mr. Justice O'Brien to stand his trial for a fifth time at the next Assizes?
§ MR. A. J. BALFOURMy answer to paragraphs 1, 2, 3, and 4 of the question are in the affirmative. I have no information as to the religion of the jurors.
§ MR. SEXTONDo the Crown make inquiry, or do they abstain from making it? Are not the lists in the hands of the Crown Agent, marked so as to indicate the religion of every juror?
§ MR. A. J. BALFOURI am not intimately acquainted with the process to which the hon. Gentleman refers. Perhaps he will be good enough to give notice of the question.