The People (at the suit of the Director of Public Prosecutions) v McMahon [2011] IECCA 94

The Southern Irish DPP appealed an 11.5-year sentence and invited the Criminal Court of Appeal to impose a life sentence as a form of preventive detention (akin to the English IPP sentence). The court held: 'The protection of the public is an appropriate factor in the exercise of the sentencing function, but it cannot be extracted from that function to create a self-standing judicially created jurisdiction to impose a form of preventive detention. Whether sentencing courts should have the power to order the detention of individuals deemed to posed an immediate threat to the public, over and beyond any appropriate sentence for the crime committed, is a matter which should be addressed in the first place by detailed legislation by the Oireachtas after appropriate research and debate, and subject to Constitutional and Convention review if appropriate.'

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