Patricia Heffernan from Galway is believed to be the first profoundly deaf person to sit on a jury in the Criminal Courts of Justice in Dublin.
They acquitted a man accused of indecent assault on seven counts and could not reach a verdict on three counts. When it came time to decide a verdict, she was accompanied by two Irish Sign Language (ISL) interpreters who took an oath not to interfere with the debate, The Irish Times reported.
It was the third time Heffernan had been called for jury service. On the two previous occasions, she had been excused due to her condition.
“This time, I filled in a form saying I would need an ISL interpreter, and I got a response saying that would be no problem at all,” said Heffernan. “So I thought, maybe I’ll go for the experience.”
Covid-19 restrictions meant it was already an unusual experience. Instead of sitting in the jury box, the 12 jurors were dispersed around the courtroom in Dublin’s Criminal Courts of Justice to comply with social distancing.
The Court Service assigned two interpreters, Vanessa O’Connell and Michael Feeney, who took turns translating the evidence into ISL for Ms Heffernan during the six-day trial.
It soon became obvious a third interpreter was required to accompany her during breaks.
“ISL is my first language. English is my second language. So there were terms in English that would mean one thing but in a legal sense means something different,” Heffernan said.
“People who are deaf or hard of hearing need to know we’re all well able to do whatever everybody else is doing in society. We’re all equal. The only thing is we have a different language.”
