Erin Patterson found guilty of three counts of murder
Erin Patterson found guilty of three counts of murder
The jury in Erin Patterson's triple-murder trial has found her guilty of murdering three relatives by deliberately lacing a beef Wellington lunch with death cap mushrooms. Follow the verdict as it happened.
Don't know if it's already been posted, happy for mods to delete if it's already posted somewhere else!
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Been following this one closely, I wasn't sure the jury would climb the barrier of reasonable doubt to be honest.
Same, there seemed to be a constellation of evidence but nothing that definitively showed she was going to murder her guests. It will be interesting as I read somewhere that she can still appeal this decision, I assume to the high court if they'll accept it.
she can still appeal this decision
She can appeal, it's important to remember that appeals can only be on the basis of a mistake of law. So for example, if the judge of the case permitted the prosecution to present evidence that he shouldn't have allowed, or if it's determined that his jury instructions were heavily biased, that might get up on appeal.
An appeal can usually* not decide that the jury was just wrong in terms of which evidence they decided was more persuasive than others. Based on the information that's public so far, there's almost zero chance of a successful appeal. Just because you or I, or even a High Court judge would have (based on media reporting of the evidence) decided it didn't meet the burden of "beyond reasonable doubt", isn't sufficient for an overturning of the jury's decision.
The media hasn't been allowed to report on decisions made by the judge while the jury wasn't in the room (which may have included discussions about whether particular evidence is admissible) while the trial was still ongoing to prevent potentially tainting the jury. Now that it's over we might begin to learn that sort of thing. That's where appealable factors might be hiding.
* Pell seems to put doubt into this, and frankly created an enormous amount of distrust in the legal system's ability to hold power to account. There's some very shaky legal argumentation behind it (basically: the defence presented evidence that, if accepted, would necessarily result in a finding of not guilty, and the prosecution did not specifically do anything to try to refute that evidence)
Yeah I felt the same way. We obviously only get a sanitised view of proceedings, but it seemed like a lot of circunstancial evidences and a lot of lying on her behalf, but I'm not sure the prosecution case scaled reasonable doubt for me. Of course, what the jury actually saw in court will be different to what we have had reported by the media.
My wife followed it closely and is a bit of a lawy person from a family of lawyers.
From what she relayed it seems difficult to explain why she took all the actions she did, except if she did a murder, but given that murder has the bar of intent as well I'm not really sure the prosecution established that she did murder.
But like she obviously collected, preserved, and then fed people poisonous mushrooms just like did she intend to kill people beyond reasonable doubt? Idk
Yeah I thought the same. Obviously the jury has access to much more detail than we do, but based on media reporting of the evidence I thought she probably did it, but I don't think I could have returned a verdict of guilty beyond reasonable doubt.
I thought she probably did it, but I don’t think I could have returned a verdict of guilty beyond reasonable doubt.
Have you watched the SBS reality TV series 'The Jury: Death on the Staircase'? It was a frustrating insight into how difficult it is for some people to understand the difference between these two things.
I don't think the jury necessarily made a mistake here to be clear. They had access to far more detail than us. I trust that the jury did a good job here.
Have you watched the SBS reality TV series ‘The Jury: Death on the Staircase’?
I have not. Is it good?
It was a frustrating insight into how difficult it is for some people to understand the difference between these two things
For me I think the problem might be the opposite. I've not been on a jury, but I think I might have trouble distinguishing between beyond reasonable doubt and beyond any doubt, and I might have trouble returning a guilty verdict in the face of anything other than 100% certainty. But I haven't actually been there to know for sure how I'd react.
I'm not sure if I'd blanket recommend it to everyone. Whether you get something out of it probably depends on if you have an angle of interest going in. Like for me, I didn't know much about the way a jury in Australia (NSW) works so it was interesting to see a semi-real version of something I've only ever seen depicted in fictional films and TV series.
However, the producers obviously picked a few people based on their backgrounds/belief systems and that made it quite annoying as well. Like there were true crime fans in there who were obsessed with this idea that they had to "solve" the crime, even though they were repeatedly told that was not their role at all. Then there were people with very black and white ideas about crime or strong religious beliefs that meant they just completely ignored all evidence and insisted on pushing a narrative/verdict that they had basically arrived at from day one. It was so frustrating at times to witness the mental gymnastics these absolute morons would go through to defend an indefensible position, and even more frustrating knowing that there could actually be people as stupid as this out there impacting the lives of real people and that such a process could be called "justice".
So yeah, if that second paragraph doesn't put you off then maybe it's worth checking out. But you've been warned!
After studying court verdicts a bunch by attitude has always been that if I ever end up in irons try my hardest to get a bench trial with sentencing after lunch.
Yeah that was my position as well.