Mushroom killer Erin Patterson’s lawyers claim ‘catastrophic’ blunder in last-ditch bid to overturn murder sentence
The 51-year-old is currently serving a life sentence for murdering three members of her estranged husband’s family after feeding them a meal containing death-cap mushrooms
The lawyers of Australian Mushroom killer Erin Patterson claimed on Wednesday that there had been a “catastrophic” failure of the justice system in an attempt to appeal her conviction.
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Patterson’s defence have argued that putting the trial’s jurors in the same hotel as police and prosecution officials undermined the integrity of the verdict.
The 51-year-old is currently serving a life sentence for murdering three members of her estranged husband’s family after feeding them a meal containing death-cap mushrooms.
Patterson appeared by video link as her lawyers, Richard Edney and Veronika Drago, presented seven grounds to the Victorian Court of Appeal.
They emphasised the issue of the accommodation arrangement for the jurors in Morwell, who were briefly staying in the same hotel as people connected to the prosecution.
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The arrangement was described as “catastrophic” by Mr Edney, who argued it could have had a “subconscious influence” on jurors and created a “fundamental irregularity” in the legal process.
He emphasised the importance of justice being done in “perhaps one of the most high-profile criminal trials this state has ever had”.
The argument has been dismissed by the director of public prosecutions, Brendan Kissane KC, who said there was no evidence of contact between jurors and prosecution figures.
“There is actually no substance to it,” he said.
“Far from being some sort of catastrophic failure,” he added, “there’s no evidence in our submission to support this ground.”
Mr Kissane pointed out that jurors were kept on a separate floor with a separate dining area, while jury-keepers were sworn to prevent improper communication.
He acknowledged that the trial judge Christopher Beale would have rejected the arrangement if he was aware of it in advance.
“I have got no doubt that if it was said to the judge, ‘Look, we want to stay in the same hotel as the jury’, he would have said, ‘No, we need other arrangements,’” he said.
“But the fact of the matter was that it happened accidentally.”
The second grounds of appeal used by Patterson’s lawyers was that evidence involving cell towers, alongside death-cap mushroom sightings in Loch and Outtrim shared on a citizen science website, should not have been included because it was “unfair” and “dangerous”.
The evidence was used by the prosecution at Patterson’s trial to claim that she had an opportunity to collect the death-cap mushrooms before the murders.
The death caps had been reported in the areas on iNaturalist, the court heard, and pjhone records indicated that Patterson’s mobile had connected to cell towers covering the two areas.
It was argued by the defence on Wednesday that the evidence was too speculative, and it didn’t conclusively prove that Patterson had seen the death cap mushroom reports, or that she had visited the locations where the mushrooms were spotted.
“No such argument was made in relation to the iNaturalist evidence in the trial,” crown prosecutor Jeremy McWilliams replied.
“The response is that this evidence was part of a collection of evidence which, taken together, demonstrated that the applicant had opportunity to deliberately source death cap mushrooms at a time close to the lunch, and on the prosecution case, did so.”