Claims extracted
16
sentences that state something as happening or true
Uncertain
6%
1 of 16 hedged
("reportedly", "may", "according to")
Leaning
not political
takes no side on a contested political question
Publisher signals
66/100
The Guardian's corrections and
hedging, across everything collected from it. Not a measure of accuracy.
Outlets on this story
24
Crime & Law
Same framing elsewhere
1
articles that frame the event the way this one does
Erin Patterson is set to find out if she could face a longer prison sentence or a new trial, as Victoria’s highest court hands down its decision on two appeals regarding her triple murder case.
uncertain
court → set → case
The court of appeal is set to rule on the two appeals from 10am on Friday, after justices Lesley Taylor, Stephen McLeish and Peter Kidd heard arguments from her legal team and prosecutors in August.
Patterson, 52, is not expected to attend the appeal decision in person.
asserted
Patterson → set → person
She was last year sentenced to life imprisonment, with a non-parole period of 33 years, for the murders of her estranged husband’s parents, Don and Gail Patterson, and his aunt Heather Wilkinson, after she hosted them for lunch.
asserted
she → sentence → lunch
Patterson was also convicted of the attempted murder of Heather’s husband, Ian Wilkinson, who survived the beef wellington laced with death cap mushrooms after spending weeks in hospital.
asserted
who → convict → hospital
She has appealed against her convictions, while the director of public prosecutions appealed against Patterson’s sentence, arguing that it was manifestly inadequate.
asserted
it → appeal → sentence
In August, the court heard Patterson should have been given no possibility of ever being released from prison, or a non-parole period so lengthy that she was likely to die behind bars.
asserted
she → hear → bars
Her lawyers argued seven grounds for her appeal, including that allowing jurors to stay in the same hotel as police and the prosecution while they deliberated over their verdicts in the triple murder trial represented a “catastrophic” failure of the justice system.
asserted
they → argue → system
Richard Edney, for Patterson, said the failure to properly separate the jury during their deliberations was a fundamental irregularity that had denied her a fair trial.
asserted
that → say → trial
“What we say has occurred here in the applicant’s trial was an inexplicable and perhaps still unexplained failure of a process,” Edney told the court in August.
asserted
Edney → say → August
They also argued that the trial judge Christopher Beale erred in ruling that photos and videos related to mushrooms and found on an SD card in Patterson’s home was inadmissible, as it tended to support her evidence that she foraged for mushrooms.
asserted
she → argue → mushrooms
During the hearings, Brendan Kissane KC, the DPP, said that even though Patterson would be aged in her 80s by the time she was eligible for parole, her sentence was still too lenient.
asserted
sentence → say → parole
When asked whether a longer non-parole period would essentially damn Patterson to dying behind bars, and had “some artifice of it being life with life”, Kissane told the court: “It has its harsh aspect to it, of course, we accept that.”
asserted
we → ask → that
“But in our submission that is not a matter that is outweighed by the seriousness of the offending.”
asserted
that → outweigh → offending
There are several possible outcomes to Patterson’s appeal: leave to appeal is not granted; leave to appeal is granted, but her appeal dismissed; leave to appeal is granted, her appeal upheld and a retrial ordered; or her leave to appeal is granted, the appeal upheld, and acquittal entered.
asserted
acquittal → be → appeal
If either of the final two decisions are handed down, there will be no need to rule on the DPP’s sentence appeal.
asserted
either → hand → appeal
If not, either the appeal fails, or it succeeds and Patterson is resentenced by the court of appeal.
asserted
Patterson → fail → appeal
The Aporia
