Killer’s appeal

But, Erin, we've actually got two appeals, not running exactly at the same time, but within the same hearing.

That's right.

We know it was almost a year ago that Erin Patterson was sentenced to life in prison with a non-parole period of 33 years.

And that did happen in the Supreme Court in Melbourne, unlike the trial, which was down in Morwell in the Latrobe Valley.

We came back then to court this week.

It was going to be in the Court of Appeal, as it is in an appeal hearing, but unusually it was moved to the neighbouring building, the Supreme Court, because they have much, much bigger rooms.

And we know that there is significant public interest, significant media interest.

So...

It was a little bit of a different landscape, but it did feel like we were back in the sentencing regime of things, Penny.

And we were there, though, for very different reasons.

And that's because Aaron Patterson's legal team say there was a substantial miscarriage of justice that happened during the trial, these seven reasons that you mentioned.

Then we turn to the prosecution and they say, we would also like to appeal, but we don't want to appeal the conviction.

We want to appeal the sentence.

And the reason that we want to appeal the sentence is we say it was manifestly inadequate and it would not be in the public interest for her to receive parole.

So it is a two-day hearing.

Day one is largely all Erin Patterson's legal team and their appeal submissions.

And then day two, we're expecting to hear a lot more then from the prosecution.

Yeah, and the way that this runs is that, as you mentioned, the defence have had their chance first.

So they've mounted their reasons why they believe Erin Patterson essentially deserves to have her convictions thrown out and get a new trial and a fresh go of things.

And then on the back of that, you get the prosecution standing up to basically rebut the arguments.

And in between the three Court of Appeal justices, they ask questions to various parties as they're presenting their arguments.

even though it's physically in that Supreme Court building, it's still under that Court of Appeal jurisdiction.

So we often might refer to it as the Court of Appeal, even though it's physically in a different spot.

But then we will see that sentencing appeal follow the same structure, this time the prosecution going first, the defence going second.

So as we go through these points today, we'll mostly be focusing on what the defence has said, because we've heard all of their arguments against the convictions.