Erin Patterson - We the members of the MN jury find the defendant Guilty or Not Guilty?

[Dustyblue]

Well here we are, after 2 years of head-scratching speculation and many weeks of trial detail-thrashing. It looks like the Judge will give his directions to the jury on Tuesday, after which they'll be sequestered in a local motel (I do not envy them this) to reach a verdict.

Clearly we're not privy to every last piece of evidence shown at the trial, but those of us who've been following closely will surely have formed an opinion one war or the other.

So, I ask you- if you were on the jury- what would your verdict be?

I’m not sure if anyone produced a timeline of what Erin did vs what she said she did, does anyone know?

They must know what time she drove her son’s friend home as there would be witnesses and possibly CCTV. So after lunch, her son and friend came back (no idea where her daughter was), she went to the tip half an hour after lunch ended, she came home, she gave the friend a lift. So in that where was the time to eat all the cake and throw it up? Imagine being the prosecutor knowing there was evidence of her going to the tip and having to listen to her talking about bingeing cake knowing that was almost definitely a lie, and not being able to ask Erin to talk through her timeline of events.

Here the prosecution could have produced rebuttal evidence in response to the cake claims but I suspect the timeline of the bingeing was too vague to tie in with the dump trip.

Why was the trip to the dump straight after the lunch inadmissible evidence? It seems so relevant.

I don’t think her evidence of vomiting up the cake or having an eating disorder was brought in until very late. It is possible they weren’t prepared for that. I suspect the defence tried to include it but the prosecution would have argued that this could have unreasonably swayed the jury into making leaps (about what she was disposing) and it could have been innocent. However, why the hell wasn’t that in her timeline of events if she’s innocent?

Because they couldn't find what she had dumped on that occasion.

They did. It was the dehydrator. And they checked it, and it had deathcap mushroom residue in the dehydrator.

But why can’t the fact that she dumped ‘something’ away straight after the lunch be used as evidence? The jury can use that information and make their own deductions.

They didn’t for the trip on the day of the lunch. She ditched the dehydrator three days after the lunch. Two separate trips.

Because their deduction would be supposition. They have to base their decisions on evidence. The dumped dehydrator was admissible because they had evidence of what she dumped; this wasn't the case with the trip she took just after the lunch guests had left. I guess the judge was trying to prevent an unsafe conviction by not allowing it to be mentioned.

I thought the same. I assumed the ‘bulimia’ excuse came too late in the day. In any case they got an expert to say her vomiting at any point wouldn’t have stopped her ingesting enough poison to make her potentially fatally, ill.

Must be frustrating when you have further information which would show doubt on someone’s evidence but not allowed to include it. Having said that he could surely have asked what she did after the meal and if she didn’t mention the tip trip of which they had evidence of have challenged her on the stand.

The bulimia excuse was another thing without evidence as well, so I don't imagine the jury spent too much time considering it, even if they hadn't had the testimony that throwing up after the meal wouldn't have made much difference.

In fact, if you separate everything in the case into 'evidence' or 'no evidence' it's clear just how much noise she created to try and divert people. Then when you get rid of the noise the answer seems way more simple.

Yes, that’s what I’m wondering about too. Why was she not at least asked about the trip to the dump after lunch, especially as there is evidence on cctv

Because for whatever reason the defence was successful in making it inadmissible. If the prosecution referred to it in front of the jury the whole case could have been thrown out.

The evidence (as the term is used in law) of her bulimia was her own direct testimony- for the court direct testimonial evidence is very strong (the strongest) evidence specifically in terms of whether it is admissible or not. This is because hearing it from the witnesses mouth and having the witness cross examined puts the jury in the best position to consider whether the evidence is credible and whether they believe it.

But in this instance, the person giving the testimonial evidence is a known and admitted liar who has even lied on the stand.

Yes and it’s a good thing the jury saw through her lies .

That doesn't affect admissibility, it affects credibility. And the best way for the jury to assess credibility is to see the witness give their own testimony and watch it be challenged under cross examination. They are then well placed to decide whether they accept or reject the things she was saying.

CCTV evidence of someone bringing a box to a tip without any further context of what's in the box invites the jury to speculate what's in the box to and then make determinations on unchallenged assumptions- a normal thing for the media to do, but not the law.

Yes, she was not a credible witness.

Would the cctv of her dropping something at the tip be admissible if she was asked about it in court? As in ‘was that you?’ ‘What did you drop off?’

No because it had been ruled inadmissible by the judge in the pre trial hearing. Any reference to it at all would be objected to, and would risk a mis-trial.

I just thank goodness she didn’t get the chance to pursue nursing or midwifery as she had supposedly planned. Imagine being a patient, or a parent with newborn who said something she took the wrong way/took offence to. Heaven knows what she would have done, and she would have had a much larger scope than some relatives at a meal!

Good point @HoppingPavlova. Scutter the nutter being a nurse or midwife is a truly terrifying prospect. Shades of Lucy Letby.

Only if she brought it up herself in her evidence (when she's answering questions asked by her lawyer), because then the prosecution could cross examine her on it.

I’m sure this news story today will be a surprise to no one.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cwy3ngr2n3vo

Just listened to the latest episodes of the ABC podcast. We had obviously heard about the charges that were then dropped, but I was shocked to hear that Simon had been so ill as to be in a coma and lost some of his bowel.