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?

Bloody hell, I don't envy the jurors. They have so much to sift through and rules with which to do it.

Can't help but laugh at Justice Beale "You don't have to bring your toothbrush tomorrow".

I am very curious about how sequestering a jury will work. Can't help but think of the Simpsons episode where Homer deliberately votes Not Guilty against the other jurors so he can stay at the good hotel. "Freddy Quimby should leave this court a free hotel".

It's a very unnatural and difficult situation for people to be in.

She had knowledge of the whereabouts of deathcap mushrooms.
She knew how to identify deathcap mushrooms
She dumped the dehydrator when she knew she was under investigation
There was evidence of the death cap mushrooms in the dehydrator
She couldn't remember the name of the shop she bought the mushrooms from
Deathcap mushrooms were ingested by only 4 people at that dinner, and not her.

There is no other explanation for the above behaviour other than she purposefully decided to put deathcap mushrooms in her familys dinner.

There is no other explanation for the above behaviour other than she purposefully decided to put deathcap mushrooms in her familys dinner.

I agree. But people are still saying it's only circumstantial, or it's not been proven beyond a reasonable doubt. Or where's the motive? Or there's no smoking gun.

For me, the "smoking gun" is the completely normal LFTs.

People say, oh but she got sick too - ie, some minor mostly unwitnessed diarrhea - however totally normal liver function tests means zero contact with amanita toxins. The end.

There is no explanation why her BW had no DCs in it other than she deliberately made sure it was so. And hence why she had no fear for her children getting ill.

the judge said if you believe her testimony you must find her not guilty
well frankly her testimony is full on inconsistencies

but also
The jury should cast aside prejudices and sympathies while deliberating the verdict, Beale said. “The fact Patterson told lies must not cause you to be prejudiced against her,” he said

That's a curious point isn't it? In real life, people telling multiple lies would absolutely cause you to 'be prejudiced' against them.

How are real people, like the jury members, supposed to cast off every moral code they've ever had?

I'm unsure Beale has made the jury's job any easier.

does she have a reason for her factory resets

Because real people lie constantly and it doesn't mean they're murderers, and it would be inappropriate for the jury or anyone to think being a liar makes someone more likely to be a murderer.
In particular, many people lie about having health conditions. And it doesn't make them more likely to be a murderer.
Eg Belle Gibson is an infamous pathological liar about cancer, but that doesn't make her more like to be a murderer.
The jury can only use the relevant and admissible evidence to decide guilt or innocent. Is that artificial compared to real life? Yes- because someone's freedom is at stake here and that's a serious responsibility. These laws have evolved over time often out of cases where people were convicted on emotional "common sense" evidence, and it later came out that the conviction was wrong.

Most of her lies were about the murders.

Not really, for most of them, not in a legal sense. The proven lies were around the events that occurred certainly, and a couple were directly related (eg the dehydrator, foraging).
Ultimately the judge is correct to make this direction to the jury, and if the jury is to use "tendency to lie" to mean "proves murder" then that would be an error that could be grounds of appeal.

Also the factory resets, phone disposal, mushrooms from a shop and the related ‘forgetting’

she discharged herself and got rid of the dehydrator

The health lie was told for the purpose of getting the ex and guests to a meal - where they were poisoned.

Wow! Now:

Beale tells the jurors he will not finish his instructions to them tomorrow, meaning the earliest deliberations can begin is Friday.

So do then jurors have to sit and listen go the judge talk to them for three days? I don't think I could do it!

Me, neither! Poor jury.

I thought that the comments he was making about lies and prejudice, the way it was worded was leaning them towards finding her not guilty. Will be interesting to see what his further comments are over the next couple of days.

I would also hate to be the jury.

It wasn't though- these are just the instructions a judge must give to a jury where tendency/ coincidence evidence (which is a specific type- as per the Evidence Act which is the relevant law) has been adduced, or where circumstances have been described but aren't legally relevant, as per section 55 of the Evidence Act in NSW, and similar in Victoria. Similar directions are given in all jury trials where evidence surrounding, but not directly of, the offence is adduced.
It comes down to the fact that in a trial the jury determines the facts and the judge determines the law. So at this stage, the judge is explaining to them what law is relevant for them doing their job of determining the facts.
If the judge fails to do this and the jury finds her guilty, the defence will immediately appeal the decision. If the appeal is upheld, a whole new trial is likely to be set down. So the judge is not doing them to push them one way or another, but largely to make sure she gets one, fair, trial and then done.

Thank you for the information @yazzi that is really helpful.

That doesn’t make any sense- she lied to them AT the meal, once they were already there.

She told them she had a serious health matter to discuss, in order to get them there. Then at the meal told them she had cancer.

If there is a hung jury, a new trial and a new thread will be needed!

I can see disagreement happening in the jury room and maybe there will be no verdict. It's a possibility to keep in mind I suppose.

1. She told them a lie to get them to the meal (health issues, imposed she might have cancer, lied about a biopsy and cancer appointments)
2. according to EP she told lie 1, so she could cover up that she's was having WL surgery. Except that was also a lie because she wasn't having WL surgery. So her explanation for lying was also a lie.
3. She told them that she had cancer at the meal.

So lies to get them there. Coming up with a lie to explain why she lied. And then lying at the meal.

Oh gawd I’ve already spent far too much of my life invested in this one!

It's lies upon lies upon lies, long before the lunch (and long before she even starts her lies that the defence says were down to "panic").

A month before she told Gail about a lump on her elbow. The court was shown a diary entry from Gail Patterson on 28 June 2023. The entry reads “Erin - St Vincent’s arm lump.”

“You did not have a lump in your elbow on 28 June 2023,” Rogers says.

“That’s true,” Patterson replies.

“You did not have an appointment at St Vincent’s on 28 June 2023,” Rogers says.

“No, I didn’t,” Patterson says.

Then she carries on with the lie, replying the next day saying the appointment “went ok”. And then she said she'd had a needle biopsy of the lump and would return for an MRI the following week.

Patterson agrees this was a lie.

“I didn’t have an appointment and I didn’t have a needle biopsy,” she says.

She agrees she also did not have a scheduled MRI appointment.

Then she tells Gail, who enquires after how it went with the MRI, that she'd tell her about it at lunch. She invites them on the 16th July to the Beef Wellington lunch at her place a few weeks later. She lures them all there with her "health issues" and on July 29, after lunch, she tells her ovarian cancer diagnosis lie.