Citation: R v Patterson (No 3) [2024] NSWSC 455
Court: Supreme Court of New South Wales
Date: 17 April 2024
Judge: Dhanji J
Background
The accused stood trial for the murder of his sister, having pleaded not guilty to murder but guilty to manslaughter (a plea the Crown declined to accept). The undisputed facts were that the accused killed his sister in November 2021 in what Dhanji J described as a brutal manner, at a time when the accused believed she was possessed by demons. The accused was not seeking an acquittal. Rather, he sought a special verdict of act proven but not criminally responsible on the basis of mental health impairment under the Mental Health and Cognitive Impairment Forensic Provisions Act 2020 (NSW), or alternatively a manslaughter verdict based on substantial impairment.
The central factual dispute for the jury was narrow: whether the accused's psychosis at the time of the killing was caused solely by the temporary effect of ingesting a substance (methamphetamine and cannabis), which would take him outside the statutory definition of mental health impairment, or whether it constituted a qualifying mental health impairment independent of that exclusion. Both parties relied on expert psychiatric evidence to address that question.
Shortly after the trial commenced on 8 April 2024, two high-profile violent incidents occurred in New South Wales: the Bondi Junction shopping centre stabbing (in which seven people died) and a separate stabbing at Wakeley. The accused's legal team brought an urgent application to discharge the jury, citing the extensive media coverage of those events and their potential to prejudice the trial.
Legal Issues
- Whether the extensive media coverage of the Bondi Junction and Wakeley stabbings created a real risk that the jury could no longer approach the trial impartially.
- Whether that risk was sufficient to satisfy the legal test for discharging a jury, namely necessity in the context of the accused's entitlement to a fair trial.
- Whether additional concerns, including a juror's question about a media article and a brief civilian-clothes encounter between counsel and a juror, contributed to a basis for discharge.
Decision
Dhanji J identified the governing legal standard as necessity, understood in the context of the accused's entitlement to a fair trial, drawing on Crofts v The Queen (1996) 186 CLR 427. His Honour noted that no rigid rule applies and that relevant considerations include the seriousness of the extraneous event in context, its likely impact on the jury's reasoning, and whether judicial directions could adequately address any apprehended prejudice.
His Honour found that the Bondi Junction and Wakeley events, while tragic and widely covered, were materially different in character from the case before the jury. The Bondi Junction attack involved an unknown assailant in a public place; the present case involved a familial killing in the context of a disputed mental health defence. It was not immediately obvious that the media coverage of those events would affect the jury's capacity to resolve the narrow expert-evidence question at the heart of this trial.
Dhanji J also observed that the jury had already been told the accused was not seeking release. A special verdict would result in the accused remaining in a secure facility. That context significantly reduced any risk that the jury would be influenced by community anxiety about the release of persons with mental illness. The separate concerns about the juror's media question and the counsel encounter did not, in his Honour's view, materially alter that assessment.
His Honour concluded that discharging the jury would amount to "an overly sensitive approach" and would reflect unwarranted distrust in the jury system. No real risk to the fairness of the trial had been established, and the application was refused.
Orders Made
No formal orders were recorded in the provided text. The application for discharge of the jury was refused. The parties were invited to address the court on whether any further directions to the jury were sought.
Key Takeaways
- The test for discharging a jury is one of necessity, assessed in the context of the accused's right to a fair trial, and that standard requires a real (not merely theoretical) risk that the jury's impartiality has been compromised.
- Where extraneous media events are relied upon as the basis for discharge, a court will examine how closely connected those events are to the contested issues in the trial, not merely whether the events generated widespread public emotion.
- The narrow character of the question actually before a jury is a relevant factor: where the jury's task is confined to resolving a specific point of expert evidence, the scope for external events to distort reasoning may be correspondingly limited.
- Informing a jury that a special verdict does not mean release can reduce the risk that community concern about violence and mental illness will prejudice deliberations, and this was treated as a relevant consideration in assessing the discharge application.
- Refusing to discharge a jury is capable of being justified on the basis that discharge would itself signal a lack of confidence in the jury system, particularly where the community's engagement through jury service carries its own legitimate value.
Legislation and Cases Referenced
Legislation
- Crimes Act 1900 (NSW), s 23A (substantial impairment by mental health impairment)
- Criminal Procedure Act 1986 (NSW)
- Evidence Act 1995 (NSW)
- Mental Health and Cognitive Impairment Forensic Provisions Act 2020 (NSW), ss 4(1), 4(2), 4(3)
Cases
- Crofts v The Queen (1996) 186 CLR 427; [1996] HCA 22
- Ilievski v R; Nolan v R (No 2) [2023] NSWCCA 248
- Miller v The Crown [2015] NSWCCA 206; 252 A Crim R 486
- Patel v The Queen (2012) 247 CLR 531; [2012] HCA 29
- R v Ahola (No 6) [2013] NSWSC 703