Double murderer tries to change guilty plea at last moment before sentencing

[Download]

A man who murdered his ex-girlfriend and her daughter has surprised a Sydney court by attempting a last-minute back-flip on his guilty plea, before a judge jailed him for life.

In July, Daniel Holdom pleaded guilty to murdering 20-year-old Karlie Pearce-Stevenson and her two-year-old daughter Khandalyce.

Ms Pearce-Stevenson's body was found in the Belanglo State Forrest, near Sydney, in 2010 and the toddler's remains were found in a suitcase on a remote highway in South Australia in 2015.

Holdom's lawyer today made a surprise request in the NSW Supreme Court to revoke his guilty plea for killing Khandalyce, saying his client had trouble "digesting" the case against him.

But in rejecting the application, Justice Robert Hulme noted Holdom had an experienced legal team and he was not satisfied the 44-year-old did not understand what he was pleading to.

There were applause from the public gallery when the sentence was handed down.

Justice Hulme said there was evidence Holdom used extreme force against Ms Pearce-Stevenson, stomped on her body, violated it in "a callous and sadistic way" and took trophy photos of it.
Murderer Daniel Holdom attempts to withdraw his guilty plea befo..

What a fuckwit. What did he think would happen admitting to a a double murder?

[Mattk50]

There's a reason an overwhelming majority of cases end in guilty pleas and it's not because they're all guilty, the US justice system is essentially a big racket along these lines, if you decide to fight a charge you're given a much higher possible punishment. This takes advantage of human psychology, people are inherently loss averse so when framed in a certain way, even if the risk of losing much more is lower innocent people will tend to take the guilty plea just to minimize the potential amount of loss. This is a problem inherent to the guilty plea system itself, so even though im not familiar with the wider problems in the australian justice system i can imagine there's very similar issues with it.

In this case for a cursory glance the evidence seems pretty strong, but even a point like "had shown no remorse" would get viewed in a completely different light if the person is innocent, innocent people would usually not show remorse because they didn't do the thing. Just voicing my disdain for gulty pleas in general, and that my first thought is that there are many times when "his client had trouble "digesting" the case against him." is a valid complaint, so it's not as fuckwitted as it might seem. Many innocents end up taking a guilty plea and they aren't all fuckwits, they've been manipulated by the system.

[elix]

Ok but this is Australia. Are you saying it's the same thing there?

[Clovis]