A YOUNG man found guilty of murder after he strangled his girlfriend to death will find out in the next two weeks whether his conviction will be overturned after fresh psychiatric evidence shed new light on the cause of his mental illness.
Jordan Miller, now 24, was in 2022 found guilty of murdering his 18-year-old girlfriend Emerald Wardle at Metford in June 2020 after a jury found the psychosis he was suffering was caused solely by using LSD and cannabis.
He was later jailed for a maximum of 20 years, with a non-parole period of 13 years and is currently not eligible for parole until 2033.
Lawyers for Miller launched an appeal against his conviction and sentence to the Court of Criminal Appeal as far back as 2022 with a hearing on Friday initially expected to take a full day and hear evidence from as many as four experts on the subject of the cause of Miller's psychosis.
Instead, after a significant psychiatric development in the case, the hearing on Friday lasted about 20 minutes before the CCA reserved its judgment.
That included the time it took for Ms Wardle's family to have their victim impact statements read to the court, a process Chief Justice Andrew Bell had said would occur if the CCA upheld Miller's first two grounds of appeal.
Court documents reveal that one of those grounds is that there was a miscarriage of justice due to fresh evidence of the emergence of further symptoms after the trial that have led two psychiatrists to diagnose Miller with schizophrenia.
The issue at trial was not whether Miller killed Ms Wardle, but whether the psychosis he was suffering at the time was caused "solely" by using drugs or as a result of an underlying mental illness.
Both experts at trial agreed that if further symptoms emerged in the future then Miller should be diagnosed with schizophrenia, meaning the psychosis he was suffering at the time of the killing was not caused solely by using drugs and he should not have been found guilty of murder.
The second ground of appeal asks, given the fresh evidence and diagnosis of schizophrenia, whether the CCA should enter a special verdict of act proven but not criminally responsible.
The Newcastle Herald revealed last month that Miller's chances of having his murder conviction quashed and a special verdict entered had received a boost with a prosecution psychiatric expert now agreeing with a new report from defence expert, psychiatrist Dr Olav Nielssen.
The development in the state of the psychiatric evidence was revealed in the NSW Court of Criminal Appeal in March and came nearly four years after Miller suffered the psychotic episode and killed Ms Wardle.
"The Crown expert agrees to the new report of Dr Nielssen," a DPP solicitor said. "That does not provide a complete answer to the appeal. There are other questions that need to be answered."
Chief Justice Bell said on Friday there would be no expert witnesses called or oral arguments about the cause of Miller's psychosis and noted "what had been submitted properly by the Crown in respect of grounds 1 and 2".
He said the CCA would reserve judgment but deliver their decision and reasons quickly, within the next two weeks.
Instead, he was in a psychotic state and had lost touch with reality causing him to believe Ms Wardle - the woman he was in a loving relationship with - was a "demon" who was "sucking the life out of him."
There was no dispute during the trial that it was Miller who had killed Ms Wardle.
He confessed; first to police and then during his first appearance in court, repeatedly saying: "I am a murderer."
And the medical experts called to give evidence agreed he was in a psychotic state at the time of the killing.
The only issue for the jury to determine was what caused him to be in that psychotic state and made him believe he had no choice but to kill the young woman he loved.
Miller had pleaded not guilty to murder and raised a defence of mental health impairment, with Dr Nielssen giving evidence that he was suffering a first episode of psychosis in the form of an underlying chronic schizophrenia, which was not caused solely by drug use.
Meanwhile, the prosecution said the psychosis Miller was suffering at the time of the killing was caused solely by using LSD and cannabis.
During his closing address, Crown prosecutor Lee Carr, SC, pointed to the reports of Professor David Greenberg who opined Miller's psychotic episode was "temporary", related to his use of drugs and it was too early to definitively diagnose him with schizophrenia.
And after deliberating for about 12 hours the jury rejected the evidence of Dr Nielssen and agreed with the prosecution, finding Miller guilty of murder.
However, Miller's ongoing mental health while behind bars and the fresh expert report and diagnosis of schizophrenia have shed new light on the cause of Miller's psychosis and confirmed what his defence was at trial.
