How does the announcement that Julian McMahon has joined Erin Patterson's defence team, currently seeking leave to appeal, connect the case to the history of capital punishment?

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If Patterson had been convicted of murder prior to 1975, the year Victoria abolished the death penalty, she would have been sentenced to hang.

McMahon has first-hand experience of capital punishment, having defended Australians sentenced to death in countries that retain the death penalty.

Twenty years ago, he attended Singapore's Changi prison where Melbourne man, Van Tuong Nguyen, was hanged for smuggling a small amount of heroin.

Ten years ago, Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran were executed by firing squad for drug offences in Indonesia. Again, McMahon was there when the punishment was carried out after his appeals and clemency bids on the men's behalf failed.

The act that abolished the death penalty in Victoria adopted "the term of his natural life" as the substitute for capital punishment.

Victoria later granted judges the right to set a term of imprisonment for murder.

Justice........

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