Stephen Standage launches appeal against Tasmanian murder conviction
Stephen Roy Standage has lodged an appeal against his conviction for the murders of Ronald Jarvis in 1992 and John Thorn in 2006.
A jury took three days to find Stephen Roy Standage guilty of the two killings and the 62 year old was sentenced to 48 years behind bars.
Appeal documents were lodged with the Supreme Court in Hobart challenging the ruling by former Justice Peter Evans in December 2012 that the two murders could be tried together.
It was believed to be a Tasmanian - if not Australian - first that two murders committed 14 years apart were heard at the same time.
Justice Evans accepted prosecution arguments there were enough similarities between the two murders that they formed part of a series of crimes of a similar character.
Standage's lawyer, Tamara Jago, has argued that Justice Evans erred in law in making that ruling and in not using his discretion to have two separate trials.
If the appeal were successful, it could mean scrapping the trial and conviction and starting again.
It could also mean a separate trial for each murder.
Ms Jago has been contacted for comment.
It was not clear whether further appeals on different grounds were in the pipeline.
