Holdom has lost control of about 45% of his trial, which hasn't even begun yet. The tactic of not entering a plea has a finite time line, and his ran out. He can still plead guilty at his next arraignment but he has already put in motion the mighty machinery of a Supreme Court contested trial, and has lost years off the possibility, (remote) of eventual parole.
Because I can see that when he is found guilty , of the murder of Khandalyce, his sentence for that murder will include the terrible phrase, 'life, ( which is standard in NSW for murder) without the possibility of parole'...
No one knows as yet what his motivation for murdering Karlie was, he can make up anything that suits his circumstances, lots of murderers do exactly that, and it is often upheld in law , but where Holdom has damned himself forever, is the purely self serving murder of Khandalyce, her very presence condemning him of the murder of her mother. And he would have known he had to kill Khandalyce the moment Karlie was dead, to save himself. There was no other possible outcome.
And now, he has lost control of the date of his trial. Had he made a plea, he could have claimed to be included in discussion of a date, but his refusal brought the machinery of the law into play, and the judge has the power to not only make a plea for him, and that is always not guilty under those circumstances, Justice Johnson can also consult his own legal diary without consultation with the accused and arbitrarily set a date, which he promptly did. Holdom should have seen that coming, with the end of the legal year looming and the necessity to lay out next years legal program , in the Supreme Court.
Which gives Holdom 9 months to become an expert in medicine, psychology, forensics, Centrelink processes, DNA, Telstra records, the mechanics of strangulation, the makes and models of cars, the techniques of mobile phones, and mobile towers, the retrieval of digital records, the .. you get my drift.
The Police Prosecutor will present an expert for each and every aspect of this case.