Regardless of its importance, sitting through an appeal by his brother's convicted murderer has been a gruelling process for Steve Johnson.
Five months after he was sentenced and nine months after pleading guilty, Scott Phillip White is trying to revoke his guilty plea to murdering Mr Johnson's mathematician brother, Scott, in Manly in 1988.
"I have to say, this time around, it was hard," Mr Johnson told reporters outside court on Wednesday.
"There were there was a lot of detail in (White's) circumstances and the information that he had to process in order to make his plea, and so I had to relive that again.
"It was pretty gruelling."
White's plea - and whether it was in the interests of justice to permit him to reverse it - has been subject of the two-day appeal in Sydney.
Lawyers for the cognitively impaired prisoner said he had always denied murdering Scott Johnson except for when he unexpectedly said "I am guilty" during a formal process at a pre-trial hearing.
He later told his confused lawyers "I didn't do it but I'm saying I'm doing it ... it's the only way, she's going to come after me" - suggesting his former wife would attack him.
Tim Game SC, who began representing White recently, submitted the convicted murderer didn't have the requisite knowledge to make an informed plea, given technicalities in the case including liability.
But the NSW Director of Public Prosecutions Sally Dowling SC says it's "very significant" that White told his confused lawyers shortly after the plea that "this is not a split (sic) decision ... I have been thinking about this".
"He has the presence of mind to assert for himself that it's not a split-second decision," the NSW DPP said on Tuesday.
Scott Johnson's body was found at the bottom of cliffs at Manly in 1988. The American's death was initially ruled a suicide, only for the case to be reopened in 2012 after sustained pressure from the Johnson family.
A coroner in 2017 determined the matter involved human intervention, leading to White's arrest in 2020.
Mr Johnson, who had flown to Australia for this week's hearing, said he was disappointed his brother's case was "still not settled".
But he could see the importance of ensuring White's plea and subsequent conviction was sound.
"I'm happy that this is happening," he said.
"Even though it was gruelling, seeing the care that has been taken to be sure that the defendant is well treated, I respected that.
"If it turns out that his guilty plea is overturned, then I'll live with what follows after that - even if it's a trial."
He thanked Ms Dowling, Detective Chief Inspector Peter Yeomans and others who'd been involved in the process.
The appeal court, constituted of Chief Justice Andrew Bell and Justices Natalie Adams and Richard Button, will deliver judgment at a later date.
