awaiting sentencing phase

Judge Thokozile Masipa, who will decide on Pistorius' sentence, set Oct. 13 for the hearings to begin. The maximum sentence for culpable homicide is 15 years.

“There is no prescribed sentence for culpable homicide in South African law. The sentence can be decided at the discretion of the judge based on the weight of evidence and circumstances surrounding the incident,” veteran defense lawyer Gordon Scheepers told ABC News.

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http://abcnews.go.com/International...ity-factor-sentence-experts/story?id=25462232



Continue discussion here...

Originally Posted by Interested Bystander

Belt or no belt - that is the question :happydance:

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Originally Posted by sleuth-d-

hi res or not high res
[my kingdom for a belt]

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I'm with the #beltonjeanscrew

Thank you Delilah for posting this. It's just too good to leave it languishing near the end of the last thread.

"steveml has thrown down the gauntlet so here is my attempt to show how OP's version is reasonably possibly true. It's written in the first person and with no punctuation for effect, not because I don't know how to use a full stop:

I wake up Reeva says ‘Can’t sleep, Baba?’ I don’t look at her but I see the shape of her legs under the duvet I get out of bed rubbing my face with my hands and go over to the balcony doors it’s a really hot night but I want to close the doors and curtains because I’m terrified of intruders even though I was happy to go to sleep with the doors open because Reeva would have fought off an intruder by herself I bring in the two fans that are on the balcony except they are not on the balcony moving the large one by grabbing it from the front which is really awkward so I can keep my back to the bed I close the doors and draw the curtains so the bedroom is pitch black I shuffle around the bed but not looking at it making sure I don’t trip over the fans, ipad, hair clippers, reeva’s jeans, the extension cord, the fans’ cables plugged into the extension cord (except one of them isn’t because there is no space for it) and the duvet that was on the bed except it was on the floor all the while being so unstable on my stumps that I can’t balance but I can run and walk backwards on them if forced to re-enact how I killed my girlfriend

I get to the hi fi and even though the room is pitch black there’s a little blue LED light that’s really going to annoy me when I get back into bed even though it doesn’t shed enough light for me to see anything in the bedroom I could switch it off at the mains socket but I reckon it would be far better to cover it with the jeans that the ultra neat and tidy Reeva has dumped on the floor inside out then OMG I hear the bathroom window slam open!

Immediately concluding there’s an intruder in the bathroom not that it could be Reeva who I am sharing a bed with and who might have got up to go to the toilet when I was bringing in the fans that weren’t outside and not looking at the bed where I fully expect Reeva to be even though she’s actually in the bathroom I move to the left hand side of the bed and get my 9mm out from underneath it without stopping to tell Reeva what I am doing or pressing the panic button that I have in case intruders try to get into my house or activating the alarm that I may or may not have set before I went to sleep to attract attention I whisper to her in a soft voice to call the police but don't check she's heard me then make my way down the corridor on the stumps I can’t balance on shouting at the intruder to get the F out of my house get the F out of my house Reeva call the police while keeping quiet so as not to give away my position and not wondering why Reeva hasn’t replied then BANG! The toilet door slams shut!

I get to the entrance to the bathroom and see the window open but I’m sure there aren’t any other intruders on the ladder that isn’t propped up against the outside wall then SCREECH! I hear a sound that makes me think someone is coming out of the toilet but will later believe sounded like the magazine rack moving I decide not to fire into the shower cubicle in case the round ricochets and hits me so I fire four shots into the toilet door without thinking or meaning to fire the shots but intending to fire the shots although I never foresaw that firing four shots at someone behind a wooden door might conceivably result in death

I then move back along the corridor without bothering to check whether there are any other intruders on the ladder that isn’t propped up against the wall still with my 9mm in my hand I get to the bed and I’m surprised that Reeva isn’t still in it so I roll over the bed to check if she’s behind the curtains but she’s not it’s a second opportunity to activate my panic button or set off my alarm but I don’t do that or check if Reeva has actually gone out of the bedroom without activating the alarm that I can’t remember if I set or not I run back to the bathroom on the stumps I can hardly balance on screaming the toilet door is locked so I shoulder charge it even though it opens outwards I run back to the bedroom to go onto the balcony taking care not to trip over the fans, cables, clippers, jeans, duvet and ipad even though it’s still pitch black and the fans are blocking my way I shout HELP HELP HELP then go back into the bedroom past the panic button and decide to put my prosthetics on taking time to put my socks on first because I don’t want my stumps to get sore I grab my cricket bat and go back to the bathroom still wailing as if my life is in danger even though I know it's not I put down my 9mm and hit the door BASH...BASH BASH BASH coincidentally in the exact same pattern as the shots I fired earlier and by bending over so that I hit it at a height that is consistent with my being on my stumps except I’m wearing my prosthesis I stop screaming as soon as I hit the door for the last time and rip the door panels off then I see Reeva slumped over the toilet I reach in to pick up the key to unlock the door then I check Reeva she is breathing although she’s dead on account of having a shattered hip an amputated arm and a hole in her head

Reasonably possibly true? Indeed".

Indeed.

June might not attend court for the sentencing.

“I don’t wish to set foot in a courtroom ever again,” she said.

“Touching and wearing her clothes and jewellery makes me feel closer to her".

I found the last quote so terribly sad. It really brings home how much families cling to everything that reminds them of their lost loved one. I’m one of those people who don’t believe in “closure”. IMO you can never have closure when someone kills your child. The most you could ever hope for is that somehow you can move on to some degree but this will take years, not weeks or months.

The Steenkamps are far more charitable when they talk of OP than I could ever be.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/wor...ur-daughter-Reeva-Steenkamps-mother-says.html

Thought I'd get the links to these posted again on page 1 of the new thread so they're easy to find:

Phone usage charts (3 tabs, one for each phone)

Witness testimony analysis

Silverwoods Estate witness locations (graphic)

Silverwoods Estate witness locations (aerial)

Super work thanks so much!!!!

Justice will not be served until those who are unaffected are as outraged as those who are." - Benjamin Franklin

Judgejudi said:

June might not attend court for the sentencing.

“I don’t wish to set foot in a courtroom ever again,” she said.

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~rsbm~

.. can't say I blame them, there's not really much point being there for a sentencing hearing for a verdict with which they (and many others of us) believe to be completely incorrect.

Going back to what they were saying on the TV interview about now wanting/being ready to speak privately with OP (I personally think they would be wasting their energy, but obv. realised why they feel the need to do it), I wouldn't mind betting that once this whole trial is over and he is free to do whatever he wants, he will not be in the least bit interested in meeting with them and that he was only saying he wanted to earlier in the trial because it was all part of his manipulation of it. He has no need to meet with them once it's all over and seeing as, for him, everything he does is about him, he won't be interested .. in fact, he will absolutely not want to meet them because he won't be able to hide it from them what really happened that night, they will see it in his eyes .. he's too much of a coward for them to see that.

jay-jay said:

~rsbm~

.. can't say I blame them, there's not really much point being there for a sentencing hearing for a verdict with which they (and many others of us) believe to be completely incorrect.

Going back to what they were saying on the TV interview about now wanting/being ready to speak privately with OP (I personally think they would be wasting their energy, but obv. realised why they feel the need to do it), I wouldn't mind betting that once this whole trial is over and he is free to do whatever he wants, he will not be in the least bit interested in meeting with them and that he was only saying he wanted to earlier in the trial because it was all part of his manipulation of it. He has no need to meet with them once it's all over and seeing as, for him, everything he does is about him, he won't be interested .. in fact, he will absolutely not want to meet them because he won't be able to hide it from them what really happened that night, they will see it in his eyes .. he's too much of a coward for them to see that.

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Agree, but if there is a possibility of a re-(view/trial, whatever), he just might.

So June Steenkamp has confirmed the jeans outside were Reeva's?.

Re. the jeans outside on the ground .. I was originally in the 'belt camp' but actually, looking more closely, I'm not so sure .. I'm not really sure which bits are the 'loops' being referred to as where the 'belt' goes through but all I can see are two quite big, dark, loops which are deffo not jeans type loops although I can't really make out what they are (shame we don't have a clearer photo to be able to zoom in, isn't it!). It's still a very odd place for them to be, anyway, and I really can't see Reeva hanging washing over railings, etc, she did some other washing and the jeans would've been hung up wherever she hung the rest of the washing (and presumably it was all dry by then as her bag was fairly well packed?). It's just too co-incidental that they 'just so happened' to be directly under the bathroom/toilet window, as are all the other bits of damage around the house, they are all just too co-incidental to be ignored, too and should've been taken into account in the 'big picture' instead of just dismissed out of hand simply because, as individual pieces, they could not prove anything. I'm sure there are many other murder cases where they collect together all of these things to build the scene, they don't just find a weapon, test it for DNA and then say 'ah, that matches, you must be the murderer/have murdered', they have to use that evidence along with all sorts of other circumstantial evidence, because actually, even DNA on a knife could probably be argued away one way or another by the murderer, so the conviction itself has to comprise of a number of other things, i.e. things which build the whole picture. This was not done in this case, and we know exactly 'why', too.

I just don't think there's anywhere to go with those jeans. Nobody apart from OP can tell us how they came to be where they were, and even he might not know for sure. I still think that they could have been part of Reeva's laundry, perhaps hung over the balcony rail because they took a little longer to dry than the rest. It is at least a feasible explanation, and if OP had been asked, he would quite possibly have said so and the case would not have been advanced a jot.

james83 said:

So June Steenkamp has confirmed the jeans outside were Reeva's?.

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One would expect that the jeans would have been shown to family or friends for identification. I doubt that June would necessarily know if they were Reeva's, since Reeva didn't live with her parents. But the Myers sisters would probably recognise them if they were hers. So perhaps they were asked.

If only we could have access to the original photos of all the items and crimes scenes instead of the pics on a tv screen that is then set as an image.
I hope JM and the assessors saw the original photos. :whistle:

Mr Fossil said:

Thought I'd get the links to these posted again on page 1 of the new thread so they're easy to find:

Phone usage charts (3 tabs, one for each phone)

Witness testimony analysis

Silverwoods Estate witness locations (graphic)

Silverwoods Estate witness locations (aerial)

Click to expand...

comments re: your telephone note 2 [sheet 4] and the binge whatsapp messages.

op said he was 'messaging' binge, are you sure it was via whatsapp?

did op have broadband/cable and a wifi network [he was surfing *advertiser censored* on his ipad wasn't he?]... then the whatsapp/imessages could have been over wifi on his phone. or via facebook, or some other social network.
it could also have been on his ipad? via wifi/imessage? or via imessage on a separate number if the ipad had wifi + cell.

[we also know reeva had an internet connection either by wifi or cell on her ipad as she was surfing cars on it...]

Mr Fossil said:

Thought I'd get the links to these posted again on page 1 of the new thread so they're easy to find:

Phone usage charts (3 tabs, one for each phone)

Witness testimony analysis

Silverwoods Estate witness locations (graphic)

Silverwoods Estate witness locations (aerial)

Click to expand...

Could someone tell me how to expand the phone chart, please .. the text is displaying really small on my screen and all the things I usually do to zoom in don't seem to be working on that particular page :-/

jay-jay said:

Could someone tell me how to expand the phone chart, please .. the text is displaying really small on my screen and all the things I usually do to zoom in don't seem to be working on that particular page :-/

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viewing on a mac here and via safari, chrome or firefox ... cmd + or cmd - [zooms the screen view in and out]
might depend on your operating system, version, and browser and version

some discussion here:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet...3T2HJw45EQmViabBCh5OSew4Y/edit#gid=1420993443

jay-jay said:

Re. the jeans outside on the ground .. I was originally in the 'belt camp' but actually, looking more closely, I'm not so sure .. I'm not really sure which bits are the 'loops' being referred to as where the 'belt' goes through but all I can see are two quite big, dark, loops which are deffo not jeans type loops although I can't really make out what they are (shame we don't have a clearer photo to be able to zoom in, isn't it!). It's still a very odd place for them to be, anyway, and I really can't see Reeva hanging washing over railings, etc, she did some other washing and the jeans would've been hung up wherever she hung the rest of the washing (and presumably it was all dry by then as her bag was fairly well packed?). It's just too co-incidental that they 'just so happened' to be directly under the bathroom/toilet window, as are all the other bits of damage around the house, they are all just too co-incidental to be ignored, too and should've been taken into account in the 'big picture' instead of just dismissed out of hand simply because, as individual pieces, they could not prove anything. I'm sure there are many other murder cases where they collect together all of these things to build the scene, they don't just find a weapon, test it for DNA and then say 'ah, that matches, you must be the murderer/have murdered', they have to use that evidence along with all sorts of other circumstantial evidence, because actually, even DNA on a knife could probably be argued away one way or another by the murderer, so the conviction itself has to comprise of a number of other things, i.e. things which build the whole picture. This was not done in this case, and we know exactly 'why', too.

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BBM

I totally agree..the location of those jeans is a piece of the puzzle that should have been addressed..speaking of the pieces of the puzzle brings to mind Chiziweni..

At 3:22 am..which is about 5 minutes after the sound of the bat strikes was heard..and is about 8 to 10 minutes after the shots were heard...Chiziweni was fully awake/dressed greeting Carice and her father..yet we are supposed to let "I didn't hear anything" stand. So if a witness to a crime wants to be left alone...all they have to do is LIE..really?! What if said witness is an accomplice in the crime?!
Chiziweni should have been called as a witness to answer TOUGH questions. I personally can picture him falling apart on the witness stand..

AW2B said:

BBM

I totally agree..the location of those jeans is a piece of the puzzle that should have been addressed..speaking of the pieces of the puzzle brings to mind Chiziweni..

At 3:22 am..which is about 5 minutes after the sound of the bat strikes was heard..Chiziweni was fully awake/dressed greeting Carice and her father..yet we are supposed to let "I didn't hear anything" stand. So if a witness to a crime wants to be left alone...all they have to do is LIE..really?! What if said witness is an accomplice in the crime?!
Chiziweni should have been called as a witness to answer TOUGH questions. I personally can picture him falling apart on the witness stand..

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bbm
potentially a huge question. which i have not seen addressed anywhere in all the months of this case...

Re the jeans - on the lower picture it does look like the white line has 2 triangular kinks on the lower part, but straight as though pulled tight at the top. If I'm right it could suggest a thin belt kinked at one part of the waist and pulled tight at the higher end. I enlarged the pic to see this but it does become a bit fuzzy. Also my eyesight is not the best.