awaiting sentencing phase

[Cherwell]

I don't see why OP's probably unfaithfullness to Reeva should be classed as character evidence and inadmissable. Surely it's evidence he lied when presenting the court with a picture of a perfect relationship and his deep and serious love for Reeva? As for his phone being removed from the scene of the crime and tampered with..how that didn't come up I just don't understand.

In fact, I don't really understand the reasoning behind the evidence prosecution chose to present, and chose not too. It's very strange.

It really will be a travesty if OP walks free at sentencing.

I have to say I was deeply disappointed by the way the prosecution was conducted. I kept hoping and trusting that everything would be brought together in a devastating closing argument, but it never happened. I realise that not everything was admissible, but still so much incriminating evidence was downplayed or not presented at all. I was mystified by Nel's "Baker's Dozen" points - there were much better points to be made afaics.

Carl Pistorius' tweets seem incredibly insensitive to me. I think they indirectly reflect badly on Oscar too. But they both seem too insensitive to realise.

Or maybe it's just me being too sensitive to the idea that with OP's horrific gunning down of a young woman still so present, a little restraint and decorum is called for?

I'm sure they just regard this little local difficulty as a "hurdle", to quote the victim. These people disgust me.

 

[JudgeJudi]

An extract from "An Accident Waiting to Happen" by Patricia Taylor, Sam's mother.

http://www.iol.co.za/the-star/despite-his-promises-oscar-was-his-old-self-1.1750765#.VC1BeixxnBy

 

[sleuth-d-]

My theory has always been that whoever tampered with the phone didn't delete all the data but overwrote it with something that made sense. They would need to be an IT expert (or know one). I don't believe the phone was encrypted when it was taken (e.g. it had a simple passcode). WhatsApp messages are easy to read in the phone data (I looked).

OP has 3 GPRS connections post 22:30 of about 5 minutes each. That's around 15 minutes.

So, say your last few WhatsApp messages needed removing. You'd 'simply' overwrite the date/time to an earlier date/time (keeping the inter-message time gaps the same as these will be realistic for the message length), the addressee to whoever you'd previously messaged (it's basically a variation of your phone number) and the message content to something innocuous. Like a car conversation. Then I'd set the passcode to a complex code to completely screw things up on the phone (and OP to quite rightly think he's forgotten it - he didn't know it!)

Then we have the mysterious (for me) WhatsApp message exchange with cousin Binge at 20:10 without any GPRS connectivity. This period is about 15 minutes prior to OP's call to him.

Suspicious but all just a theory ...

i see what you are saying... it also fits in with a 'home made/unsophisticated' cover up - as the 'fake' whatsapp times match with a time where whatsapp messages could not have happened.!

binge gave a statement [exhibit e] at the bail? he is not on the witness list.
anyone seen this exhibit e?

http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/1302/22/sp.03.html

 

[Interested Bystander]

Independent criminal lawyer Cliff Alexander said it was unlikely these revelations would have any impact on the trial or potential appeal in the Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA).

He said the SCA would ask three questions: why was this evidence not led during the trial, what was its truthfulness and relevance?

“Is it (the new allegations) materially relevant to the outcome of the trial? I don’t think so,” he said.

http://www.sanewsstories.co.za/iol.html

I think he is probably quite right but I don't see why that should excuse CP from being charged with an offence. That is the bit that I find very strange. To remove the phone from the scene of the crime surely has to be illegal in itself. Why would anyone do that unless it was felt there was something untoward or even incriminating on it. It is about time someone stamped on the P family and let them know they are not above the law. Can I see it happening? No!

 

[Mr Fossil]

i see what you are saying... it also fits in with a 'home made/unsophisticated' cover up - as the 'fake' whatsapp times match with a time where whatsapp messages could not have happened.!

binge gave a statement [exhibit e] at the bail? he is not on the witness list.
anyone seen this exhibit e?

http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/1302/22/sp.03.html

Here's a link to it (and a few others) from OP's website (though there's no web page on the site to allow access to it in the normal way). It's from his downloads area. I once had access to the index of this folder (his people have closed that door now).

http://oscarpistorius.com/downloads/jn-divaris-statement.pdf

 

[mrjitty]

So this is quite incredible.

Not only did they remove a critical piece of evidence from the crime scene, they tampered with it too!

Yet Masipa favoured the defence's theory of the evidence

LOL!

 

[Fuskier]

From Australian Newscorp today:

http://www.news.com.au/world/africa...-reeva-steenkamp/story-fnh81gzi-1227078335998

africa

Oscar Pistorius’s brother Carl allegedly wiped data off the Olympian’s phone days after he killed Reeva Steenkamp
2 HOURS AGO OCTOBER 02, 2014 9:55PM

POLICE suspected the brother of Oscar Pistorius of wiping data from the Olympian’s phone in the days after he killed his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp, a South African radio station claims. Investigators believed Carl Pistorius synchronised his computer with his brother’s iPhone, wiping out the entire call history and all WhatsApp messages, according to an investigation by Eyewitness News (EWN)...

 

[mrjitty]

I think Roux ought to be sanctioned for his conduct of the defence case.

He is not allowed to knowingly introduce false or deceptive evidence into Court.

Yet he must have know CP had tampered with the mobile - a critical piece of evidence.

This means a defence can simply delete or alter computer records, then advance its case as if such things never existed.

 

[Mr Fossil]

Cellphone Messages come back to Haunt Oscar Pistorius

I saved a link to this ages ago when I started working on the phone data. It seems very appropriate today.

http://www.zapiro.com/cartoon/2144878-140325tt#.VC1o72x0xpg

 

[lithgow1]

Seems this reporter has many of the same questions that the vast majority of the posters here have. IMO no-one who followed this trial closely could not at least have some concerns about aspects of how it has been handled, the behaviour of the Pistorius family, the tactics used by the defence, and the critical thinking skills of the judge and assessors. Unless they are Pistorians or just taking the pis-torian.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/wor...ius-trial-five-more-unanswered-questions.html

 

[james83]

Well well well, so Pistorius was on the phone to an ex girlfriend for 9 miniutes at 6pm on the 13th feb, i suppose the sympathisers already have there reasons lined up, OPEN YOUR EYES!!!!!.

 

[sleuth-d-]

Here's a link to it (and a few others) from OP's website (though there's no web page on the site to allow access to it in the normal way). It's from his downloads area. I once had access to the index of this folder (his people have closed that door now).

http://oscarpistorius.com/downloads/jn-divaris-statement.pdf

many thanks again.

g binge
lifelong family friend. 'very close'.
i wonder what is on binge's whatsapp account for 20:10-20:25?

j edkins
there are statements from alex p; divaris; greyvenstien; binge... all regarding calls/events that day.
why no statement from jenna that she spoke to op around 6-6:30? as a good friend, would she not want to also give an equally 'friendly' recollection of her/op conversation - just as the others did? it points more to something to hide, than to her opinion that they had remained just good friends.

 

[katydid23]

So this is quite incredible.

Not only did they remove a critical piece of evidence from the crime scene, they tampered with it too!

Yet Masipa favoured the defence's theory of the evidence

LOL!

Yet she screamed and whined about a missing electrical cord. We should have seen the writing on the wall the way she carried on about the missing cord.

 

[Lux et Veritas]

“Although the untruthful evidence of an accused is of importance when a court determines the guilt or otherwise of an accused, caution must be exercised and courts ought to avoid attaching too much weight to such untruthfulness. ...that because an accused is untruthful he is therefore probably guilty, must be guarded against, as a false statement does not always justify the most extreme conclusion.”
- Judge Masipa

This one excerpt epitomizes why Masipa’s verdict is a massive FAIL on all counts*.

WHICH “untruths” ... the big ones or the little ones?

I did not intend to murder Reeva Steenkamp.

The blue LED light bothered me.

Which of Oscar’s lies carried any “weight” at all?

How many LIES from Oscar were acceptable without consequences - 2, 10, 100?

How many LIES would he have to tell before she concluded he was guilty of murder?

This open-ended analysis (rationale) of Oscar’s “untruthfulness” - all dressed up in legalese - is breathtaking in its calculation. Masipa knows he’s a liar - she explicitly references it repeatedly in her verdict ... she’s just not sure how many lies he’s told altogether. Her blanket declaration covers them all.

Is it normal procedure for judges to minimize a murder defendant’s multiple lies? Seriously, how is that not outright BIAS?!!

“Untruthfulness” by an accused should simply be ignored? What then, should a judge base their verdict on? How does one come to a verdict of not guilty if every word out of the accused’s mouth is a presumed LIE, given a free pass? Where’s the judicial line? When does the truth start counting?

If the accused’s lies don’t matter and the State’s truths don’t matter ... where the hell does that leave justice?

I’ll tell you.

This was never about justice, never mind the truth.

Corrupt, biased, pre-ordained fraud was the end-game all along.

No rule of law involved.

Straight-up rule of the rich and powerful.

Did Masipa similarly rationalize and promote the testimonies of FIVE highly-credible, independent State witnesses, who all closely corroborated each other’s stories - and had zero reason to lie (unlike Oscar)? NO. She summarily declared them “mistaken” and “unreliable”.

If I didn’t know any better, I’d swear this verdict was written by the Defense ... with Oscar hanging over their shoulders, handing them notes.

As Nel so astutely observed, it’s all about OSCAR, OSCAR, OSCAR.

* Defense threw the Court a bone with Tasha’s.

 

[james83]

Phone conversation with ex, arguing, woman screaming, gunshots, dead women, cell data wiped
Jesus wept.

 

[jay-jay]

Phone conversation with ex, arguing, woman screaming, gunshots, dead women, cell data wiped
Jesus wept.

Right, now seeing as we now know that OP had that 9 minute call with Jenna earlier that evening, and seeing as we now know that CP deleted some of the data from OP's phone .. how about this theory? The bedroom, in the scene of crime photos showed one pillow propped up on the RH side of the bed (as you face it from the foot of the bed) as if someone had just been sitting up awake, possibly doing stuff on their phone. Now, OP has made a *massive* thing of having had to sleep on the LH side, and that it was Reeva on the RH side .. well, if it was Reeva on the RH side, then the way that pillow is placed then she would've been sitting up in bed at 3 o'clock in the morning .. but say if it was OP, and he was on the side of the bed that many of us believe him to have been on (i.e. the opposite side to what he claims), i.e. the RH side .. he was awake, semi-sat up with that pillow in the photo propping him up, and he was using his phone with Reeva sleeping or doing something else by his side, and then she wakes up/looks over at him and sees him messaging with someone (Etkins?) on his phone?

It's a thought .. and it has foxed me for a while now as to why that pillow is in that propped up position .. *someone* must've been awake that night, sat up in bed doing something before the argument .. was it Reeva or was it OP? I think it's more likely to be OP on that side because everything in that room pointed to it. Now we can add into that the very strong possibility he was using his phone to communicate with someone he shouldn't have been communicating with, and which would've been incriminating enough for CP to have felt it needed deleting.

 

[jay-jay]

I think Roux ought to be sanctioned for his conduct of the defence case.

~rsbm~

Roux absolutely disgusts me.

 

[PrimeSuspect]

Question- for CP to allegedly wipe data, make the phone disappear etc., do you believe that he was instructed by OP right after killing Reeva? Would CP do this of his own volition and how would he know what to erase unless he was told?

If we believe this to be true, doesn't this demonstrate that OP was not so traumatized by what he had done, that all the wailing and sobbing and praying was an act?

I'm obsessing over this point specifically because Masipa was taken in by it and because OP is cunning and very quick minded in fact, to think of asking bro to do this favour for him in the midst of all the commotion that had just occurred, Reeva's lifeless body at the foot of the stairs, people arriving in large numbers, everything chaotic yet OP still had his wits about him. Unbelievable. JMO

 

[jay-jay]

You only have to look at the way he has lied in court, under oath, to see that he is really that cunning .. in fact it sickens me just as much as him killing Reeva, the fact that he has been able to act in such a manner since the moment he killed her, right up through the court case .. he is VILE.

 

[jay-jay]

Don't forget, he also seemed to have his wits about him enough to put his phone on charge in the kitchen, just moments after he killed Reeva!

He cannot be allowed to get away with this.