Discussion between the verdict and sentencing

[JudgeJudi]

It's definitely worth sending it to the NPA and letting them know that they have public support behind them if they decide to appeal.

I was just checking my email this morning and saw that I had a response from the Chief Director of Communications at the NPA regarding some information that I sent them about the Pistorius trial.

You must have said something interesting to elicit a response from the Chief Director. Was your information regarding the law or facts? I'd be really interested to know.

 

[Datchery]

But Junebug, there is something objective: Oscar admits to killing Reeva. This isn't a case in which we're not sure who the killer was and just picked on the significant other - we KNOW that OP shot her.

There are other things we know as well. We know that Reeva had her cellphone with her in the bathroom. We know that she was dressed. We know that she had remarked on problems in their relationship in the past.

If the only thing this case had going for it was the belief that OP couldn't possibly have screamed like a woman, I would agree with you that this verdict was correct. But it isn't.

Any time one person kills another past all possibility of hiding his involvement, of course he is going to make up a story for why he is justified. What other alternative would he have? Those justifications are necessarily going to rest heavily on the accused's state of mind: if he can't say it was a total accident, either he'll claim to have acted in self-defense, or to have not been in his right mind at the time (OP tried a little bit of both). Obviously, we can't read OP's mind to "prove" that he is lying, but neither are we compelled to accept every irrational exculpatory fantasy simply because OP asserted it.

If we did, there would be almost no way to convict someone of murder in domestic violence cases. All the accused would ever have to do was say "I was sleepwalking," or "I thought she was a burglar" or "I believed that the gun was was a toy" and we would have to accept it without question, just because there is no way of absolutely establishing a person's subjective state of mind.

 

[808]

"The judgement has been deeply puzzling; one hopes that Judge Masipa will soon clarify the decision that took our breath away. It’s logic is far from obvious, and demands further explanation.

Nel must surely appeal this as a misinterpretation of the law, to a higher court, or as a precedent it could cause serious problems in the legal system. Asking for a verdict of Premeditated Murder was a stretch too far, unlikely to succeed, and she rightly rejected that option. The Prosecution’s version may, of course, be true, but the State didn’t and couldn’t, prove it.

One of the assessors several times interrupted the Judge with whispers, twice leading to a short adjournment : one must wonder what this was about. It’s really unusual, and not explained. "

"Puzzles remain

- The judge took it as fact that the light in the toilet was out. Why were the police and others not asked about this?
- Oscar fell asleep with lights on, why did he suddenly want total darkness to the extreme extent of wanting to hide the tiny blue LED light?
- Did she conclude that Oscar couldn’t have known that firing four highly destructive bullets at someone would not be likely to kill them?
- Was it not believable when considering a charge of murder, but obvious when considering Culpable Homicide?
- Why was she quoting evidence of Oscar’s distress, as somehow establishing innocence?

I don’t recall anyone suggesting it was entirely faked, what had it to do with guilt or innocence? "

I thought murder was a slam dunk like many others and the "pistorius defence" will have to be addressed. (This is a great article.):moo:

http://www.health24.com/Columnists/Is-Judge-Masipa-letting-Oscar-get-away-with-murder-20140912

 

[JudgeJudi]

Junebug .. why do you think that Reeva's mother herself doesn't believe this was an accident? The reason is because she knew just how much Reeva and Op had been fighting in the run up to her being killed ... she said that Reeva said to her ".. mum .. we've been fighting .. we've been fighting a LOT .. ". (therefore those whatsapp messages were just an indicator of far more troubles in their relationship than Masipa gave credit for .. does she not know that not everything in a relationship ends up in a text message? .. although even that which did was a fairly massive indicator and should never have been dismissed in the way that Masipa did .. it was nothing less than disgusting). It is so freakin obvious that this was a domestic violence murder, it's just ridiculous for anyone to believe otherwise! Do you actually believe that OP didn't tell one single lie on that stand? He couldn't even promise that he would tell the truth .. the best he could summon up was that he would 'try' to ! He has just sworn on oath to tell the truth, for goodness sake!

You know the saying, "If at first you don't succeed, try, try, try again" which is exactly what he did by changing versions when the going got tough.

 

[Ncl1968]

After following the trial from day one it is such a sad state of affairs when the prosecution pulls of a magic piece of evidence such as the duvet on the floor ..only to be ignored by the judge.....i thought the states witnesses were credible as opposed to the defense witnesses who seem to belong in a Disney cartoon not a murder trial..
Yes i believe op murdered reeva...no i dont think nel did enough to prove this..its the deck he was dealt with.. but i would have thought the judge would get the obvious and get op on as much as she could... the gun charges alone should have put him behind bars but no bail him and pity him for he cries and pukes....
Maybe deeper than that but awaiting the sentence of slap my wrist this is a corrupt law system.. i confess i have no faith a jail cell awaits the phyco op
I give up nothing about this makes sense

 

[JuneBug67]

But Junebug, there is something objective: Oscar admits to killing Reeva. This isn't a case in which we're not sure who the killer was and just picked on the significant other - we KNOW that OP shot her.

There are other things we know as well. We know that Reeva had her cellphone with her in the bathroom. We know that she was dressed. We know that she had remarked on problems in their relationship in the past.

If the only thing this case had going for it was the belief that OP couldn't possibly have screamed like a woman, I would agree with you that this verdict was correct. But it isn't.

Any time one person kills another past all possibility of hiding his involvement, of course he is going to make up a story for why he is justified. What other alternative would he have? Those justifications are necessarily going to rest heavily on the accused's state of mind: if he can't say it was a total accident, either he'll claim to have acted in self-defense, or to have not been in his right mind at the time (OP tried a little bit of both). Obviously, we can't read OP's mind to "prove" that he is lying, but neither are we compelled to accept every irrational exculpatory fantasy simply because OP asserted it.

If we did, there would be almost no way to convict someone of murder in domestic violence cases. All the accused would ever have to do was say "I was sleepwalking," or "I thought she was a burglar" or "I believed that the gun was was a toy" and we would have to accept it without question, just because there is no way of absolutely establishing a person's subjective state of mind.

We don't know why Reeva had her cellphone with her and it would be irresponsible to turn speculation into evidence. It's worth nothing that it might be considered unusual to scream in terror for your life for a number of minutes and not call for emergency help with your cell phone, though that is speculative too. She was dressed in what Oscar said she wore to bed as pyjamas. A tank top and his basketball shorts, the latter not being what she arrived in. We know that she had remarked both positively and negatively on the relationship in the past. NONE of it is conclusive or even reliably suggestive of anything.

The trial was specifically about testing his story against the evidence. His story held up, and the state's story stumbled. That's the point at which it stopped being an exculpatory fantasy and started being the sad, terrible truth. Shots first, bat strikes second. At a basic level it really is just that simple.

 

[Ncl1968]

Its not simple a woman is dead and by his story a couple of kids looking for memorabilia would be dead

 

[sleuth-d-]

It is not disputed that at least one of the bat strikes came after the shots were fired. That was the evidence of experts for the both the defense and the state. The state never provided any theory of the crime that accounted for the first set of sounds beyond establishing that two of them couldn't be proven to have come after. The defense did account for both sets of sounds reasonably, logically and in line with other objective timeline evidence.

There are always many facts in a case. Reason is about understanding which ones are defining. The order of gunshots and bat strikes, supported by objective timeline evidence, is defining. As I said initially events cannot have unfolded the way the state put forth once this evidence is understood. It then follows that there must be an alternative explanation for many people hearing a woman scream. Here it is clearly that Oscar was indeed screaming in a way that could be perceived as coming from a woman. We heard him get high pitched in court. We heard that a close neighbour mistook his crying as coming from a woman. We know that various factors could serve as reinforcements to witnesses who believed they heard a woman scream. It's not mysterious at all.

Oscar went to bed with a gun every night and got up in the night with it to face perceived danger before. Any night that these circumstances unfolded had the same odds to end up like this. In this light there is nothing special about Valentine's Day.

reason
bbm, i think here is where it gets a bit weird and difficult to explain away... especially when one witness heard a man's voice and a woman's voice intermingled.

for me, swapping bat strikes and gunshots is much easier to reason with.

 

[soozieqtips]

Am I seeing things, or is it just late here?? In the photo, a 12-year-old OP is being carried by one of his friends, while another friend is carrying his prosthetics. But I can see OP's legs!!!



http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-26628573

ETA - okay, it's an optical illusion. They belong to the boy behind him, and his feet look like they're off the ground, which is what threw me :smile:

 

[pandax81]

~rsbm~

We heard him get high pitched in court.

We certainly did:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QxZYtDsMhIE
1h20m-1h21m

 

[JuneBug67]

reason
bbm, i think here is where it gets a bit weird and difficult to explain away... especially when one witness heard a man's voice and a woman's voice intermingled.

for me, swapping bat strikes and gunshots is much easier to reason with.

I fully agree that these are mutually exclusive conclusions. The recall of intermingled voices definitely gave me pause as well, though that came out during testimony but was not part of the initial written statement as I recall. I don't say that to discredit the witness, only to point out that it could be an issue of reliability. However, that point is really superfluous when you consider that you are pitting objective evidence against subjective evidence. To arbitrarily swap the source of the sounds against the conclusion of the court you have to disregard the objective evidence about the crack through the bullet hole and you have to disregard that the defense provided a version consistent timeline analysis based largely on objective call times while the state provided no time line analysis and no explanation for the early sounds. To disregard the testimony about intermingled voices you have to conclude the fallibility of human memory and/or perception on a confusing and traumatic night. My way of reasoning firmly favours disregarding the latter when you must make a choice.

 

[JudgeJudi]

<modsnip>

"During the interview, I was asked about the various books (about the death of Ms Steenkamp) that are in the works,&#8221; he told the Independent. &#8220;All I said was 'If and when Oscar decides to write a memoir, that's the only book that will matter.'"

Reeva, A Mother&#8217;s Story will be published in hardback on 10th November, and Steenkamp will be in the UK for publication.

http://www.thebookseller.com/news/reeva-steenkamps-mum-release-unflinching-memoir.html

 

[wb180]

Again, I struggle to make sense of the logic in either a legal or a moral sense of 'the basic overall evidence supports Pistorius' version' not being a credit to his version at all. What role does evidence then play for you? The state's case was circumstantial yes, but it also relied in every sense on subjectivity. Van der Merwe perceived one half of an argument, ear witnesses perceived a woman's tones and particular emotions, a pathologist estimated Reeva's last meal time, and so on. Corroboration says nothing about subjectivity if there are common underlying factors that can affect perception as there were here.

The state's case was never strong. It was circumstantial and weak and it required the state to step around the major issue of the first set of sounds and as you note, it's own time line. One of the following two things must be true, and the other false:

If the bat strikes followed the shots then Reeva cannot have been the person heard screaming.

If it was Reeva who was heard screaming the bat strikes cannot have followed the gun shots.

One of these is supported by subjective evidence, and the other is supported by objective evidence. A crack through wood is an objective observation of the way a particular force is expected to work on particular matter. It needs to take precedence here to the reasonable person, in my opinion.

I hear this argument again and again it shows the flawed logic. The scope/universe has already been defined by the person putting up the argument rather than by collaborating evidence and that is why the conclusion seems logical for that person because the universe has already been defined.

 

[pandax81]

reason
bbm, i think here is where it gets a bit weird and difficult to explain away... especially when one witness heard a man's voice and a woman's voice intermingled.

for me, swapping bat strikes and gunshots is much easier to reason with.

Not difficult for Masipa J:

"At the time of the incident there was no one else in the accused&#8217;s house except the accused and the deceased. Therefore it could only have been one of them who screamed or cried out loud." bbm

 

[sleuth-d-]

I fully agree that these are mutually exclusive conclusions. The recall of intermingled voices definitely gave me pause as well, though that came out during testimony but was not part of the initial written statement as I recall. I don't say that to discredit the witness, only to point out that it could be an issue of reliability. However, that point is really superfluous when you consider that you are pitting objective evidence against subjective evidence. To arbitrarily swap the source of the sounds against the conclusion of the court you have to disregard the objective evidence about the crack through the bullet hole and you have to disregard that the defense provided a version consistent timeline analysis based largely on objective call times while the state provided no time line analysis and no explanation for the early sounds. To disregard the testimony about intermingled voices you have to conclude the fallibility of human memory and/or perception on a confusing and traumatic night. My way of reasoning firmly favours disregarding the latter when you must make a choice.

you refer many times to the crack through the bullet hole as objective evidence and pivotal. does this prove to you that the shots came before the bat sounds, or does it show that the particular bullet hole came before the particular crack in the wood? i will need to look at this again... along with the timeline for bat first/shots second.

i accept that there are two discussions here. one regarding the evidence put in front of the judge, and also a secondary ws discussion on 'what happened'.

 

[wb180]

Not difficult for Masipa J:

"At the time of the incident there was no one else in the accused’s house except the accused and the deceased. Therefore it could only have been one of them who screamed or cried out loud." bbm

Poor Frank. The guy is treated like a piece of furniture. Haha

 

[pandax81]

Poor Frank. The guy is treated like a piece of furniture. Haha

'made for life'?

 

[JuneBug67]

I hear this argument again and again it shows the flawed logic. The scope/universe has already been defined by the person putting up the argument rather than by collaborating evidence and that is why the conclusion seems logical for that person because the universe has already been defined.

You'd have to make a case for this being flawed logic. This is a shared universe: the state based a premeditation case to a great degree on Reeva screaming between the first and second sets of sounds as per their own witnesses. The evidence of both sides is that a bullet hole was bisected by a bat strike. Within the bounds of the evidence produced by both sides in this trial I can't see the flaw in the conclusion that the bat strikes came after at all.

 

[wb180]

you refer many times to the crack through the bullet hole as objective evidence and pivotal. does this prove to you that the shots came before the bat sounds, or does it show that the particular bullet hole came before the particular crack in the wood? i will need to look at this again... along with the timeline for bat first/shots second.

i accept that there are two discussions here. one regarding the evidence put in front of the judge, and also a secondary ws discussion on 'what happened'.

You can make a timeline if u assume a bit of things which Roux did. Some sounds couldn't be verified but sounds at a certain point in time were gunshots due to collaborating evidence.

 

[JuneBug67]

you refer many times to the crack through the bullet hole as objective evidence and pivotal. does this prove to you that the shots came before the bat sounds, or does it show that the particular bullet hole came before the particular crack in the wood? i will need to look at this again... along with the timeline for bat first/shots second.

i accept that there are two discussions here. one regarding the evidence put in front of the judge, and also a secondary ws discussion on 'what happened'.

It proves to me that that particular bullet hole came before that particular crack in the wood which was ascribed to a bat strike by experts for both sides. Given the undisputed evidence of two and only two sets of similar, closely grouped sounds I think the reasonable and fair conclusion is that there were a set of bat strikes and a set of gunshots. Even the state's expert said at first that he concluded that the bat strikes (plural) came after the gun shots. Shortly after that he qualified that it was only one strike that proved that and he couldn't say anything conclusive about the other two he examined. But that first phrasing I think indicates how the conclusion that they happened together really does flow pretty naturally from the facts. Do you have Masipa's written judgement? It lays out the accepted timeline pretty well.