Discussion between the verdict and sentencing

[Cherwell]

absolutely. the stipps et al, heard a scream, not a string of words.

i think he chose the wrong moment to attempt a demonstration tbh.
if he did indeed shout 'get the ****** out of my house' like that [or much louder]... then the ear witnesses would have been testifying to hearing someone shouting those words in a high pitched voice.

Whereas he probably shouted them at Reeva in a lower voice which didn't carry ..... but he was afraid somebody might have heard it, so ....

 

[PrimeSuspect]

It was picked up in a different picture:

:silly:

 

[geevee]

When in OP's story did he go and get the trash bags and rope (or whatever he was going to tie it with)? And who in the history of ever has run to grab 30 gallon trash bags to stop a person from bleeding? They aren't even in a location near her body for using on her wounds, they're laid out a ways away from her.

 

[vanatos]

If anyone could take the time to explain to me, these hanging questions:

1.It seem's the entire premise of the bat before gunshot (therefore preferring defense version) completely hinges
on the expert forensics stating the bat happened before gunshots due to certain markings,
but after watching the testimony, this seem's far less certain then previously thought
When asked by Roux to Vermelluon whether cricket happened before or after he replied
After, or at least a part of it, i am un-sure as to exactly what this mean.

Can anyone clarify?

 

[AW2B]

I'm not a body language expert by any means, but maybe we should have read more into J Masipa's 'body language' while OP was on the stand. :doh:

Great find PrimeSuspect!! :goodpost:

She looks like an ADMIRING fan! Maybe she was a fan throughout his career. She should have recused herself

 

[eimajjjj]

http://www.bdlive.co.za/opinion/col...orius-less-a-source-of-shame-than-griekwastad

 

[Marfa Lights]

Can someone tell us what kind of "evidence" (for lack of a better word) will the State be able to submit at the sentencing hearings? Will they be able to submit character evidence that could not be introduced at trial? How does the sentencing phase work in S.A.?

 

[jay-jay]

I've said it before and I'll say it again .. totally LOVE your posts, Lux .. you say everything I want to say but oh so much better!

 

[Marfa Lights]

If anyone could take the time to explain to me, these hanging questions:

1.It seem's the entire premise of the bat before gunshot (therefore preferring defense version) completely hinges
on the expert forensics stating the bat happened before gunshots due to certain markings,
but after watching the testimony, this seem's far less certain then previously thought
When asked by Roux to Vermelluon whether cricket happened before or after he replied
After, or at least a part of it, i am un-sure as to exactly what this mean.

Can anyone clarify?

I listened to Vermeulens' testimony again the other day... It was a jumbled up mess. Not to mention his problematic conclusion that due to the height of the marks on the door panel, Oscar must have struck the door with the bat while on his stumps, AND he thought the bat strikes and the bullet holes were made by Oscar at the same height-- from which we were to infer Oscar was on his stumps for both, or I believe he also mentioned that the accused could have been kneeling while shooting.

The Defense never adequately dealt with those contradictions if IIRC, and also, to address your question above, I believe Vermeulen did leave open the possibility that there could have been bat strikes or other damage to the panels both BEFORE and after the bullet holes. Will try to go back to the Sky transcript while on my desktop, pages load too slowly on my iPad. It was frustrating trying to read the transcript with only something like 12 lines at a time loading 2-3 minutes apart! Also Vermeulen seemed to have a very practiced way of mumbling or fumbling the end of his sentences so that his intent was not 100% clear. BTW, happy if someone beats me to it because I am up this early trying to catch up on work I have neglected still worrying about this damn trial!

I am still confounded thinking about the recently posted pictures showing a long piece of the upper door panel ON TOP OF the smeared blood trail where Oscar drug Reeva out of the toilet cubicle and into the bathroom-- also that same piece of door panel was too long to easily fit into narrow toilet cubicle-- has anyone come up with any theories on how this happened? Why was Oscar not questioned about this??

 

[saraomar]

Why did the defence not provide ANY evidence of oscar screaming like a woman? It's very convenient to state several ear witnesses were all wrong and it was a man screaming like a woman, while never proving that this was indeed the case. Reeva is not alive anymore for the state to produce her screams, so, as the only other person in the house, why was it not proven by the accused, that he could indeed scream like a woman, thus refuting the state's case.
Given that oscar is alive, that would have been easy to do!

 

[wb180]

Why did the defence not provide ANY evidence of oscar screaming like a woman? It's very convenient to state several ear witnesses were all wrong and it was a man screaming like a woman, while never proving that this was indeed the case. Reeva is not alive anymore for the state to produce her screams, so, as the only other person in the house, why was it not proven by the accused, that he could indeed scream like a woman, thus refuting the state's case.
Given that oscar is alive, that would have been easy to do!

In addition to this, the defense never provided evidence of the shots being in quick succession or any evidence that OP was a fearful person. In fact we had evidence to the contrary but somehow Masipa ignored all of this and just believed the defense claims. I really don't understand.

 

[pandax81]

In addition to this, the defense never provided evidence of the shots being in quick succession or any evidence that OP was a fearful person. In fact we had evidence to the contrary but somehow Masipa ignored all of this and just believed the defense claims. I really don't understand.

The court has implicitly rejected key aspects of Prof Saayman's and Cpt Mangena's evidence as impossible, it's the only explanation.

It's clear to me a certain assessor saw this as a chance to play at CSI, and be devil's advocate for the defence all at once, and failed miserably in their proper role of justice. That a member on the bench may think nothing of sneaking off to have an extra meal as a midnight bite to eat probably didn't help the cause either.

 

[JudgeJudi]

My take on an old Cherokee saying:

One evening Uncle Arnold told his nephew about a battle that goes on inside all people. He said, “My son, there is a battle between two 'wolves' inside us all.

One is Evil. It is anger, envy, jealousy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego.

The other is Good. It is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion and faith.”

The nephew thought about it for a minute and then asked his uncle, “Which wolf wins?”

The old man simply replied, “The one you feed."

 

[Deleted member 102539]

Yesterday evening TV:

One of our German cabaret performer:

"........ One can not just shoot through a door! One sees in case Pistorius, where this is going to: to a chargeable warning*, if I heard well ............"

in German: kostenpflichtige Verwarnung

Mr. Nuhr had all laughter on his site - logical.

 

[JudgeJudi]

How's this for a giant smack in the face:

"But South African Pistorius, arguably the most recognisable Paralympic athlete of all-time with six Paralympic gold medals to his name, did not feature anywhere on the list".

http://www.insidethegames.biz/paral...ff-list-of-best-paralympic-moments-insist-ipc

A must read article.

I don't belong to Twitter but I'm sure a certain uncle would just love to see this. "Truth will prevail"

 

[WilliamMunter]

Did anyone see this in Australia? I don't think it is a repeat.

http://www.sbs.com.au/dateline/story/about/id/602012/n/Justice-for-Reeva

 

[Deleted member 102539]

http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/LegalCenter/story?id=1794057&page=1


While people kill for many different reasons, they all have one common denominator, said Ludwig.

"I think it's that at that moment in time, during the murder, the person is only thinking of themselves," she said. "And very often they feel like they are the victim, and the other person is causing them pain, and they don't have the resources to deal with it any other way."

 

[homegirl]

These two pieces of testimony do paint an extremely damning picture, don’t they?

(Fascinating how the subconscious truth, no matter how deeply buried, always manages to rise to the top. Freud would have had a field day with Oz.)

Blaming others - never accepting responsibility - one of the hallmarks of a sociopath.

The only one OP hasn’t thrown under the bus is God. And depending on the sentence, I’m not even sure about God.

I have no doubt that OP bitterly blames Reeva 100% - not only for her own death but the loss of his career, lifestyle, house, income, status, the total destruction of his “brand”.

He’s a classic pathological abuser who justifies his abuses - if only she hadn’t done X / said X / made me angry / etc.

On his version:

He screams at Reeva TWICE to call the police.
He screams at the “intruder” TWICE to get the F out of his house.
He NEVER whispers “Reeva, did you hear that?
He NEVER shouts out “Reeva, is that you in the bathroom?”
This entire time Reeva is ... silent.

During this entire “intrusion” incident allegedly involving “three” people, HE is the ONLY one to act, speak and "scream"!

She never shouts what the F is going on?
She never asks why she’s supposed to call the police?
She never asks OP who the hell he’s talking to?
She never expresses alarm at his screaming by calling out to OP to see if he’s OK?
She never even attempts to call the police, even though OP screams for her to do so TWICE?

That she would remain 100% silent during this loud “crisis” is simply not possible. Even under OP’s version, why wouldn’t she speak? Especially since she was locked inside the tiny toilet - OP was in danger from the “intruder”, not her!

Most damning of all - at NO time (bail statement, plea explanation, testimony) did OP ever wonder WHY he never got any responses from Reeva. Not one “Reeva, where are you, answer me!”

In OscarWorld (and now MasipaWorld), that Reeva was deaf, dumb and invisible was perfectly acceptable, perfectly reasonable (she had to be for his story to work).

The truth is that Reeva is dead precisely because she threatened to call police and she would not shut up. (See ear witnesses Burger, Johnson, Stipps, EVDM)

That Masipa finds his bizarre story even remotely reasonable, that she unilaterally condemned ALL highly-credible state ear witnesses as “mistaken”* and “not reliable” is beyond the pale. Now I understand why she was so passive during this trial, why she seemed so disengaged, why she asked so few questions, why she was so solicitous of OP’s well-being with endless kid gloves. She is totally incompetent, star-struck, corrupt or all three.


* What does she base five ear witnesses’ “mistake” on? Nothing! She has zero alternative evidence! She never questioned why Roux never produced hard evidence that OP screams like a woman, as he promised he would. A woman’s screams were the very crux of this case! I guess OP’s “remorseful” crying, puking and praying to God (at the scene and in court) were enough to prove his innocence. Masipa’s severely suspect, highly biased, illogical judicial “reasoning” is setting a pathological killer free and setting dangerous legal precedent.

BBM

He didn't wonder why Reeva never said Did you hear that?, or What was that noise? either. If only Reeva had brought the fan(s) in like he told her to do, he would never have had to get out of bed and turn his back to her. She didn't even apologize to him. It was her fault.

His story is preposterous from beginning to the bloody end.

 

[Susza]

Did anyone see this in Australia? I don't think it is a repeat.

[B]http://www.sbs.com.au/dateline/s..." that one of the posters recently suggested.

 

[homegirl]

Why did the defence not provide ANY evidence of oscar screaming like a woman? It's very convenient to state several ear witnesses were all wrong and it was a man screaming like a woman, while never proving that this was indeed the case. Reeva is not alive anymore for the state to produce her screams, so, as the only other person in the house, why was it not proven by the accused, that he could indeed scream like a woman, thus refuting the state's case.
Given that oscar is alive, that would have been easy to do!

In the leaked video reenactment, there is a voice over of Oscar shouting and man screaming. This was quite possibly the evidence that they intended to introduce. There are many problems with this video recreation. It was obviously done before OP changed so many details during his testimony. It contradicted his story in many ways, and showed that things didn't happen in the way OP said they did. There are many details that are wrong, but there were two fatal flaws.

OP testified that , while he was firing, he backed up a few steps. I didn't understand what he meant by that until I saw the video. It depicted OP backing up in the entry, toward the passage as he was firing. He could probably have made the first shot (A) from his stated starting position, possibly the second one(B) with some contortions, but it would have been impossible for OP to hit the door at the angle of the trajectories for bullets C and D from the last two positions. Nel stated as much to Wollie. The video shows the trajectories going through the wall. I was very disappointed that the State did not show photos, or a graphic of the trajectories in court. The video shows the shots being fired from right to left ( D,C,B,A) Nel got Wollie to agree that they went from left to right. (A,B,C,D). This makes OP's stated firing positions even more impossible.

The magazine rack was depicted as being more or less where it was found, but was shown flat against the wall rather than at an angle. They had to slim it down and skew the toilet towards the door. Making it more obvious, they skewed the blood pool along with it. Even then, there was not enough space for Reeva to have been lying on the floor between the rack and toilet bowl. Her body mannequin is going through the magazine rack. I don't know how they thought that they could get away with that. The magazine rack couldn't have been where OP said it was either. The recreation shows just how small the toilet room is.

I think Roux didn't dare to show the video or to give Nel the chance to cross examine Roder. The video team could have fixed some things, the flaws remain. There went the voice test.