Maybe we have to give Masipa a break....I know, I know, bear with me!
Without exception, every single lawyer commenting is saying that not only do all judges make mistakes, it is expected...hence the SCA which is just part of the same process. Every one of those five judges yesterday would have had their own judgements (when they were in the High Court) appealed and overturned too - probably multiple times.
Law is a human endeavour and human beings make mistakes all the time. We need to make mistakes so that we can rectify them and then learn...which is what's happened here. Obviously, given how many legal bods were saying she was correct there has long been some kind of confusion over DE which has now been clarified. More importantly, the requirements of a PPD defence have been laid out with no ambiguity......you may NOT shoot anyone just because they are in your home. In a country with so many guns this message has to be driven home in flashing neon lights.
Anyway, what I'm driving at is that I think there is reason to be optimistic regarding sentencing. Masipa will have to approach it from a new perspective......that Pistorius shot with no genuine belief that his life was in danger. She might not personally agree, but that's not the issue....and I don't think she'll make it the issue.
She will be sentencing a man who shot another human being four times without any justification at all. That's what the SCA found and she'll have to take that as her starting position. She didn't seem to give much truck to the whining social worker who tried to claim that Pistorius shouldn't be jailed because his disability. In fact, she was very scathing of her and wrote off her evidence entirely.
And since most legal people have said that 5 years was the correct(ish) sentence for a man convicted of CH who had an accepted defence of PPD, then can we not hope that this time she'll give the correct(ish) sentence for a convicted murderer who killed without justification?
I'll keep everything crossed.
I hope he doesn't get bail next week. Why should he? Is it normal for convicted murderers to be bailed between verdict and sentencing? It's not like a custodial sentence is in any doubt, no matter what they bring in mitigation. And he's hardly covered himself in glory given behaviour when he was last on bail. Also, he himself has said he can be suicidal - so that's another reason to bring him into custody.
Bloody ridiculous that he gets to spend Christmas bouncing babies on his knee (if there are cameras around).
Nope - the man with the big, white beard (Santa Leach) delivered Pistorius his prezzie yesterday. He needs to go and collect it
