But you can Marfa. That's what PPD is. It's a defense whereby you have a genuine fear which in fact turns out to be unfounded. This is the bit you're missing in the above - what he thought, not what was actually happening. You are taking the armchair critic approach which is not the correct approach here. Would you really say 'who goes there' if you thought you knew it was an intruder? Surely you'd just yell 'get out' as he did.
Beg to differ. I understand what PPD is (and isn't) and I understand why Oscar and thousands of others before him have claimed they killed because they were in fear for their life (the Michael Dunn case comes to mind. You may recall the so-called "loud music murder" in the U.S. a few years ago. It didn't work for him either.)
It's nice of you to take a killer at their word (armchair supporter?) but you fail to acknowledge that the accused has to meet certain legal standards for their claim of self-defense to be legally justified or lawful. It's not enough to simply claim that's what you "thought" and expect to get off because no one can ever know what was in your mind at that moment but you.
If all you had to do was say
"I killed them because I was in fear for my life. Turns out there was no reason for me to believe that. Sorry, but not my fault. Just a mistake." then NO ONE would ever get convicted of murder if there were no other witnesses present.
Someone hiding behind a closed and locked door just does not yet present the direct threat of imminent bodily harm. Perhaps if Oscar had been approaching the toilet just as Reeva suddenly and wildly swung the door open and he was startled and shot in response, well... that would at least present a more plausible threat or startle and Oscar might have a different future ahead of him today. But gosh, that door was
locked.
Even if you believe the intruder story, hearing the sound of wood moving is not sufficient cause to presume an imminent threat. Oscar made a whopper of an erroneous assumption about who was in that toilet, and then took a loaded gun and
went to them and without any direct or obvious threat against him, pumped four lethal rounds into them because he felt entitled to do so. Did he in fact know better? Yes, he knew the law for using lethal force against an intruder in your own home. He passed the firearms exam. Did he care? Apparently not.
This is how this amateur legal mind sees the situation:
Did his behavior constitute a crime? Yes, homicide.
Did his actions meet the standards for lawful self-defense? No, there was no real threat.
Did he act lawfully in putative private defense? No, although the accused claims to have thought his life was in danger, his subsequent actions violated the legal requirements for a lawful self-defense response to even a perceived threat.
Did his actions meet the tests for murder with intent in the form of Dolus eventualis? Yes. It checks all the boxes.
