The cynic in me thinks that all of the sentencing arguments were unnecessary, as Maipsa's probably already made up her mind. In essence, she was peer reviewed and found wanting with both her shoddy legal reasoning exposed and also her analysis of the State's circumstantial evidence. (As an aside, I'm confused by why people are insisting that the SCA "agreed" with the intruder version when the SCA didn't have to power to change what was decreed a factual finding. In fact, Leach and co were clearly unimpressed by her lack of acknowledgement of the evidence in her verdict, especially Mangena's evidence. Either some posters are being deliberately disingenuous or they didn't read/watch the judgement).
To me, it seemed like Masipa believed Oscar's remorse was genuine then worked backwards from that to select the evidence that supported the intruder version (not that much) and throw out everything else. In my opinion and experience though, when people make mistakes (and everyone does) if these errors are reviewed by their colleagues with an explanation of what went wrong there are 3 possible outcomes :
1) The person who has made the mistake recognises that they went down the wrong pathway, accepts their colleagues' input and makes adjustments to their working style to reduce it happening again. In medicine, this might involve having a lower threshold to asking another doctor for an independent opinion when the original diagnosis doesn't seem to fit as well as it did.
The reason why I don't think Masipa is capable of this is that her original legal reasoning was poor and I don't think someone whose knowledge of the law was so shoddy is capable of that degree of self-reflection.
2) The person steadfastly refuses to accept that they've made a mistake and thinks the reviewers were wrong.
This is what Roux was hoping for with his argument. Essentially, "You weren't THAT wrong, the SCA nearly agreed with you and you should sentence this poor, broken, disabled man in the manner you think is appropriate".
3) The person privately doesn't think they've made a mistake but atones for the error in public, in order to maintain credibility and to move on professionally.
This is is what Nel was alluding to, I think with his, "The punishment must fit the crime" stance. Masipa knows that the PT will likely appeal any sentence that is too light and there's a good chance that she doesn't want her career and legacy forever tainted by Oscar-related appeals. Now that she's near retirement she may be sick of the public scrutiny her original judgement afforded her and be ready for a quieter life, with her garden and cups of tea.
Personally, I'm thinking this will be 3. No change of mind for her so not the maximum sentence but enough so that there's not a further appeal.
Having said that, this case has taken me down the rabbit hole before, so who knows?
