'No purpose served' by sending Pistorius to prison - defence
Roux turns to the sentence:
South Africa is a progressive constitutional country where punishment must have a rational purpose.
The sentence needs to be appropriate to the individual, he says. The court needs to look for opportunities for rehabilitation. An excessive punishment could have the opposite effect:
Punishment is not meant to break the defendant … The accused does not fall into the category of offender who should be removed from society.
There is no purpose served.
He says a prison sentence imposed at this point is merely a “veil for retribution”. The deterrent effect has already been achieved by Pistorius’ first stint in prison.
Got my feed back intermittently, so frustrating
Duty to consider rehabilitating in sentencing
He repeats Masipa's reasonings from last sentence hearing, on purposes of rehab.
And Op has met his benchmarks for rehab as they are set down ( courses etc)
R says Op has been rehab already. he is no risk to society or else he would not have been released
12 months served. CS supervision. Stringent bail. Sensibly he cannot be detained any longer.
“We don’t have to be psychologists” to see Pistorius is a broken man, Roux tells Masipa:
He desperately does not want to hide behind fame … He wants to be treated like someone unknown, someone who has done wrong and must be punished.
Quotes Terreblanche texts on sentencing on deterrence
Deterrence has been achieved, Scholtzs says he is low risk, prison will only break him
Is retribution so imp in this case.
Nowadays we have moved away from retrib to correction and prevention.
Reads a minister's recent comments in media Cross the world - retrib does not deter crime, moral outrage etc doesnt repair anything for anyone incl. victims
Ubuntu is important
- we try to reconcile all the elements and then the diff task of deciding what is an apt sentence in this case.
