Sorry, I hope I wasn't misunderstood and didn't mean to offend. Watching the trial, I felt a great sense of admiration, seeing how far SA has come from the days of Apartheid. As a woman I also greatly admire what Judge Masipa has achieved. I think that she made some errors in her verdict, and so do some legal experts. I wondered if there is reluctance to criticize because she is a remarkable woman. Perhaps I shouldn't have written that and should remove that comment.
Thus far, there does not seem to be any reluctance to criticize. Judges and their decisions are criticized all the time. I am not at all familiar with the history of the justice system in South Africa. Has it had a reputation for judges taking bribes? (Not that this has never happened in the U.S., but it is certainly not a common thing.)
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Here is a good article from this past February that explains the role of the Assessors.
http://www.iol.co.za/news/crime-courts/oscar-trial-judge-appoints-assessors-1.1646332#.VBHu2ul0xjp
Since the Assessors assist the judge in matters of fact, one would presume they had input into establishing the timeline used by the judge? Do the Prosecutor and the Defense get to examine things, such as any timeline produced, used by the judge in reaching her conclusions?
Certainly, errors can be made anywhere within a trial. Those of us who have been trial watchers for a long time have seen errors made. In the Casey Anthony case a computer expert submitted erroneous information showing that a certain webpage was accessed 72 times when, in fact, the computer program itself was in error. (Also, interestingly, after that case had long been decided it was discovered that an ill-trained police "computer expert" had failed to access numerous files off the CD copy of the hard disk from the Anthony family computer that Casey used.)
Trial errors, often for things as basic as instructing the jury here in the U.S., are the basis for appeals. If there were not errors, there would be no appeals courts. And we read stories every week about someone being granted a new trial based on an error made by a judge.
