Trial Discussion Thread #53 - 14.12.9, Day 42 ~ final verdict~

[turaj]

IDK, but it is also possible that it was just because she is human like all the rest of us. She is also at risk of being swayed by emotion and/or bias. Or she interpreted things in a different way. I guess we should thank the stars for our jury system because although it is far from being perfect, I do believe it's a lot better than 1 person seeing things through their own prism and making a decision.

Yes watching this has really given me a new appreciation of our jury system in the US.

 

[mister happy]

Which brings up the point, why wouldn't he just wipe his snot away? You know, with the facial tissue given to him. Ah right, he chose to leave it running down so it would make him look oh so pitiful and weak.

You know, after looking closely at the photo again, I think it may have been photoshopped. Somebody else mentioned this too.

 

[JudgeJudi]

In acquitting Pistorius of murder, Judge Masipa seems to be saying that brutality is part and parcel of ordinary life.

What is a “normal relationship”? Excitingly, this long-mulled-over question has at last been resolved. “Normal relationships are dynamic and unpredictable most of the time, and human beings are fickle,” Judge Thokozile Masipa said on Thursday, explaining why she was not convicting Oscar Pistorius of the murder of Reeva Steenkamp.

This dynamism, according to Masipa, is why Steenkamp professed herself in messages to Pistorius to be “scared of you sometimes and how u snap at me and of how you will react to me”. (This message was prescient, seeing as, on 14 February 2013, Pistorius was to pump her full of bullets.) Steenkamp felt “attacked”, she wrote, by the person she “deserved protection from.” This, according to the judge, is a normal relationship. And thus, even though Pistorius killed Steenkamp, he did not murder her, according to the judge. Instead, she convicted him of culpable homicide.

http://www.theguardian.com/commenti...us-reeva-steenkamp-murder-normal-relationship

First bit BBM. Well I beg to differ with Masipa. I've been married for a very long time and I have never been scared of my husband. IMO this is not part of a normal relationship. Any couple can have a heated argument but that's a far cry from being scared of someone. Some of her comments have been totally asinine, another one being it's okay to shoot the silhouette hovering over you when you're in bed, or whatever it was. Yet another licence to kill.

 

[4MrsB]

Re FRANK:

I wish Frank would get an attorney, a ghost writer and realize he could make more money putting out his own book to the public. Just a suggestion for a title (OJ would be flattered):
"If I Did . . . Hear Something"

He could make more money than the Pistorius clan are throwing his way.

I am guessing OP won't be able to stand looking Frank in the eye ever again (after what he heard & knows). Therefore, Frank will NOT be hired back as OP's "houseboy" in his new digs. Which will be very telling, as he has worked for OP since the begining. If OP's version were true & Frank heard only OP screaming after shots, he would have him back working for him again. However, I would bet OP doesn't have the b@lls to hire him back. Looking him in the eye every day. He will hire another & Pistorius family will either pay Frank out with one large lump sum or smaller monthly amounts for as long as needed to avoid him speaking out. (They'll word it to Frank differently of course. For your long devoted history of service to OP, blah, blah, blah.)

Would love to hear what that gentleman has to say.

 

[turaj]

First bit BBM. Well I beg to differ with Masipa. I've been married for a very long time and I have never been scared of my husband. IMO this is not part of a normal relationship. Any couple can have a heated argument but that's a far cry from being scared of someone. Some of her comments have been totally asinine, another one being it's okay to shoot the silhouette hovering over you when you're in bed, or whatever it was. Yet another licence to kill.

Reeva is dead and the only words were her texts/writings which clearly indicate her fears of an increasingly angry OP. So the judge dismisses the only words we have from Reeva saying relationships are "dynamic" and meanwhile takes the words of OP as truth.

 

[Fuskier]

IDK, but it is also possible that it was just because she is human like all the rest of us. She is also at risk of being swayed by emotion and/or bias. Or she interpreted things in a different way. I guess we should thank the stars for our jury system because although it is far from being perfect, I do believe it's a lot better than 1 person seeing things through their own prism and making a decision.

There were two Assessors and a Judge contributing to the judgement. They were 'interpreting' evidence, facts within the SA criminal Law. Interpretation has some latitude, discretion can be applied and it can be skewed. This may present as an error in interpreting the Law.

Hypothetically, how do powerful influences ensure implementation of their wishes when a judgement in a Criminal Court of Law is about be to formulated? What 'means' does it have at its disposal? Interpretation of the Law, in a given area, by an authority figure vested with the power to make that judgement.
In this case, two Assessors and one Judge contributed to 'interpreting' the Law.

Some questions: Is it beyond possibility to believe that there may have been powerful influences at work here? How do powerful influences work? Behind the scenes of course.
How does politics work? how does corruption work? This judgement may be a 'wake up' call for SA. If there are 'errors in law' as legal experts in the SA legal system allege, then left unchallenged, the implications of this judgement may have serious unwelcome consequences socially and legally should others see it as 'precedent' IMO.

My opinion only.

 

[04009margaret]

This is interesting but this is not just a "disabled prisoner" it is OP and they just won't put him in prison with or without legs.

I agree, it was a very telling statement from Masipa when she sent OP to be evaluated during trial, not wanting to punish him twice. Everyone wondered at the time what to make of that statement, I believe she will judge that he has suffered enough as punishment

 

[JudgeJudi]

It's not just all of us ...

Chris N Greenland @Chrisng53 • Sep 12

#JusticeForReevaSteenkamp ----
I join the whole world in lamenting this travesty of justice. The Court failed Reeva.

 

[JudgeJudi]

Ulrich Roux has posted that he's escaping the pandemonium of the trial and visiting the Great Barrier Reef in Oz for the next two weeks. He'll love it.

 

[K.T]

A six page letter by Oscar Pistorius, published in ex-girlfriend Samantha Taylor's book (written by her mother) that sounds quite damning, he's seems emotionally unstable...letter was subpoenaed by the prosecution but never shown. Hope we get to read it...

"Everyone has their darkness."

"For most of my adult life I have moments where I sabotage the good that I have and find myself back in the comfort of the instability I have become uncomfortable to."

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...ted-dark-e-mail-never-shown-murder-trial.html

He's good with the melodrama and emotional manipulation.
Sounds similar to Steenkamp's Whatsap Pistorius exchanges. For Masipa to say relationships are dynamic and dismiss a Steenkamp's last messages about the relationship shows an inability to understand relationship manipulation especially in comparison to how she stated remorse and crying proves lack of intent to murder.

Pistorius, as many like Lisalinger pointed in out when recording the dates of his transgressive behaviour, was on a downward spiral over the last two years and admits to self sabotaging patterns, especially when he felt out of control.

 

[aa9511]

First bit BBM. Well I beg to differ with Masipa. I've been married for a very long time and I have never been scared of my husband. IMO this is not part of a normal relationship. Any couple can have a heated argument but that's a far cry from being scared of someone. Some of her comments have been totally asinine, another one being it's okay to shoot the silhouette hovering over you when you're in bed, or whatever it was. Yet another licence to kill.

Yes, I agree. Saying you are sometimes "scared" of the person puts it on a different level, IMO. And one cannot blame the violence in South Africa for this, as it was the dynamics of the relationship between Reeva and Oscar.

 

[Feynman]

And another thing the judge stated that if op intended to kill he would have aimed higher..... doh!...he did kill!..we have a family in the court looking at you who no longer have a daughter..... my god woman......

The judge did not say that. That was OP's testimony: If I intended to kill I would have aimed higher (or words to that effect). In fact, Masipa suggested this testimony worked against OP in that it showed that he was doing more conscious thinking in firing the gun than he wanted the court to believe.

 

[aa9511]

Basically, I believe, it comes down to fact that Judge Masipa just didn't get convinced beyond a reasonable doubt. Because let's look at what she did - she dismissed all the ear witnesses. That means that, essentially, nobody heard anything, in other words, only 2 people in the world who saw or heard anything during all this were Oscar and Reeva, and one of them is dead. So we are left with only Oscar's account, with no one to corroborate or go against his word.

There is the point that Oscar was caught in lies on the stand. Apparently, she chalked this up to his nervousness and also some mental disorder which she herself placed upon him (in her head, based on his courtroom antics/act).

So the above ^^^ acts as nullification for any lies he was caught in.

Then we have forensics. I think she (in her head) dismissed all the forensics as well, because of the sloppy work of the investigators and all the drama that went on in all of that. So there goes forensics out the window.

So basically she put in her mind that she was left with no ear witnesses, no other witnesses,and no forensics.

On top of that, she could not come up with any motive in her head for which there was any evidence.

So, because she did feel firmly convinced, she found him Not Guilty.

Perhaps that is also what a jury would have done had it been in the U.S., who knows.

I think that basically that is how she came up with her verdict, and then she just threw some legal mumbo jumbo around in her reasoning to make it sound like she came up with in some "legal" fashion. But I think she came to her decision much as any regular person would (by "regular" I mean layperson).

JMO.

 

[minor4th]

Hello all. I haven't really had much to say since the verdict because I can't completely get my head around it or make sense of it. I have heard experts say she got it right on eventualis and others say she got it wrong. And they all seem to know what they're talking about so I have no idea which. "Side" is right. I think this might be an area of SA law that is still developing and maybe there can be more than one way to apply the law.

 

[04009margaret]

In dismissing Premeditated murder Masipa said "The accused is a very poor witness, an evasive witness". Then went on to say "the accused was clearly not candid with the court when he said that he had no intention to shoot at anyone, as he had a loaded firearm in his hand". My interpretation of Masipa's words are that she is saying that she believes he intended to shoot someone. How can she then go on to say that he could not foresee that he could kill the person behind the door, it just defies logic. She also said that she believes Oscar when she says that the shots were rapid fire, to state that, she had to have totally dismissed the ballistic evidence contradicting Oscar's version of how he fired the shots........Beam me up now Scotty!!!!

 

[mirage1]

Basically, I believe, it comes down to fact that Judge Masipa just didn't get convinced beyond a reasonable doubt. Because let's look at what she did - she dismissed all the ear witnesses. That means that, essentially, nobody heard anything, in other words, only 2 people in the world who saw or heard anything during all this were Oscar and Reeva, and one of them is dead. So we are left with only Oscar's account, with no one to corroborate or go against his word.

There is the point that Oscar was caught in lies on the stand. Apparently, she chalked this up to his nervousness and also some mental disorder which she herself placed upon him (in her head, based on his courtroom antics/act).

So the above ^^^ acts as nullification for any lies he was caught in.

Then we have forensics. I think she (in her head) dismissed all the forensics as well, because of the sloppy work of the investigators and all the drama that went on in all of that. So there goes forensics out the window.

So basically she put in her mind that she was left with no ear witnesses, no other witnesses,and no forensics.

JMO.

What about the fact the position of the fans did not match Oscars story, and infact according to Oscar himself, made his story impossible, unless the police moved them, and also the duvet? Surely that is enough right there to invalidate his story? Would be for me. Also the suggestion he was screaming at Reeva in the toilet to call the police and 'get out' resulted in NO response from her at all, is simply not reasonably possible. Seems she ignored these crucial facts and put them down to trivial inconsistencies when they should have been PROOF he was lying.

 

[Paul Connelly]

The problem i have with Masipa is that she arbitrarily goes from logical deduction and application and law, WHERE IT SUITS PISTORIUS, and then arbitrarily
hands out judgement without clear explanation (or in this case of eventualis faulty application) where it suits pistorius.

The law in this regard is not complex, it simply seems complex because it is codified, even a simpleton understands the stupidity in her errors of judgement, precisely because it goes against common-sense.

Her two glaring flaws in judgement are:

1. If i intentionally go out to kill SOMEONE but do not actually name the person, by her logic it cannot be a murder charge, this already flies in the face
of common-sense, because everyone can simply claim they wanted to kill someone, just not the actual person who died.

2. Pistorius did not intentionally kill Reeva purely because he was crying afterwards, hence this alone means he must not have intended to kill Reeva.
This is by far the most subjective and silly judgement she could make, virtually every legal expert has stated that Pistorius' frame of mind AFTER the incident
cannot be used to infer his frame of mind BEFORE the incident.

And on another note, various times Masipa has thrown out the various evidence of conflict between Reeva and Pistorius, stating that humans are fickle,
how does she become a super-expert on psychology when it suits pistorius, yet can say we cannot make judgement between the two when there is clear evidence
of relationship problems?

The reason why this is so bad, is because every adult and parent and teenager in their life has used or experienced the tactic of crying and saying 'i didnt do it' when their found out to do something wrong.

When a judge does something this stupid, it should be criticized heavily.

I do not want to entertain the notion she was bought out, so my most lenient judgement on her conduct is that she was totally guided by emotion, where
law was inconvenient for her belief Pistorius was innocent, she just arbitrarily goes the other way.

Let us not forget as well this was Oscar's cynical ploy to manipulate her strong belief for remorse from the perpetrator. She bent the law to jail a murderer for 235 years for his lack of remorse. Oscar, Roux, et al all knew this and used it to their advantage as evidenced by Jani Allen's "letter to Oscar" in which she claims she has it on good authority he has been taking acting lessons on how to feign remorse and present himself as broken. They could never convince the judge without this tactic. With it they could convince her that black was white.

 

[cottonweaver]

This is OT but it's along wait til Oct 13th to see if we'll have a reasonable custodial sentence and an appeal.

In the meantime this is quite interesting - whatever you think of Sam Taylor & her mum- if you think they're money-grubbing liars then perhaps keep on scrolling? There have been thousands of posts re the missing Valentines Day gift from Oscar since i started reading WS although I never got into that conjecture. I think, this account of his habits confirms what you have all said all along- there was no intended gift and this plausibly contributed to the argument that night.

'Despite being incredibly well off – he was earning millions a year at this stage – he found it very hard to give. He seemed to hold on to everything. He was always saying how much richer everyone else was than he was.

I was often amazed that he would come visit or stay at our house and never bring a thing, not a slab of chocolate, or a bottle of wine, as most people would, when visiting. It just never seemed to enter his head. Sam, who was studying for her marketing degree and working part time for me, wasn’t earning much money, but always gave him presents – beautiful Christmas and birthday presents – whereas he almost never gave her anything, not even a Christmas card. It was very strange that he couldn’t even give a token of his good wishes.

It’s not that Sam expected it, but she was over the moon when he did give her a bunch of flowers on Valentine’s Day.

He would often say things like: “I’m shopping for your Christmas present” or “I am going to get you this or that”. There were always promises, but then nothing would come of them.'


http://www.iol.co.za:80/the-star/how-oscar-ruined-my-son-s-birthday-1.1750057#.VBVI7c2viPU

 

[cottonweaver]

Apols if someone has already posted this, published 13 Sept:

'As Steenkamp's parents expressed dismay at the verdict and headed home to Port Elizabeth, Pistorius's manager and agent, Peet van Zyl, revealed that the double amputee athlete intends to put his side of the story on paper.

"He will write his own book," he told the Observer. "We've discussed it. We've talked about ideas and concepts. I'm not going to go into details now."

Van Zyl said: "I will sit down with him once everything is done and decide what we are going to do. We have to wait until 13 October before we can think about anything. After that we will tell the world what we are going to do."

Ben Williams, books editor of South Africa's Sunday Times, said a book by Pistorius "could go either way. If you do it right, you could have the sports biography of the century. On the other hand, he's not the most popular person in some circles so you could have a tremendous backlash that sinks the book. Look what happened to Julian Assange's autobiography."
'It's because Oscar was the person who defined South Africa," Williams added. "I thought he was going to be the next iconic figure after Nelson Mandela. It's all gone horribly wrong and the amount of interest is spectacular. I've no doubt there will be a made-for-TV movie – that's definitely going to happen."

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/sep/13/oscar-pistorius-reeva-steenkamp-book

 

[cottonweaver]

Apparently he can be stopped from making profits from book if given custodial or "community corrections" but will look for something more conclusive.

https://twitter.com/sbudlender/status/511029225324036096