Discussion Thread #61 ~ the appeal~

[GR_Turner]

Doesn't it strike the Pistorians as somewhat odd and fantastical that Pistorious managed to sound exactly like a woman about to be murdered at precisely the same time that a woman was murdered in his bathroom?

I mean.....seriously?

Doesn't it strike you as odd that he cried out in such a way that a neighbour could confuse his cries with those of a woman? - weird coincidence. And that he cried out in a high pitched voice as if scared for a few minutes, exactly as the state claim Reeva did? And no one heard both of these sounds because the close neighbours sleep very soundly and can't therefore hear the screaming that must have been as loud as a jumbo jet taking off if it were inside the toilet cubicle? They do sleep well. And the Stipps just went deaf after hearing everything else?

In most cases where there was screaming followed by shots and a dead woman I'd 100% agree with you. But there is some doubt for a whole host of reasons in this particular case.

 

[Interested Bystander]

There are five ear witnesses who all swear to have heard a woman screaming. It is a travesty that Masipa chose to disregard such powerful testimony. These witnesses did not know OP and the three families did not know each other. If one accepts that they are being totally honest, there is only one verdict possible. All five witnesses cannot be mistaken. Regardless of any other "evidence" if there had been only one scream made by a female, OP has to be guilty of murder.

Correction. I think Mrs VdM said she heard a woman screaming/crying but her husband says it was Oscar. This was after the four shots.

 

[LemonMousse]

Why would Mrs Stipp have heard arguing from the bedroom? Everything she heard came from the bathroom.

Hmmm. Someone having a "secret argument" with a lover so loudly a neighbour could hear? At 2am? Yeah, that sounds likely.

A woman's raised voice is heard. Other people hear a woman screaming a bit later. A woman is shot dead...all in the same street within an hour.

"It might have been a different woman with a secret lover" is desperate straw clutching from people who for some bizarre reason are desperate to let this obvious murderer off the hook.

It was Reeva. Pistorious murdered her. Nothing else makes sense.

 

[LemonMousse]

Doesn't it strike you as odd that he cried out in such a way that a neighbour could confuse his cries with those of a woman? - weird coincidence. And that he cried out in a high pitched voice as if scared for a few minutes, exactly as the state claim Reeva did? And no one heard both of these sounds because the close neighbours sleep very soundly and can't therefore hear the screaming that must have been as loud as a jumbo jet taking off if it were inside the toilet cubicle? They do sleep well. And the Stipps just went deaf after hearing everything else?

In most cases where there was screaming followed by shots and a dead woman I'd 100% agree with you. But there is some doubt for a whole host of reasons in this particular case.

No, I don't think it's that odd that ONE person made a mistake - particularly given who the person was. Mrs VDM had been kept awake for half the night by a loud woman - she was tired and stressed. When she heard loud crying coming from the same direction it's completely natural she'd assume it was the same person. You are, of course, completely ignoring that a) no one else who heard the crying said it was female and b) crying and screaming are totally different sounds. Therefore, a single, solitary witness who mistook a man crying for a female lends absolutely no credence whatsoever to the claim that Pistorious sounds like a woman when he screams.

If everyone who heard him crying thought it was a woman, you'd have a point....but absolutely no one else did - Stipp, Carice, Mr Baba, Mr & Mrs Mike, Mr VDM, the other neighbour...all said definitely male. Why are you ignoring this?

There were bangs heard around 3.15 shortly before the flurry of calls to security.

I repeat.....EVERYONE who heard anything before this heard female screams and male shouts. And they were all independently of the same opinion...that a couple were involved. In fact, it was this last issue that led to both couples getting involved in the first place: Stipp only went to the house because, having heard a male AND female he thought there was a family murder and children might be involved and Burger and Johnson only went to the police because what they heard conflicted with Pistorious' story - they heard two people when, if he was telling the truth, they should only have heard one...a man.

All of this you are willing to set aside as irrelevant because one sleepy woman mistook male crying for female and you therefore conclude that he must sound like a woman when he screams.

Since when is screaming as loud as a jumbo jet? Gunshots are, but not screaming.

Bats on a door and screaming are loud, but not phenomenally so. Bats on a door about 80db - the same as a vacuum cleaner.

So, first bangs (bat) heard by only the Stipps because of their particular position.
Screaming heard only by the Stipps and Burger/Johnson, again because of their positions relative to the bathroom.
Gunshots - 120db, 1000 times louder than bat sounds on the level of jet engine taking off, heard by virtually everyone, set the dogs barking and caused various people to reach for their phones
Then male crying heard by those who came to their windows after hearing the second bangs

The Stipp's went deaf? What are you talking about? They are the only people who heard everything. And, incidentally, Dr Stipp heard both the female screaming and the male crying and didn't confuse the two.

All of this becomes irrelevant to you because a single, sleepy, annoyed woman made a fleeting mistake at 3am. The Stipps stood, wide awake on their balcony, listening to a woman screaming and out of her mind with fear. Dr Stipp also heard a male voice intermingled with it. By a remarkable coincidence, two entirely separate witnesses also heard a male & female voice at the same time...if that was a mistake, it's a curious one to make. And it leads to the conclusion that Pistorious not only managed to sound like a woman screaming, but like two people instead of one! That's an amazing feat.

 

[mrjitty]

No, I don't think it's that odd that ONE person made a mistake - particularly given who the person was. Mrs VDM had been kept awake for half the night by a loud woman - she was tired and stressed. When she heard loud crying coming from the same direction it's completely natural she'd assume it was the same person. You are, of course, completely ignoring that a) no one else who heard the crying said it was female and b) crying and screaming are totally different sounds. Therefore, a single, solitary witness who mistook a man crying for a female lends absolutely no credence whatsoever to the claim that Pistorious sounds like a woman when he screams.

If everyone who heard him crying thought it was a woman, you'd have a point....but absolutely no one else did - Stipp, Carice, Mr Baba, Mr & Mrs Mike, Mr VDM, the other neighbour...all said definitely male. Why are you ignoring this?

There were bangs heard around 3.15 shortly before the flurry of calls to security.

I repeat.....EVERYONE who heard anything before this heard female screams and male shouts. And they were all independently of the same opinion...that a couple were involved. In fact, it was this last issue that led to both couples getting involved in the first place: Stipp only went to the house because, having heard a male AND female he thought there was a family murder and children might be involved and Burger and Johnson only went to the police because what they heard conflicted with Pistorious' story - they heard two people when, if he was telling the truth, they should only have heard one...a man.

All of this you are willing to set aside as irrelevant because one sleepy woman mistook male crying for female and you therefore conclude that he must sound like a woman when he screams.

Since when is screaming as loud as a jumbo jet? Gunshots are, but not screaming.

Bats on a door and screaming are loud, but not phenomenally so. Bats on a door about 80db - the same as a vacuum cleaner.

So, first bangs (bat) heard by only the Stipps because of their particular position.
Screaming heard only by the Stipps and Burger/Johnson, again because of their positions relative to the bathroom.
Gunshots - 120db, 1000 times louder than bat sounds on the level of jet engine taking off, heard by virtually everyone, set the dogs barking and caused various people to reach for their phones
Then male crying heard by those who came to their windows after hearing the second bangs

The Stipp's went deaf? What are you talking about? They are the only people who heard everything. And, incidentally, Dr Stipp heard both the female screaming and the male crying and didn't confuse the two.

All of this becomes irrelevant to you because a single, sleepy, annoyed woman made a fleeting mistake at 3am. The Stipps stood, wide awake on their balcony, listening to a woman screaming and out of her mind with fear. Dr Stipp also heard a male voice intermingled with it. By a remarkable coincidence, two entirely separate witnesses also heard a male & female voice at the same time...if that was a mistake, it's a curious one to make. And it leads to the conclusion that Pistorious not only managed to sound like a woman screaming, but like two people instead of one! That's an amazing feat.

This is why there is no real point having this debate which we have all been through many times before.

The critical point is not whether we can construct a better timeline that Masipa (hardly difficult) - but how should a Court should approach circumstantial evidence.

My experience is that it is largely pointless engaging with people who have not read at least several 100 judgements and spent years in the midst of evidential procedure.

Many novices take a highly theatrical / artificial approach to the evidence - focussing on minute points of detail and narrative - which is not the correct approach to circumstantial evidence.

They also demand that experienced prosecutors should have done things completely differently and proved impossible things.

If you have read lots of judgements - then you recognise "a Masipa" when you see one.

This is a judge who sets sail with a destination in mind and the evidence gets treated accordingly.

The key point was not whether Nel could produce a rival timeline, but why any Judge would prefer minute timeline stuff to this

The Stipps stood, wide awake on their balcony, listening to a woman screaming

Once you see a Judge ignoring the fans, duvet, evidence of fight, forensics, corroboration, lies of the accused "because we can't know what happened" or "there is no need to review the evidence in detail", then you know what kind of approach has been taken.

So yeah.

Largely it doesn't matter what the prosecutor does if the judge has decided to ignore all his best evidence.

The best critique of Masipa is the statement of Appeal where the State quite rightly points out how circumstantial evidence needs to be approached.

Personally I think this is a great example of a case where the power of crowd sourcing has embarrassed a non fit for purpose decision making body who actually proved quite ill equipped to deal with so much detailed evidence.

But you know - when you read over 1000 decisions - then you have seen this so many times before :thinking:

 

[mrjitty]

Doesn't it strike you as odd that he cried out in such a way that a neighbour could confuse his cries with those of a woman? - weird coincidence.

Except that this did not happen.

Its just conjecture from Roux

And the evidence suggests Reeva did scream when shot.

 

[mrjitty]

Here is the critical stuff from the Appeal doc.

Quality law !



grrrr

Just lost all my analysis of this and can't be bothered retyping.

But short version.

The state proved as facts that the curtains were open, fan was unplugged and duvet was on the floor. Furthermore the state proved Reeva ate late, and someone heard a fight between 2-3am, and accused had mobile activity in the night.

It is not legit for the Court to dismiss each point one by one as inconclusive.

Rather the Court must ask, what is the implications of these 6 circumstantial points?

Then the Court must ask - what is the ACTUAL evidence that OP didn't know Reeva was in the toilet?

Well - actually - only the accused say so. And the Court found him to be highly unreliable.

So on balance - the evidence is strongly that OP was awake not asleep.

 

[Colin de France]

...and whilst all this was going on Frank Chiziweni was sleeping peacefully .....

 

[mrjitty]

No, I don't think it's that odd that ONE person made a mistake - particularly given who the person was. Mrs VDM had been kept awake for half the night by a loud woman - she was tired and stressed. When she heard loud crying coming from the same direction it's completely natural she'd assume it was the same person. You are, of course, completely ignoring that a) no one else who heard the crying said it was female and b) crying and screaming are totally different sounds. Therefore, a single, solitary witness who mistook a man crying for a female lends absolutely no credence whatsoever to the claim that Pistorious sounds like a woman when he screams.

If everyone who heard him crying thought it was a woman, you'd have a point....but absolutely no one else did - Stipp, Carice, Mr Baba, Mr & Mrs Mike, Mr VDM, the other neighbour...all said definitely male. Why are you ignoring this?

There were bangs heard around 3.15 shortly before the flurry of calls to security.

I repeat.....EVERYONE who heard anything before this heard female screams and male shouts. And they were all independently of the same opinion...that a couple were involved. In fact, it was this last issue that led to both couples getting involved in the first place: Stipp only went to the house because, having heard a male AND female he thought there was a family murder and children might be involved and Burger and Johnson only went to the police because what they heard conflicted with Pistorious' story - they heard two people when, if he was telling the truth, they should only have heard one...a man.

All of this you are willing to set aside as irrelevant because one sleepy woman mistook male crying for female and you therefore conclude that he must sound like a woman when he screams.

Since when is screaming as loud as a jumbo jet? Gunshots are, but not screaming.

Bats on a door and screaming are loud, but not phenomenally so. Bats on a door about 80db - the same as a vacuum cleaner.

So, first bangs (bat) heard by only the Stipps because of their particular position.
Screaming heard only by the Stipps and Burger/Johnson, again because of their positions relative to the bathroom.
Gunshots - 120db, 1000 times louder than bat sounds on the level of jet engine taking off, heard by virtually everyone, set the dogs barking and caused various people to reach for their phones
Then male crying heard by those who came to their windows after hearing the second bangs

The Stipp's went deaf? What are you talking about? They are the only people who heard everything. And, incidentally, Dr Stipp heard both the female screaming and the male crying and didn't confuse the two.

All of this becomes irrelevant to you because a single, sleepy, annoyed woman made a fleeting mistake at 3am. The Stipps stood, wide awake on their balcony, listening to a woman screaming and out of her mind with fear. Dr Stipp also heard a male voice intermingled with it. By a remarkable coincidence, two entirely separate witnesses also heard a male & female voice at the same time...if that was a mistake, it's a curious one to make. And it leads to the conclusion that Pistorious not only managed to sound like a woman screaming, but like two people instead of one! That's an amazing feat.

This is why there is no real point having this debate which we have all been through many times before.

The critical point is not whether we can construct a better timeline that Masipa (hardly difficult) - but how should a Court should approach circumstantial evidence.

My experience is that it is largely pointless engaging with people who have not read at least several 100 judgements and spent years in the midst of evidential procedure.

Many novices take a highly theatrical / artificial approach to the evidence - focussing on minute points of detail and narrative - which is not the correct approach to circumstantial evidence.

They also demand that experienced prosecutors should have done things completely differently and proved impossible things.

If you have read lots of judgements - then you recognise "a Masipa" when you see one.

This is a judge who sets sail with a destination in mind and the evidence gets treated accordingly.

The key point was not whether Nel could produce a rival timeline, but why any Judge would prefer minute timeline stuff to this

The Stipps stood, wide awake on their balcony, listening to a woman screaming

Once you see a Judge ignoring the fans, duvet, evidence of fight, forensics, corroboration, lies of the accused "because we can't know what happened" or "there is no need to review the evidence in detail", then you know what kind of approach has been taken.

So yeah.

Largely it doesn't matter what the prosecutor does if the judge has decided to ignore all your best evidence.

The best critique of Masipa is the statement of Appeal where the State quite rightly points out how circumstantial evidence needs to be approached.

Personally I think this is a great example of a case where the power of crowd sourcing has embarrassed a non fit for purpose decision making body who actually proved quite ill equipped to deal with so much detailed evidence.

But you know - when you read over 1000 decisions - then you have seen this so many times before :thinking:

 

[Deleted member 102539]

mrjitty :seeya:

But you know - when you read over 1000 decisions - then you have seen this so many times before

How many appeals then?

 

[GR_Turner]

Except that this did not happen.

Its just conjecture from Roux

And the evidence suggests Reeva did scream when shot.

Or evidence from Mrs VdM alternatively...

 

[GR_Turner]

This is why there is no real point having this debate which we have all been through many times before.

The critical point is not whether we can construct a better timeline that Masipa (hardly difficult) - but how should a Court should approach circumstantial evidence.

My experience is that it is largely pointless engaging with people who have not read at least several 100 judgements and spent years in the midst of evidential procedure.

Many novices take a highly theatrical / artificial approach to the evidence - focussing on minute points of detail and narrative - which is not the correct approach to circumstantial evidence.

They also demand that experienced prosecutors should have done things completely differently and proved impossible things.

If you have read lots of judgements - then you recognise "a Masipa" when you see one.

This is a judge who sets sail with a destination in mind and the evidence gets treated accordingly.

The key point was not whether Nel could produce a rival timeline, but why any Judge would prefer minute timeline stuff to this



Once you see a Judge ignoring the fans, duvet, evidence of fight, forensics, corroboration, lies of the accused "because we can't know what happened" or "there is no need to review the evidence in detail", then you know what kind of approach has been taken.

So yeah.

Largely it doesn't matter what the prosecutor does if the judge has decided to ignore all your best evidence.

The best critique of Masipa is the statement of Appeal where the State quite rightly points out how circumstantial evidence needs to be approached.

Personally I think this is a great example of a case where the power of crowd sourcing has embarrassed a non fit for purpose decision making body who actually proved quite ill equipped to deal with so much detailed evidence.

But you know - when you read over 1000 decisions - then you have seen this so many times before :thinking:

You are the one insisting that the defense timeline can't be right because the close neighbours didn't hear any shots or bats after the male crying. So you are also arguing based on small snippets of the timeline that don't make sense to you it seems.

Circumstantial evidence must be good circumstantial evidence surely. The defense were pretty successful in disputing most of the state's evidence imo. Nel argues that if you put all his poor evidence together to form a picture, it proves his case. But the defense put the evidence together to form a different picture which is no worse than the state's.

I don't think Nel will get anywhere with arguing that the duvet/fans and magazine rack evidence proves anything other than that OP doesn't have a perfect memory of where things were that night. He puts the fan where the duvet was in his evidence because he thinks the duvet was on the bed and the police moved it, as is evident from his testimony. We also know that Van Rensburg picked up the large silver fan when he was a few metres from the bed on his way to the balcony which would be impossible if it were in the position on the photos. Likewise, OP seems to have assumed he knows what the wood moving noise was and that the rack was in one place from one set of police photos but he was clearly wrong. No reasonable court would expect someone to remember exactly where they put a fan in the dark (over to the right where a duvet subsequently was or over to the right somewhere else) or where a rack was over a year after a traumatic event like a shooting and moving a badly injured woman. If you showed me a photo of my bedroom today and asked if anything had moved from how I left it this morning I'd find it impossible to say. Morever, if Nel wanted to make this case then surely he needed to call all the police who were on the scene before the photos to testify about how they treated the scene.

 

[Deleted member 102539]

Seems to me there's a simple choice...either Dr Stipp is a barefaced liar, willing to risk his career and reputation in order to get a man he doesn't know convicted of murder (as Roux suggested) or Johnson's notes/phone were wrong.

We know that nobody - neither the State nor the defence - checked the central time server of Johnson's provider, or consulted actual records. They simply took his word for the time. This is proved during Johnson's questioning. His notes/phone only needed to be a minute out and the whole thing falls into place.

Gunshots at 3.14/15...Stipp calls security at 3.15, Mr Mike at 3.16, Johnson faffs and calls wrong security at this time, then the Van der Merwe's. Everyone who heard anything after these shots reports a male crying. Everyone who heard anything before them heard two voices and a female screaming.

The prosecution dropped the ball here...they should have either gone to get the actual provider records for Johnson's call or highlighted to the court that they didn't have them and therefore were relying on unsubstantiated information. Nel should also not have referred to the 3.17 shots when what he really meant was the 3.17-wrong-clock shots...which would not actually have been 3.17 as the clock was fast.

Sorry, I have no records of the case (need instruction from experienced member, how to do ). I remember vaguely that Nel was asked, if he would accept the timeline re phone calls and he accepted (early morning before/at the closing arguments). Is that right? As a 100% layman, I think it to have been wrong and some kind of reckless. - Maybe, this is rubbish. Maybe, my memory isn't that ok.

 

[Trotterly]

You are the one insisting that the defense timeline can't be right because the close neighbours didn't hear any shots or bats after the male crying. So you are also arguing based on small snippets of the timeline that don't make sense to you it seems.

Circumstantial evidence must be good circumstantial evidence surely. The defense were pretty successful in disputing most of the state's evidence imo. Nel argues that if you put all his poor evidence together to form a picture, it proves his case. But the defense put the evidence together to form a different picture which is no worse than the state's.

I don't think Nel will get anywhere with arguing that the duvet/fans and magazine rack evidence proves anything other than that OP doesn't have a perfect memory of where things were that night. He puts the fan where the duvet was in his evidence because he thinks the duvet was on the bed and the police moved it, as is evident from this testimony. We also know that Van Rensburg picked up the large silver fan when he was a few metres from the bed on his way to the balcony which would be impossible if it were in the position on the photos. Likewise, OP seems to have assumed he knows what the wood moving noise was and that the rack was in one place from one set of police photos but he was clearly wrong. No reasonable court would expect someone to remember exactly where they put a fan in the dark (over to the right where a duvet subsequently was or over to the right somewhere else) or where a rack was over a year after traumatic event like a shooting and moving a badly injured woman. If you showed me a photo of my bedroom today and asked if anything had moved from how I left it this morning I'd find it impossible to say. Morever, if Nel wanted to make this case then surely he needed to call all the police who were on the scene before the photos to testify about how they treated the scene.

That's it in a nutshell. The phone evidence swung it and anyone who has analysed it properly can see that Nel could not have put together the only reasonably possible sequence of events, even if he tried.

 

[GR_Turner]

Sorry, I have no records of the case (need instruction from experienced member, how to do ). I remember vaguely that Nel was asked, if he would accept the timeline re phone calls and he accepted (early morning before/at the closing arguments). Is that right? As a 100% layman, I think it to have been wrong and some kind of reckless. - Maybe, this is rubbish. Maybe, my memory isn't that ok.

I think Nel said that he didn't accept the defense timeline but that he accepted the phone records.

 

[Interested Bystander]

Mr Jitty, I can see why you find all this "cud chewing" frustrating. Your experience far outweighs any input a novice, such as many of us are, and it is good to see you put a line through so much irrelevant and unimportant detail. This is the first case I have followed on here (though I have attended some minor court cases but nothing as important as this case). I can only say I am pleased to come to the same conclusion that Masipa was the cause of a miscarriage of justice and I have learned a lot but still have a long way to go with respect to the importance or not of certain evidence.

I look forward to seeing your input when the SC Appeal starts.

 

[GR_Turner]

Here is the critical stuff from the Appeal doc.

Quality law !

View attachment 76593

grrrr

Just lost all my analysis of this and can't be bothered retyping.

But short version.

The state proved as facts that the curtains were open, fan was unplugged and duvet was on the floor. Furthermore the state proved Reeva ate late, and someone heard a fight between 2-3am, and accused had mobile activity in the night.

It is not legit for the Court to dismiss each point one by one as inconclusive.

Rather the Court must ask, what is the implications of these 6 circumstantial points?

Then the Court must ask - what is the ACTUAL evidence that OP didn't know Reeva was in the toilet?

Well - actually - only the accused say so. And the Court found him to be highly unreliable.

So on balance - the evidence is strongly that OP was awake not asleep.

So you argue that the court should have said that altogether, these things are basically too suspicious to ignore, even though there's good reason to think that at least some of them might be wrong?

Another way of thinking of your argument is that if the state throw enough **** they should be believed as that is that's what you're saying here.

I think the SCA may well wonder why the state failed to put all evidence before the court. Why should the state's version of the phones evidence be accepted when in the face of conflicting phone times they didn't just simply subpoena and submit all the phones evidence? Why should the court accept that the photos taken 2 hours after the police arrived be accepted as accurately representing the scene when the state failed to put all the people who had access to the scene on the stand to say what they did and the police don't appear to have followed any procedure to note what happened to the scene? As far as I'm aware, there was no log of who went in or out, no log of things touched or moved, a dispute about who arrived first even (lol) and other conflicting evidence. Why should the court believe that the mobile activity in the night proved that OP was awake when the state expert said it didn't prove that?

Is 'on balance' the new 'proof beyond reasonable doubt'?

 

[mrjitty]

So you argue that the court should have said that altogether, these things are basically too suspicious to ignore, even though there's good reason to think that at least some of them might be wrong?

Another way of thinking of your argument is that if the state throw enough **** they should be believed as that is that's what you're saying here.

I think the SCA may well wonder why the state failed to put all evidence before the court. Why should the state's version of the phones evidence be accepted when in the face of conflicting phone times they didn't just simply subpoena and submit all the phones evidence? Why should the court accept that the photos taken 2 hours after the police arrived be accepted as accurately representing the scene when the state failed to put all the people who had access to the scene on the stand to say what they did and the police don't appear to have followed any procedure to note what happened to the scene? As far as I'm aware, there was no log of who went in or out, no log of things touched or moved, a dispute about who arrived first even (lol) and other conflicting evidence. Why should the court believe that the mobile activity in the night proved that OP was awake when the state expert said it didn't prove that?

Is 'on balance' the new 'proof beyond reasonable doubt'?

This is exactly what I mean.

Because you never studied the rules of evidence or criminal procedure you frame the debate in an artificial or incorrect way.

Such discussion is of no value.

 

[GR_Turner]

This is exactly what I mean.

Because you never studied the rules of evidence or criminal procedure you frame the debate in an artificial or incorrect way.

Such discussion is of no value.

It's certainly no value trying to discuss anything with someone whose answer to everything is ultimately 'I know better than you so just take my word for it'.

 

[mrjitty]

Mr Jitty, I can see why you find all this "cud chewing" frustrating. Your experience far outweighs any input a novice, such as many of us are, and it is good to see you put a line through so much irrelevant and unimportant detail. This is the first case I have followed on here (though I have attended some minor court cases but nothing as important as this case). I can only say I am pleased to come to the same conclusion that Masipa was the cause of a miscarriage of justice and I have learned a lot but still have a long way to go with respect to the importance or not of certain evidence.

I look forward to seeing your input when the SC Appeal starts.

My gut feeling is that Masipa was determined to arrive at a verdict of negligent homicide as the "right verdict"

Therefore any evidence which doesn't fit with it was thrown out or not even discussed in the judgement.

This is why the judgement is such a mess from a technical standpoint - because she really had to bend over backwards on the facts AND screw up the law.