General Discussion Thread #1 -Bail Hearing

[Estelle]

Can't say I read the article in the same light. She seemed to be saying OTHERS - including the media - would make stuff up and ruin things. I wouldn't use that article as any kind of smoking gun.

i agree with you now you have pointed that out. I read it too quickly.

 

[whiterum]

Karyn Maughan ‏@karynmaughan
Roux: Nel also asked how Reeva must have felt facing #OscarPistorius "firing blindly". Yes, firing blindly - not deliberately. @eNCAnews

man, can this guy parse his words or what? why he earns the big bucks no doubt.

Exactly, as Nel rightly said he fired blindly and deliberately because there was a bloody locked door between him and the intended target cowering behind the door. He deliberately shot through the door, not once but four times so he sure as hell was intending to kill the one trapped behind that door.

 

[Estelle]

South African Law

Culpable Homicide

Killing negligently

Culpable homicide, like murderI is a form of unlawful killing. The crucial difference, however, is that if a person kills intentionally it is murder, whereas if he or she kills negligently it is culpable homicide.

Previously, South African case law took the view that a person who kills intentionally, but in mitigating circumstances, is guilty of culpable homicide rather than murder. For example, where a man uses excessive force to defend himself from attack and kills his assailant, this would be culpable homicide. However, later decisions by the Appellate Division strongly support the trend towards excluding a verdict of culpable homicide where intent to kill is proved.

The essential element of the crime is negligence, but before any court can make a finding of culpable homicide it must be proved by the prosecution that a reasonable man' in the position of the accused would have foreseen that death could result from his actions.

The test for negligence is an objective one, as opposed to the test for intention in murder, which is subjective. For example, if it is shown that a man ought to have foreseen the possibility of killing someone when he fired a gun, negligence is present and he is guilty of culpable homicide. If it is shown that he must have foreseen the possibility of death resulting from his actions or that he intended to kill, intention is proved and he is guilty of murder.

The question of whether he ought to have foreseen the possible consequences of his actions is decided by reference to the 'reasonable man' the diligens paterfamilias or average prudent family man. The behaviour of the man accused of causing the death is objectively tested against what a reasonable man' would do in the same circumstances.

http://www.legalcity.net/Index.cfm?fuseaction=RIGHTS.article&ArticleID=4191473

 

[Norwegian]

Thank you Lola for keeping us all updated!

 

[Lola]

4 shots is intentional in my view!

 

[squeaky]

so we can expect a ruling sometime around 0730 EST ?

 

[otyikondo]

So now "we wait for the Crying of Lot 49..."

No... ooops, wrong genre, wrong author (Thomas Pynchon), although the paranoia factor certainly rings true.

Well as we wait for the magistrate, I'd like to thank those who provided the blow-by-blow updates and everyone else for a very refreshingly cordial, sensible discussion with no histrionics (apart from that gent snuffling and sobbing occasionally in the courtroom).

I'd also say that if I were to pick up any single post from the 58 pages so far and suggest somebody's "got something there", it's the post of a one-time, drive-by poster called emmavoberry, who actually deconstructed and dismantled Pistorius's intrinsically "logical" actions (at least for me) in a very comprehensive way.

Aside from the fact that I'd be a complete wobbling jelly of a mess if I'd just inadvertently killed the love of my life, and wouldn't think to get lawyered up so damned quick on the front doorstep, I think I wouldn't have been so confident about the threat of the burglar/burglars having been terminated with the four shots.

Everything in the testimony does point to his having decided the "Situation Red" was suddenly "Situation Green" after the bathroom incident, and everything others have written here about the dangerous nature of SA and about the "multiple" nature of criminals breaking into property suggests he should have had NO SUCH sense of relief that it was all over...

..unless he knew there was just the one poor critter involved and she was now dead.

http://www.websleuths.com/forums/showpost.php?p=8907897&postcount=1344

 

[Estelle]

http://www.usatoday.com/story/sport...ar-pistorius-will-he-be-granted-bail/1936741/

Will OP be granted bail? An American view.

 

[Carol70]

What awaits Oscar if he is denied bail.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/feb/22/paraplegic-remand-south-africa

This guy has been waiting for his trial to start for 2 years!

 

[LJKaust]

What awaits Oscar if he is denied bail.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/feb/22/paraplegic-remand-south-africa

This guy has been waiting for his trial to start for 2 years!

And he is just up for fraud! Hideous and a very good reason to stay away from any trouble, so you don't end up there.

 

[Carol70]

Well, the pressure has certainly mounted...our radio stations will be broadcasting the outcome live, the general work population has come to a grinding halt- 0 productivity, and we are still divided. According to a snippet of a tweet I saw just now...the ANCWL has mentioned riots if he is granted bail- not sure how true.
** ANC women's league member I meet in loo predicts a riot if #Pistorius bailed."It's not going to be a positive scene.Femicide is big issue."** (dont know origin)

So..thats that I guess.

 

[weeeva]

I can help make one thing make sense. That is his "placement" of Reva on the bed. This is part of why I do believe his story.

I'm hearing impaired so I pay attention to how people hear things and he may well have "thought' he heard her by the bed and so in his mind he basically creates the scene. This is especially true if he's telling the truth and the room was black.

He hears noise and the darkness and the confusion makes him "place her on the bed." He was probably whispering to her the whole time without even realizing it as he made his way to the bathroom.

Some of the way people repeat the details in this case are very annoying. If I'm not mistaken he didn't say he heard the toilet flushing. Yet many people are haranguing that fact as if it's carved in stone.

Think, if he had heard the toilet flush he would have thought it was Reva, he didn't, he heard strange noises coming from the bathroom not the toilet stall.

He gets up and goes into the bathroom and sees the window open and thinks the robber has climbed in the window and that "by chance" he had woken up and caught him and now the burglar is hiding in the toilet stall.

If you think about the way things went down, waking suddenly in the middle of the night, as if something is wrong, then following through on that feeling and manifesting the entire scenario in his mind.

This could well have happened.

What I would be curious about is if Reva had her earbuds in on her phone. When you block your hearing with these devices you are less aware of the noise you are making around you.

If she was wearing the earbuds, to me, it would account for the confusion, why she didn't answer him, and why the noises she was making seemed odd.

Normally at night people tend to be quieter out of habit, if she had hear hearing compromised she may not have realized the level of noise she was generating.

Or could it be much more simple than that. OP knew Reeva was in bed when he got up. Him getting up wakened her. She slipped into use the toilet while he was at balcony. He did not notice this as it was dark and she was quiet. THEN he hears a noise and thinks it is an intruder because Reeva was in bed when he got up.

 

[otyikondo]

And he is just up for fraud! Hideous and a very good reason to stay away from any trouble, so you don't end up there.

However... it doesn't seem to be much of a deterrent, if OP's own fears and the comments of others in SA are anything to go by.

Has anyone addressed the whys and wherefores of the high crime rate? Is it income disparities, poor policing, revenge for perceived past colonial-era wrongs, drugs, or what?

 

[Estelle]

I think Pistorius should have thought about this before firing his gun!

11.23 The Guardian has a first person story about what life is like as a paraplegic in a South African jail.

"Living here is very hard. We are 88 men in this cell which is meant for 32. Sometimes there are more. Twelve people sleep in two bunks pushed together, that's six on the top and six on the bottom. I have my own bed on the bottom, which is a privilege. Luckily, I don't have to share because of my medical status.

"I can't rely on other inmates for help because they change all the time. People come and go so I have to help myself. My upper body is very strong so I just pull my legs along the floor. There's only one toilet and one shower for this cell. It's so crowded people even sleep on 'sponges' on the toilet floor. Sometimes there's no water in the toilet and it doesn't work. The smell and the flies are horrible. The food in the kitchen is also covered in flies.

"It's a big mission for me to get food. It takes 30 minutes to drag my legs to the kitchen. That's why I don't have breakfast, I just drink water. I only go to the kitchen once a day for lunch, which is at 11am. The warders in the kitchen won't allow other prisoners to bring me food. They say I have to fetch it myself.

 

[Lola]

andrew harding ‏@BBCAndrewH
Yet to meet anyone who thinks #OscarPistorius won't get bail. Prosecution simply pushing defence to reveal their case before full trial.

Defence team refuse to be drawn on predicting bail. "Gambling is for casino."

Courts are oddly intimate arenas. Am now in queue at cafe with #OscarPistorius relatives.

 

[Lola]

curious...for our SA posters...sister Aimee was featured in Sarie article..what do she and brother Carl do?

 

[otyikondo]

andrew harding ‏@BBCAndrewH
Yet to meet anyone who thinks #OscarPistorius won't get bail. Prosecution simply pushing defence to reveal their case before full trial.

Defence team refuse to be drawn on predicting bail. "Gambling is for casino."

Courts are oddly intimate arenas. Am now in queue at cafe with #OscarPistorius relatives.

Ai-ai-ai... it's the old "metal file slipped in the fruitcake" routine. He'll be out by two o'clock.

 

[Estelle]

Well, the pressure has certainly mounted...our radio stations will be broadcasting the outcome live, the general work population has come to a grinding halt- 0 productivity, and we are still divided. According to a snippet of a tweet I saw just now...the ANCWL has mentioned riots if he is granted bail- not sure how true.
** ANC women's league member I meet in loo predicts a riot if #Pistorius bailed."It's not going to be a positive scene.Femicide is big issue."** (dont know origin)

So..thats that I guess.

IMO it all balls down to the ballistics. If he lied about not having his prosthetics on when he shot her and the state is confident they can prove that, then he should not be released on bail. I wonder if they have the results back yet. Also was there an autopsy done and results back yet? Also the analysis of the mobile phone messages. It seems that the prosecution deos not have all the evidence they need yet. but I hope for South Africa's sake they he does not get bail. It seems to me that they need to take a stronger stand against violence especially against women and even use this high profile case as an example and OP needs to learn that he cannot keep getting away with things.

 

[Carol70]

Has anyone addressed the whys and wherefores of the high crime rate? Is it income disparities, poor policing, revenge for perceived past colonial-era wrongs, drugs, or what?

Its every single one of those things mentioned/ Also, and dare I say it in this particular thread but many who break the law do not suffer the consequences...corrupt police, over crowding, early release, presidential pardons means we have a continuous influx of repeat offenders walking back into society.

 

[Lola]

he's 5' 11" according to wikipedia and his amputation is between the knee and the ankle. no doubt they will be able to determine this with little difficulty