Oscar Pistorius - Discussion Thread #62 ~ the appeal~

[lithgow1]

At the very least it should help clarify the application of Dolus eventualis.
I wish it could address the issue of animus in the illegal possession of ammunition charge, but I guess that's not happening.

If Pistorius gets off again, I think we may get to see what happens when you release a loaded gun like Oscar back into society.
I know, he is going to stay in Arnie's mansion reading his bible and working with disabled children.

Rehabilitated? Doubt it.

If he is guilty, as many of us believe, I think if anything he will be worse in his `I always win` attitude. Perhaps I am being unfair and he is remorseful (whether it was DD, DE or CH) but somehow I doubt it. IMO he will now think he can get away with anything. Despite all his blubbering in court he didn`t strike me as particularly remorseful. A genuinely remorseful person would not have hissed `How do you sleep at night` at one of Reeva`s friends IMO, no matter what pressure he was under. Now I will await for the cheer squad to say she was lying about the incident even though an interaction, if not the actual words, was caught on film.

 

[Trotterly]

At the very least it should help clarify the application of Dolus eventualis.
I wish it could address the issue of animus in the illegal possession of ammunition charge, but I guess that's not happening.

If Pistorius gets off again, I think we may get to see what happens when you release a loaded gun like Oscar back into society.
I know, he is going to stay in Arnie's mansion reading his bible and working with disabled children.

Rehabilitated? Doubt it.

I can't rule out that he's a bit of a sh#t, albeit a polite one, not my cup of tea. But I have made every effort to see it from his side and having done so cannot be sure that he murdered or had any such intention (in any of it's guises) of doing so.

Rehabilitation? I would have said given what has been proven about his past that there was good scope for it. He's hardly the hardened criminal.

 

[soozieqtips]

~snipped~

At the end of the day we have to be sure before we label someone a murderer and lock them up for a long time.

And we have to be just as sure we don't let a murderer out on the streets just because he's famous. The public have a right to safety.

 

[soozieqtips]

If he is guilty, as many of us believe, I think if anything he will be worse in his `I always win` attitude. Perhaps I am being unfair and he is remorseful (whether it was DD, DE or CH) but somehow I doubt it. IMO he will now think he can get away with anything. Despite all his blubbering in court he didn`t strike me as particularly remorseful. A genuinely remorseful person would not have hissed `How do you sleep at night` at one of Reeva`s friends IMO, no matter what pressure he was under. Now I will await for the cheer squad to say she was lying about the incident even though an interaction, if not the actual words, was caught on film.

Yes. It's funny how he had a go at Gina (again, can't control the real him) yet he was the one who killed Reeva! I'm sure when he's out in a few weeks, he'll go back to being the same obnoxious self-entitled he was before he killed her. Do we even know if he took any anger management classes in jail? I know they may form part of his house-arrest conditions, but am curious to know if classes were just optional in jail. We know he has a nasty temper, so he should have been forced to address that before he's released into the open.

 

[Trotterly]

If he is guilty, as many of us believe, I think if anything he will be worse in his `I always win` attitude. Perhaps I am being unfair and he is remorseful (whether it was DD, DE or CH) but somehow I doubt it. IMO he will now think he can get away with anything. Despite all his blubbering in court he didn`t strike me as particularly remorseful. A genuinely remorseful person would not have hissed `How do you sleep at night` at one of Reeva`s friends IMO, no matter what pressure he was under. Now I will await for the cheer squad to say she was lying about the incident even though an interaction, if not the actual words, was caught on film.

BIB Just think about it for a moment. Have you ever been in such a long drawn out ordeal following immediately upon such a tragedy?

I have never been on such a journey so cannot begin to realise how stressful it must be. If you have then you are really better placed to comment than I am.

I get stressed out every time I want to post and have to log in 10 bloody times to do it!

 

[soozieqtips]

BIB Just think about it for a moment. Have you ever been in such a long drawn out ordeal following immediately upon such a tragedy?

I have never been on such a journey so cannot begin to realise how stressful it must be. If you have then you are really better placed to comment than I am.

I get stressed out every time I want to post and have to log in 10 bloody times to do it!

Whether he was stressed or not is besides the point. You can't keep on making excuses for him. There's such a thing as self control, which was evidently lacking in the killer, and what no doubt led to him killing Reeva. The sarcastic comment in court was just him being him - stressed or not.

 

[Marfa Lights]

I can't rule out that he's a bit of a sh#t, albeit a polite one, not my cup of tea. But I have made every effort to see it from his side and having done so cannot be sure that he murdered or had any such intention (in any of it's guises) of doing so.

Rehabilitation? I would have said given what has been proven about his past that there was good scope for it. He's hardly the hardened criminal.

Yeah, maybe not a hardened criminal, but certainly an arrogant scofflaw who does not accept responsibility for his actions.
Hope those anger management classes were beneficial.

 

[cottonweaver]

[

QUOTE=Trotterly;11977281]BIB Just think about it for a moment. Have you ever been in such a long drawn out ordeal following immediately upon such a tragedy?

I have never been on such a journey so cannot begin to realise how stressful it must be. If you have then you are really better placed to comment than I am./QUOTE]

BIB 1 - Confusion. This wasn't a tragedy it was a crime.

BIB 2 - "Long drawn out ordeals " for all are PAR FOR THE COURSE after a murder has taken place. (Or for you, of course, a tragic accident. ) It goes with the territory.

BIB 3 - Not correct. Of course you don't need to have been in his shoes to be able to pass comment on his actions/reactions. (Masipa, whom you hold in high esteem is not a killer but she was able to pass comment on his emotional outbursts post killing, during trial. Of course she is meant to observe the Def and can make inferences.) Same holds for other commentators on other criminal cases.
Plus of course, this is a forum that's why you yourself are commenting.

 

[Colin de France]

~snipped~

And we have to be just as sure we don't let a murderer out on the streets just because he's famous. The public have a right to safety.

....an unpunished murderer at that ........!

 

[Trotterly]

....an unpunished murderer at that ........!

A libellous comment now and I predict, still so after the appeal.

 

[GR_Turner]

This week Gerrie Nel tried to convince the SCA it should read every word of the trial to determine whether OP was guilty of the murder of Reeva Steenkamp rather than of the culpable homicide charge on which he was convicted.

Barry Roux argued that the appeal court judges should read only the “relevant parts” of the court record. The SCA president agreed with Roux that the 31 volumes should be shortened. After this was done, “a good many” fewer volumes were handed to the court.

Nel now has until August 28 – a week after OP is set to be released on corrective supervision – to file the state’s appeal application papers.

However, Advocate Johann Engelbrecht SC said a lot of evidence was presented to Masipa that would play no role in the appeal court judges reaching a decision on whether Pistorius was correctly convicted of culpable homicide or not.

http://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/Oscar-Pistorius-nearly-home-free-20150802

But then there's this from the SCA's own website:

Procedure before the Court

The Court decides cases upon the record of the proceedings before the lower court and after considering the written and oral arguments presented. Witnesses do not appear before the court, and the parties need not be present during the hearing of an appeal. A written judgment is usually handed down shortly after the argument.

The Court hears appeals on fact and since there are no jury trials, it has a relatively wide discretion to make its own factual findings. Because of this jurisdiction, judges have to read the record of the full proceedings in the lower courts. Typically, each judge is allocated cases with about 30 000 pages of evidence and exhibits per year. In addition, each judge is allocated petitions for leave to appeal.

http://www.justice.gov.za/sca/aboutsca.htm

Do you already see the way things are going here? I wouldn't be holding my breath on the outcome. The rules, even those of the SCA, apparently can and do get broken ... in some cases.

Oscar World aka Animal Farm = some are more equal than others.

But in this case it's an appeal by the prosecution so there's no appeal on the facts. And it's common practice for the SCA to read only the parts of the record that are relevant to the appeal at hand.
http://www.justice.gov.za/sca/rules.html

 

[cottonweaver]

@ Trotterly's "A libellous comment now and I predict, still so after the appeal."

" I don't know if you saw the... what was it called again, this media house that showed the world's reaction to this verdict in terms of the colors red and green. Red being dissatisfaction and green being satisfaction across the planet. And, Lisa, you could not spot any green on there... that level of dissatisfaction. ..."

J.Greenland to Juror13
https://juror13lw.files.wordpress.com/2014/09/judge-greenland-interview-transcript-part-21.pdf

So you're realistically imagining that Roux might take on those cases, a billion libelllous comments made at the base of every news report on this crime since the verdict?

If all the Pistorius uncles sold all their business interests, mines and rhino horns, would it even cover Roux's expenses?

Of course we gather that Oldwadges contact number was in frequent use by OP for every scrape, trouble and whiff of scandal that he got himself mixed up in, and what you're saying is straight out of his playbook really.

 

[Trotterly]

" I don't know if you saw the... what was it called again, this media house that showed the world's reaction to this verdict in terms of the colors red and green. Red being dissatisfaction and green being satisfaction across the planet. And, Lisa, you could not spot any green on there... that level of dissatisfaction. ..."

J.Greenland to Juror13
https://juror13lw.files.wordpress.com/2014/09/judge-greenland-interview-transcript-part-21.pdf

So you're realistically imagining that Roux might take on those cases, a billion libelllous comments made at the base of every news report on this crime since the verdict?

If all the Pistorius uncles sold all their business interests, mines and rhino horns, would it even cover Roux's expenses?

Of course we gather that Oldwadges contact number was in frequent use by OP for every scrape, trouble and whiff of scandal that he got himself mixed up in, and what you're saying is straight out of his playbook really.

I don't see J Greenland calling him a murderer nor any other serious commentator.

I would have thought that recent events would have made it clear that, in England at least, such comments were not only unfair but also unwise. But you go ahead.

 

[soozieqtips]

" I don't know if you saw the... what was it called again, this media house that showed the world's reaction to this verdict in terms of the colors red and green. Red being dissatisfaction and green being satisfaction across the planet. And, Lisa, you could not spot any green on there... that level of dissatisfaction. ..."

J.Greenland to Juror13
https://juror13lw.files.wordpress.com/2014/09/judge-greenland-interview-transcript-part-21.pdf

So you're realistically imagining that Roux might take on those cases, a billion libelllous comments made at the base of every news report on this crime since the verdict?

If all the Pistorius uncles sold all their business interests, mines and rhino horns, would it even cover Roux's expenses?

Of course we gather that Oldwadges contact number was in frequent use by OP for every scrape, trouble and whiff of scandal that he got himself mixed up in, and what you're saying is straight out of his playbook really.

Hopefully, the verdict will be overturned and OP will go back to prison for at least 15 years for his crime. He'll still be relatively young when he gets out, and he'll still have a wealthy family and good connections. He'll even be able to have a family if he wants. There's no shortage of strange women who are attracted to killers. But Reeva will be gone forever and all he's left her family is grief. So 15 years for blasting her to death when he was under no threat whatsoever is not such a bad deal, really.

 

[soozieqtips]

I don't see J Greenland calling him a murderer nor any other serious commentator.

I would have thought that recent events would have made it clear that, in England at least, such comments were not only unfair but also unwise. But you go ahead.

BIB - there are those of us who think defending a killer is unfair. But that doesn't stop those same people grasping at straws to find him innocent.

 

[Trotterly]

BIB - there are those of us who think defending a killer is unfair. But that doesn't stop those same people grasping at straws to find him innocent.

I'm sure you don't really mean that someone who kills someone else is not entitled to a defence in court.

You just mean defending OP is unfair right?

 

[aftermath]

" I don't know if you saw the... what was it called again, this media house that showed the world's reaction to this verdict in terms of the colors red and green. Red being dissatisfaction and green being satisfaction across the planet. And, Lisa, you could not spot any green on there... that level of dissatisfaction. ..."

J.Greenland to Juror13
https://juror13lw.files.wordpress.com/2014/09/judge-greenland-interview-transcript-part-21.pdf

So you're realistically imagining that Roux might take on those cases, a billion libelllous comments made at the base of every news report on this crime since the verdict?

If all the Pistorius uncles sold all their business interests, mines and rhino horns, would it even cover Roux's expenses?

Of course we gather that Oldwadges contact number was in frequent use by OP for every scrape, trouble and whiff of scandal that he got himself mixed up in, and what you're saying is straight out of his playbook really.

A media house colour coded the planet's reaction to the verdict? I was never asked for my opinion by a media house, were you? I wonder how representative was it really? And more importantly, how does that impact on whether the verdict was right/appropriate?

Have all news stories really referred to him as 'an unpunished murderer' then? If so, the media reporting of all things pistorius has been even more biased and negative than I had thought

 

[soozieqtips]

I'm sure you don't really mean that someone who kills someone else is not entitled to a defence in court.

You just mean defending OP is unfair right?

Of course I don't mean that someone who kills someone else isn't entitled to a defence. How on earth did you get that from what I wrote? You were talking about people writing libellous posts and saying it was unfair - and I responded by saying people who defend a killer and grasp at straws to find him innocent are unfair.

 

[Trotterly]

Of course I don't mean that someone who kills someone else isn't entitled to a defence. How on earth did you get that from what I wrote? You were talking about people writing libellous posts and saying it was unfair - and I responded by saying people who defend a killer and grasp at straws to find him innocent are unfair.

BIB I get it from what you said in your previous post, quote:

"there are those of us who think defending a killer is unfair"

and you even said it again in this post:

"people who defend a killer.... are unfair"

I'm glad you agree it was a libellous post though.

 

[soozieqtips]

BIB I get it from what you said in your previous post, quote:

"there are those of us who think defending a killer is unfair"

and you even said it again in this post:

"people who defend a killer.... are unfair"

I'm glad you agree it was a libellous post though.

So you misinterpreted my post to imply I thought killers shouldn't be defended in court, when it was obvious (to most people) that I was talking about posters defending them, not their rights in court.

BIB - Also, please don't put words in my mouth. I did not agree anything about a libellous post. Twisting what people say to try and support your views is pretty desperate and probably against WS policy.