Oscar Pistorius - Discussion Thread #66~ the appeal~

[mrjitty]

I can't figure out where you got this information from. Do you have a link indicating it?

Firstly, are you suggesting that there was some secret evidence regarding this call that Nel &/or Roux didn't want made public? Seriously?

When Roux was questioning Stipp regarding call timings, not once did he even hint that there was contradictory evidence regarding the 10111 call. He talked exclusively about the security log, and Stipp's 2 calls...at 3:15 and 3:27. And the list of objective evidence relied on in the defence heads does not include any "secret" not for public consumption evidence.

There was an Annexure A not released with the heads and the summary of what it contains says nothing whatsoever about 10111. It is all about the 2 calls to security.

And actually, it does show how dishonest Roux actually was.

Annexure A will prove, it says, that Dr Stipp was lying about hearing "help, help, help" after 3:27 and seeing Pistorius in the bathroom at 3:30 as clever Roux can prove he was at OP's house then.

Which is quite unbelievable, actually, as Dr Stipp NEVER gave those times in his evidence....he talked about first and second calls without knowing what times they actually happened.

So absurd.

And these are actual serious submissions

ETA - this sort of "ambush' of the witness is improper.

The witness should be confronted with the exhibit, so that he can address the point of why did he dial security from OPs house and what was the nature of the call.

As a question of evidence, it is not proper for Roux to rely on this point without saying to Dr Stipp "but hang on a minute - when you made this call you were already at OPs house"

This gives Stipp the opportunity to say "i didn't make any such call"

 

[LemonMousse]

Perhaps he was speaking to his daughter in the house? He "kept cave" outside, she helped inside?

Nope, not his daughter. Stipp said she was standing in the open door way when he showed up.

I wondered if it was Standers wife, because Stipp said she appeared when he went back outside to talk to Stander. But didn't she come with them in the car?

 

[LemonMousse]

Plus, according to what Juror13 recorded, there was actually enough time between the first "shots" and the "commotion" that they'd gone back to bed and it was only after the "commotion" that they had called security.

https://juror13lw.wordpress.com/2014/03/04/oscar-pistorius-trial-day-2/
"Sometime around 3am, she heard 4 banging sounds. After these banging sounds there was total silence. She asked her husband what he thought the sounds were and he said gunshots. Her husband looked out the window but didn’t see anything so went back to bed. Shortly afterwards they heard a commotion so her husband called security. After that call, they heard somebody crying loudly. Mrs. van der Merwe thought it was the lady crying but her husband said it was Oscar crying."

All of which makes Roux's contention that because she thought the screams were female this must mean she was hearing what the Stipps/Johnsons heard all the more ridiculous.

Clearly, she heard Pistorius wailing well after that.

The fact that she thought it was a woman has no significance whatsoever. She was the only person who did, and it was a very easy mistake to make given that she'd actually been kept awake half the night by a woman's voice so hardly a leap of major proportions to initially assume it was the same person.

Something else - earlier that night she'd looked towards Farm Inn to locate the noise (opposite to OP's house). A year later, when they did the voice tests, she looked towards Farm Inn AND OP's house.

Aha, said Roux. She didn't look towards OP's house on the night in question. Thus proving that the sound didn't come from there.

Erm, no. What this proves is that, when there are sounds from OP's house, it could conceivably sound like it was coming from Farm Inn....which is why she also looked in that direction during the tests. If she'd looked just towards OP's house that time, he'd have a point. But no, she couldn't tell which direction it was coming from.

Really his leaps of logic are quite astounding.

 

[mrjitty]

I see the High Court continues to make bizarre decisions in respect of shootings

Self-defence or calculated murder?
NEWS / 07 November 2015 at 11:40am
By: ZELDA VENTER
Pretoria - Was Benoni businessman Retief Liebenberg an overprotective father who deliberately shot dead his daughter’s problematic boyfriend and his father?

Did he execute them to get rid of them, or did he snap after bottling up emotions for a long time and genuinely cannot remember shooting them?

These are the questions Pretoria high court Judge Mahomed Ismail will have to determine when he decides on Liebenberg’s fate.

http://beta.iol.co.za/news/crime-courts/self-defence-or-calculated-murder-1942154

James Grant ‏@JamesGrantZA Nov 19 South Africa
James Grant Retweeted SA Breaking News
Wondering if the "accused acted out of character" defence is always good - so long as you only kill once. 1/2

 

[LemonMousse]

So absurd.

And these are actual serious submissions

ETA - this sort of "ambush' of the witness is improper.

The witness should be confronted with the exhibit, so that he can address the point of why did he dial security from OPs house and what was the nature of the call.

As a question of evidence, it is not proper for Roux to rely on this point without saying to Dr Stipp "but hang on a minute - when you made this call you were already at OPs house"

This gives Stipp the opportunity to say "i didn't make any such call"

Yes. That occured to me too...thanks for clarifying it.

Allowing a witness to testify to something on the stand without contradiction, later providing clandestine documents to the court disputing it? No way.

Flies in the face of everything a fair trial is supposed to stand for. And is illegal, I'd imagine?

No evidence that the 10111 call was made at 3:17. Zero, zilch, nada, zip. Roux inferred it, then, because Nel didn't leap up and object or address it in his heads, he claimed it was "undisputed". And the Pistorians have believed it.

Beggars belief, doesn't it?!

 

[mrjitty]

When you've read a lot of judgements over years - you tend to get a feel for reading between the lines of what the Judge says.

Timeline is interesting for all of us in terms of what happened that night and it was a key element of Roux's case.

But we shouldn't fall into hindsight reasoning here. Roux always needed to somehow package up a version that a judge could buy.

It's not the pivotal thing.

The judge is supposed to take a robust view of the evidence. And the robust view is witnesses testifying to screaming over minutes, the crime scene photos, and a lying accused with his girlfriend shot dead and only him present. If phone calls timings are so reliable and important in terms of telling us what "really" happened - why not crime scene photos?

If you read what Masipa actually says - in my view this is roughly it

1. The accused hasn't told us what happened - but the circumstances were "peculiar"
2. Some kind of "accident" happened - based on my reading of the accused's demeanour
3. The accused version is possibly true - but not actually true
4. The state did not disprove the intruder story -
5. Everything else I am ignoring because it's too hard.

So all in all she seems to believe that because there isn't enough evidence of Premeditation - he must have shot her somehow by accident - but not how he said. Note in particular this is framed in the negative about the intruder

There is nothing in the evidence to suggest that this belief was not honestly entertained.

She does not actually say she believes the belief was honestly entertained. Merely that the accused achieved this evidential element of the defence. Evidential onus means the accused must only seek to raise the intruder as a material factual issue at trial - then the State must disprove it.

So again - I don't think she is saying he is innocent of murder at all. Merely that the case is not proven.

In my view the rest is just doing the necessary to arrive at that destination - by henpecking the evidence, ignoring things, begging the question, circular reasoning etc.

And when the Judge is being completely illogical - appeals to further logic won't help.

It's hardly the first time I've seen this and it won't be the last.

 

[LemonMousse]

When you've read a lot of judgements over years - you tend to get a feel for reading between the lines of what the Judge says.

Timeline is interesting for all of us in terms of what happened that night and it was a key element of Roux's case.

But we shouldn't fall into hindsight reasoning here. Roux always needed to somehow package up a version that a judge could buy.

It's not the pivotal thing.

The judge is supposed to take a robust view of the evidence. And the robust view is witnesses testifying to screaming over minutes, the crime scene photos, and a lying accused with his girlfriend shot dead and only him present. If phone calls timings are so reliable and important in terms of telling us what "really" happened - why not crime scene photos?

If you read what Masipa actually says - in my view this is roughly it

1. The accused hasn't told us what happened
2. Some kind of "accident" happened - based on my reading of the accused's demeanour
3. The accused version is possibly true - but not actually true
4. The state did not disprove the intruder belief
5. Everything else I am ignoring because it's too hard.

So all in all she seems to believe he shot her somehow by accident - but not how he said.

In my view the rest is just doing the necessary to arrive at that destination - by henpecking the evidence, ignoring things, begging the question, circular reasoning etc.

And when the Judge is being completely illogical - appeals to further logic won't help.

It's hardly the first time I've seen this and it won't be the last.

I wonder why she determined that, even though he was being evasive (lying), it was most probably an accident of some kind.

Based on what, exactly?

Precisely none of the objective evidence supports him. His story as a whole makes no sense. The timeline constructed by his defence contradicts his own version in several ways. None of the evidence he claimed he'd bring (screams like a woman, police tampering etc) ever appeared. He was even in the ridiculous position of having his own experts contradict him (Wollie & the magazine rack).

So, really, what convoluted thinking led her to the conclusion that it was most likely an "accident"?

Because he was distraught afterwards? Because he puked in the court room? Because no one could definitively prove that it wasn't an accident?

It seems to me that she decided on her verdict and then worked backwards picking and choosing which evidence to accept and which not. Confirmation bias in action.

 

[mrjitty]

Yes. That occured to me too...thanks for clarifying it.

Allowing a witness to testify to something on the stand without contradiction, later providing clandestine documents to the court disputing it? No way.

Flies in the face of everything a fair trial is supposed to stand for. And is illegal, I'd imagine?

No evidence that the 10111 call was made at 3:17. Zero, zilch, nada, zip. Roux inferred it, then, because Nel didn't leap up and object or address it in his heads, he claimed it was "undisputed". And the Pistorians have believed it.

Beggars belief, doesn't it?!

This aspect of the evidential procedure I found to be a bit strange, but it might just be because there are different rules in RSA with no jury.

Stipp should give his EiC without benefit of the log

The security log was not exhibited formally until Baba IIRC - you can see the classic procedure for doing this in the trial video.

And that made sense because Roux wanted to question Baba closely on the log contents and about who called who.

Baba was directly confronted with the issue at hand - about whether he or OP initiated the key call - by reference to the log.

This should have happened when Roux cross-examined Stipp - but probably Nel & Roux had already agreed that Roux would produce exhibit Q with Baba.

Poor from the judge anyway

ETA - stipp should really have been confronted with the following

1. I put it to you that the gap between bangs was 3-5 mins not 12?
2. The defence case is that you called security before the 2nd bangs not after?
3. I put it to you that you called security for the 2nd time from OPs house at 3.27 - not at your house

Obviously some of this gets hard in terms of evidence not yet given - but as the defence "knows" the real time line - surely Roux knew it when x-ing Stipp?

 

[mrjitty]

The other thing that i find a bit odd is that the "defense timeline" appears in closing HOA rather than at trial.

Yet if this is the defence version of what really happened that night - why was in not in Roux's opening?

 

[lithgow1]

In the legal appeal, it does not matter whether she used the word.

This is the sort of wormhole that laypeople love to jump down. :-D

RSBM and BIB. Guilty as charged. I make my living via words so it interests me when someone tries to argue that not using a specific word means that it is not broadly applicable, especially when that same person states that had she used 'unreliable' they would do a complete 180 in their opinion on the case. IMO this clinging on to Masipa never using the term 'unreliable' is a moot point when one looks at the synonyms of the adjectives she did use, especially in their context: good and assured under direct, evasive under cross etc.

 

[mrjitty]

I wonder why she determined that, even though he was being evasive (lying), it was most probably an accident of some kind.

Based on what, exactly?

Precisely none of the objective evidence supports him. His story as a whole makes no sense. The timeline constructed by his defence contradicts his own version in several ways. None of the evidence he claimed he'd bring (screams like a woman, police tampering etc) ever appeared. He was even in the ridiculous position of having his own experts contradict him (Wollie & the magazine rack).

So, really, what convoluted thinking led her to the conclusion that it was most likely an "accident"?

Because he was distraught afterwards? Because he puked in the court room? Because no one could definitively prove that it wasn't an accident?

It seems to me that she decided on her verdict and then worked backwards picking and choosing which evidence to accept and which not. Confirmation bias in action.

Yes exactly!

Again my guess is that the state didn't offer up smoking gun motive for premeditation and she just didn't buy 100% that he would shoot her cold in a domestic violence murder.

So in which case, some "accident" was possible - but obviously not how the accused said. Or he did the murder.

She thinks the death was "peculiar".

My reading is she thinks he may well have murdered her.

As we have already seen, a different plain speaking Judge like Justice Leach might see things very differently.

 

[mrjitty]

In the legal appeal, it does not matter whether she used the word.

This is the sort of wormhole that laypeople love to jump down. :-D

RSBM and BIB. Guilty as charged. I make my living via words so it interests me when someone tries to argue that not using a specific word means that it is not broadly applicable, especially when that same person states that had she used 'unreliable' they would do a complete 180 in their opinion on the case. IMO this clinging on to Masipa never using the term 'unreliable' is a moot point when one looks at the synonyms of the adjectives she did use, especially in their context: good and assured under direct, evasive under cross etc.

I didn't mean you sorry

I mean the fascination DS has with this point

 

[lithgow1]

I didn't mean you sorry

I mean the fascination DS has with this point

No worries and I didn't take it personally, though it is applicable. To me it is just another interesting example of how some people clutch onto whatever straws they can find in their efforts to not really acknowledge the implications of Pistorius' multiple instances of dishonesty on the stand. Plus when it comes to words and their meanings I am on stronger ground than in the areas of legal debate and bullet trajectories. With the exception of 'tergiversating' I must add.

The other interesting thing IMO, and as was pointed out on DS, is that 'evasive', the word she did use, actually implies more deliberate deception than 'unreliable'.

 

[mrjitty]

No worries and I didn't take it personally, though it is applicable. To me it is just another interesting example of how some people clutch onto whatever straws they can find in their efforts to not really acknowledge the implications of Pistorius' multiple instances of dishonesty on the stand. Plus when it comes to words and their meanings I am on stronger ground than in the areas of legal debate and bullet trajectories. With the exception of 'tergiversating' I must add.

The other interesting thing IMO, and as was pointed out on DS, is that 'evasive', the word she did use, actually implies more deliberate deception than 'unreliable'.

My favourite is "there's no evidence of murder!"

Apart from the victim lying in a pool of blood, the weapon recovered, and the shooter found at the scene.

Meanwhile in another case - Amanda Blackburn, no one has any trouble to assume the shooter murdered her in cold blood, based on far less evidence.

 

[LemonMousse]

No worries and I didn't take it personally, though it is applicable. To me it is just another interesting example of how some people clutch onto whatever straws they can find in their efforts to not really acknowledge the implications of Pistorius' multiple instances of dishonesty on the stand. Plus when it comes to words and their meanings I am on stronger ground than in the areas of legal debate and bullet trajectories. With the exception of 'tergiversating' I must add.

The other interesting thing IMO, and as was pointed out on DS, is that 'evasive', the word she did use, actually implies more deliberate deception than 'unreliable'.

There was a study done a few years ago that demonstrated how very difficult it is for the average person to change their mind about something. It's especially difficult when you've publically nailed your opinion to a mast to then do an about face and acknowledge that you were mistaken.

It actually takes a tremendous amount of integrity and personal courage to do that, and few of us can manage it.

This is why you see people embarassing themselves with extraordinarily stupid and convoluted arguments like this one.

A lying witness is, by actual, measurable definition, an unreliable one. There's no way round this. Sorry, Pistorians.

 

[lithgow1]

My favourite is "there's no evidence of murder!"

Apart from the victim lying in a pool of blood, the weapon recovered, and the shooter found at the scene.

Meanwhile in another case - Amanda Blackburn, no one has any trouble to assume the shooter murdered her in cold blood, based on far less evidence.

I think it essentially comes down to people choosing to believe what they want to believe. It could be argued that both 'sides' are guilty of this but IMO the trial evidence and all the supplementary info regarding Pistorius tips the scales towards the deliberate murder of Reeva Steenkamp. Excellent sleuthing and investigation such as that done by LemonMousse, MrFossil and JudgeJudi only bolsters that opinion.

Another interesting DS sideline IMO is the question of 'Did you understand Roux's explanation of Masipa's findings re DE and how they applied to Reeva?' (or words to that effect) being repeatedly posed when the questioner then admits that they really only got it after the appeal hearing. Seems strange to me to defend a judgement for over a year and then fess up to only having fully understood it a couple of weeks ago.

 

[LemonMousse]

My favourite is "there's no evidence of murder!"

Apart from the victim lying in a pool of blood, the weapon recovered, and the shooter found at the scene.

Meanwhile in another case - Amanda Blackburn, no one has any trouble to assume the shooter murdered her in cold blood, based on far less evidence.

Another one I've read.....this was not a case of domestic violence because there's no evidence that he'd ever hit her before.

Pardon?

So a woman being beaten by her husband for the first time is not a victim of domestic violence because it had never happened before?

In all cases, there is a first time - and that is as much a case of DV as it is the 100th time.

For lovely Reeva, it was the first and last time.

Mind you, the stupidest debate I've seen was the heated one about Mrs Stipp's blessed curtains.

 

[Interested Bystander]

In the legal appeal, it does not matter whether she used the word.

This is the sort of wormhole that laypeople love to jump down. :-D

Rather the question is whether it was proper for Masipa to rely on his evidence. Is he a "reliable" witness. It's a legal question.

To borrow a phrase from Chess - there is a "main line" of the case that Nel was following.

The "main line" is what you would expect any seasoned prosecutor to focus on.

OP's only defence is the mistake. Therefore the critical question is how did the mistake happen?

Respectfully snipped



Oh Mr Jitty, why did you not say this earlier. All those wasted hours of trying to sort out a timeline. Endless hours of rewatching the tapes of the trial, all Mr Fossil's work on producing his timeline - in the end counted for little. It was the mainline that counted most. :crying:

I always thought evidence was paramount in a murder trial. I now will look at trials in a completely new light. Correction, I don't think I shall watch any more murder trials.

As ever, many thanks for your erudite input.

 

[Interested Bystander]

I wonder why she determined that, even though he was being evasive (lying), it was most probably an accident of some kind.

Based on what, exactly?

Precisely none of the objective evidence supports him. His story as a whole makes no sense. The timeline constructed by his defence contradicts his own version in several ways. None of the evidence he claimed he'd bring (screams like a woman, police tampering etc) ever appeared. He was even in the ridiculous position of having his own experts contradict him (Wollie & the magazine rack).

So, really, what convoluted thinking led her to the conclusion that it was most likely an "accident"?

Because he was distraught afterwards? Because he puked in the court room? Because no one could definitively prove that it wasn't an accident?

It seems to me that she decided on her verdict and then worked backwards picking and choosing which evidence to accept and which not. Confirmation bias in action.

I think many of us felt that.

 

[mrjitty]

Respectfully snipped



Oh Mr Jitty, why did you not say this earlier. All those wasted hours of trying to sort out a timeline. Endless hours of rewatching the tapes of the trial, all Mr Fossil's work on producing his timeline - in the end counted for little. It was the mainline that counted most. :crying:

I always thought evidence was paramount in a murder trial. I now will look at trials in a completely new light. Correction, I don't think I shall watch any more murder trials.

As ever, many thanks for your erudite input.

LOL!

I have posted it before!

I posted it during the trial

Of course I find the timeline fascinating personally - but as I have often said before, there is a very good reason why Nel was not focussed on it!

A seasoned prosecutor zeroes in on the heart of the case. What happened in the moments before OP fired?

The crime scene photos (inter alia) prove that the accused version of those moments is not reasonable possibly true - therefore it must be dismissed.

Therefore there is no reliable evidence that a mistake was made.

Therefore the only reasonable inference left is murder

That alone, disposes of this case.

My reference to "the main line" - a term from Chess Opening Theory (bellowing nerd laughter) - explains why Nel conducted the case differently than what posters apparently expected.

Not saying he didn't make some mistakes - but he adopted the classic approach - for example he correctly urged the judge to focus on the broad brushstrokes of the witness testimony

The problem is not the timeline but the judges decision to speculate some way that Reeva got in the toilet despite the photos proving it didn't happen the way OP said.