Oscar Pistorius - Discussion Thread #68 *Appeal Verdict*
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Hello again. Gosh, April came around quick, didn't it?!
Following on from your discussion about the inherent improbabilities of his "version", I think it's always worth highlighting them so that the Pistorians are in no doubt of why it is, exactly, that we don't believe him:
A) Is the first thing you say to someone who's been asleep for 5 hours (not rousing even when you nip downstairs for a late, late, lonely supper) "Can't you sleep, Baba?"
B) If it's so humid that it wakes you up, is your first thought to close the windows, blinds and curtains and then position the fans so that only the person on the right of the bed (Reeva) gets the benefit of them?
C) Who slips off their slippers, positions them neatly pointing at and next to the top of the bed, then walks round to get in the other side?
D) I currently have a frozen shoulder (my right), certain positions at night can be uncomfortable. Changing my side of the bed would make no difference to anything and it has not even occured to me to do so.
E) If Reeva took her phone as a light source she would only have done so if it really was pitch black - so the curtains must already have been closed when she got up. In a very dark room, a lit up phone screen is as bright as a torch. I know it is because I often use mine to find my keys in my bag on a dark door step. The room WOULD have got lighter overall and then darker again as she went into the bathroom. Back turned or not, it is impossible for Pistorius not to have been aware of the two events....the room lightening then darkening again.
F) The biggest and most glaring improbability of all......absolutely NOBODY would have stood frozen in fear at a noise and said nothing to the person a few feet away. If she was asleep, OK, but she was awake and had been talking to him. In his fear, he would have wanted reassurance that he wasn't alone, some moral if not physical support. Some confirmation that he wasn't hearing things. His dash to get the gun would have to have been accompanied by a garbled explanation - SOMETHING to alert her to the potentially life threatening situation they were in.
G) As he stood there, "frozen in fear" - what's the best, best bit of news Pistorius could have had at that moment? What would have taken his fear from 100 to 0 in less than a second? Realising that it was Reeva. There's no way that a frightened mind wouldn't have spent a moment or two hoping for this....but no. He didn't even glance at her. Rationalising it away as "Well, he knew she was in bed" does not work....he knew she was in bed a minute ago and hadn't seen or spoken to her since. His first though would HAVE to be, "I hope that's Reeva". It wasn't. Impossible to explain.
H) Why was he too scared to speak above a hush yet seconds later begins screaming so loudly fairly distant neighbours could hear him....let alone someone in his en suite bathroom. Why wait until he is actually out of the bedroom (and away from Reeva) to start screaming?
I) Why was he screaming, exactly? It's dark, he cannot see and he's also unstable on his stumps - he needs every clue he can get of what the "intruders" are doing. He also won't want them to know exactly where he is because this would make him a target. So screaming has the effect of blocking out any sounds that the intruders make (which he needs to hear) and metaphorically pinning a glowing target sign on his chest.
J) Wasn't thinking? Yes, he was. He made a decision to shut up when he got to the bathroom door so they "wouldn't know where he was". If this consideration was EVER in his mind it would have been much, much sooner. In fact, it would have stopped him screaming at all.
K) What was it about the empty bathroom that made him start screaming again? The window being open? Confirmation that there was someone there? So, suddenly, it didn't matter anymore if they knew where he was? He's in more danger now than ever, and yet he pins that glowing target back on his chest?
L) He doesn't warn them he has a gun, in case it exacerbates the situation and makes the intruders come out and shoot him. Surely to goodness, it's if they DON'T think he has a gun that is more likely to make them come out and shoot him. They are trapped in the toilet...and he doesn't want them to know that the screaming householder outside of it has a gun? It's better to let them think he is unarmed?
M) He screams at them to "get out" knowing that they can't without opening the toilet door. It was the bathroom window they came in by, not the toilet, so that's not where the "ladder" is. The toilet window is high, small and with a long drop to the ground. "Get out"? How? Why does he not tell them to stay exactly where they are...he has a gun and the police are coming.
N) Nothing from Reeva as her boyfriend stands screaming just feet away. She knows there's no one in the bathroom except her...so who is she hiding from and terrified of? Herself? All of the screams are directed at her...and yet she doesn't want to know what it is in the bathroom that Pistorius is screaming at? She knows she's the only one there....and she'd have heard someone coming in the window when she was using the toilet because she had the door open. And the screams are coming in her direction, towards the toilet, so why doesn't she do the only thing she can to protect herself from whatever and get the hell away from the one place she's vulnerable to attack from....the door.
O) Whatever the reason Pistorius screamed "Get out" was, it wasn't because that's what he wanted or expected them to do. The moment the intruder seemed to be complying with that demand, he shot them four times.
P) Knowing, as we do, exactly where Reeva was standing when she was shot....how did she manage to make the magazine rack move a milisecond before he shot her? It was against the back wall which was only a couple of feet but would need a large stride to take her from there back to the door...and there wasn't time for that. We know the noise was not the door opening or the handle moving, and it is impossible for it to have been Reeva nudging the magazine rack...so what was it?
Q) Why did Pistorius expect to see Reeva still sitting up in bed when he went back to the bedroom? Isn't the very first thing any unarmed person would do when hearing gunshots in the next room is flee out of the door and the house? Where was Reeva's fight or flight response? If Reeva was not, at first sight, in the bedroom when he got back his very first assumption would be that she'd left the room. And he'd be wanting to join her. But no...he never even checked to see if the door was open. Fair enough if he looked and it was still closed with the cricket bat, but he DIDN'T EVEN CHECK. This is, quite literally, impossible.
It was apparently the fact that she wasn't still in the bedroom that took him from "Must be a terrifying intruder" to "Might be Reeva" - and yet, the LEAST likely place Reeva would be is in the bedroom.
Even worse - when he ran to fetch the cricket bat, he took no note of the fact that the door was still locked and closed, almost as if he fully expected it to be. Why?
There's more, of course..but when looked at together, the "inherent improbabilities" become impossibilities.
That he's lying is impossible to escape. He is lying.
And I don't care how many examples of people accidentally shooting friends and familiy the Pistorians come up with....not a single one of them comes with the list of extremely unlikely circumstances that this one does.
If Pistorius ultimately escapes jail, then he will have escaped justice. The man is a lying murderer. Nothing less.
(Sorry for the essay!)
Wonderful and perfectly written, your essay!
Thank you!If Judge M had recognized only the testimonies (for 1 hour very loud arguement, Reeva's tortured screams) and if Masipa would have rated deleted files from OP's phone as 100% evidence of an important sort of lies, then it would have been almost clearly to understand what really took place. Violence incl cricket bat (maybe another weapon too), worst male rage, not one single intruder (not even a shadow), 4 fatal shots (each would have killed her), not one single serious rescue attempt, murder. Things we know except these actions are all fictional, IMO, and OP's story.
Daily Mail is fronting a piece about how to spot a liar - guess what - they've put a photo of Pistorius in the article. Usually I can't stand that "paper" but it's gone up in my estimation just for today.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencet...erated-hand-movements-signs-hiding-truth.html
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencet...erated-hand-movements-signs-hiding-truth.html
Paul Connelly
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Let's pretend for a moment he didn't execute her and assume he thought he was acting lawfully. He was wrong, dead wrong - fact!
You too are wrong in your puerile attempts to justify his actions.
Einstein once defined insanity as doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. You can delude yourself ad infinitum but all it does it provide empirical proof of Einstein's assertion.
Either way, an examination of conscience or logic is long overdue. My money is on the first.
Marfa Lights
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Dr. Steyn might think he can put himself in Oscar's shoes, but he wasn't there in Oscar's head anymore than the rest of us. In cases like this, it's up to the court to consider and make the appropriate inferences from the entire mosaic of evidence presented at trial.
Masipa erred in her application for the test for Dolus eventualis and failed to clarify any application of PPD with respect to DE and left any finding of Oscar's subjective sense of lawfulness undetermined as well. She only said she felt he had a genuine belief in an intruder because the window was open and that was proof enough for her that he was correct in thinking there was an intruder in his bathroom.
However, she failed to apply any other legal standards for a lawful self-defense to his claims and failed to consider expert testimony that Oscar had been trained and tested on the legality of just these kind of self defense scenarios, yet ignored them that night.
She left her judgment wide open on appeal.
soozieqtips
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Hahahahahaha. Too funny. A nice BIG pic of the convicted murderer under "How to spot a liar". You couldn't make it up.
Lemon, I don't know where you are living... I'm simply glad that you have very short winters 
Excellent essay! Thank you. It's so evident especially when resumed the way you did, with these questions.
Judge Masipa is a big ? for me.
Excellent essay! Thank you. It's so evident especially when resumed the way you did, with these questions.
Judge Masipa is a big ? for me.
Sherbert
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Yes, for me the most ridiculous bit of the whole sorry story is this intermittent on-and-off screaming by an alpha male in fight mode, advancing with a high calibre weapon in order to protect his girlfriend. It's just absolutely ludicrous.
I wish the SCA had gone for DD. It would have been so much tidier than having to delve into all this hypothetical nonsense about genuine fear, lawful intent and rationality.
although, in the de oliveira case it was easier to establish that no attack had commenced, because the other people were outside the confines of the house.
in pistorius' case one could argue that the perceived entry into the house [via the window] was the starting point of the attack?
but then we come onto the issue of warning shot and number of shots/force used commensurate with the perceived threat. which pistorius fails on.
'further reading' is a case cited alongside de oliveira here:
http://www.derebus.org.za/fight-back-might-found-guilty-putative-self-defence/
S v Naidoo 1997 (1) SACR 62 (T)
father shot through a door, along with this:
"
he mistakenly believed that he was about to be burgled and discharged his firearm killing his father. He had been the victim of previous burglary attempts at his home.
"
"
Regarding the factual question as to whether the state had proven beyond a reasonable doubt that the accused did not believe that he was entitled to shoot in the manner in which he did, it was held that objectively, a reasonable man in the position of the accused would not have fired the fatal shot aimed in the direction which he did.
"
unfortunately i am having trouble finding a more detailed account of the trial/events though. sc website records start at 1999.
Reading that brings home just how odd the SCA judgement was imo. In that case,the accused shot at men outside his property where no one could think he was in danger. He didn't fire a warning shot to scare them away. In those circumstances the judge's conclusions make sense. But in OP's case, he thought he had an intruder in the house. Very close. I don't think it makes any sense to say he should have fired a warning shot or that that is prima facie proof that he knew he wasn't acting lawfully in the circumstances he described. Plainly Leach has tried to use the same logic but he's applied it to very different set of facts in which it's far from obvious that no one could think they were acting lawfully.
I know you think he's guilty of DD of Reeva but I'm surprised you think there's any real comparison between the facts of the two cases that would justify Leach using the same logic.
Ty for this link to a full copy of the SCA Judgment! I find this version/format much easier to work with and print than pdf.... Can any of you tell me what this format is called... is it "HMTL"? (I'm only asking because it might help me in trying to google another doc I've been trying to find for days now!)
Sherbert
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Both cases revolve around entitlement to shoot when afraid, although I do accept that having an intruder in the house is probably more threatening than seeing and hearing a group of people creating a disturbance outside. Both scenarios may be frightening. De Oliveira didn't give evidence, whereas OP's evidence was unreliable. Many of his actions simply didn't make sense. On the other hand, Sean Rens gave evidence that OP knew that he was not entitled to shoot. As the Defence did not adduce any compelling evidence to rebut this, the logical conclusion must be that he had dolus vis-a-vis the intruder.
LemonMousse
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You are missing the point. Perhaps on purpose?
Pistorius tried for PPD. For this he needed to show that he truly believed his life was in danger and had good reasons (even if mistaken) for believing that it was. The law also demands that, in order to justify any self-defence action, an attack must either be in progress or unambiguously imminent. There must be NO OTHER choice than to take the action that you do.
(Please remember that he is trying to explain putting FOUR BULLETS into a human being. He needs a very, very good reason).
Pistorius' pathological inability to take any responsibility for his actions had him blowing his defence out of the water. He said, multiple times, that he "never intended to shoot anyone" - therefore, if he didn't intend to shoot anyone, why did he? Did he not think his life was in danger, then? This statement from him proves that he did not act in putative private defence.
The objective facts of the case also reveal no reason for him to believe that a) an attack was in progress and b) that an attack was imminent. Both are a requirement before lawful self-defence actions take place.
His PPD defence is therefore gone....all based on his own testimony.
Therefore....if he was not acting to defend himself and there was no indication that he was about to be attacked, how can he possibly have thought he was justified in gunning down a human being?
The thing you Pistorians fail utterly to take into account is that it is a crime to shoot someone just because they are in your house. If you do so without sufficient reason, it is murder.
And that is why he's been convicted.
Both cases revolve around whether in the absence of reliable evidence from the accused the court can rule out that the accused might have believed he was under attack or about to be and thought he had the right to shoot. It's plain in the De Oliveira case that he couldn't possibly have been in any danger. He was in his house upstairs I think. The men were outside. The Judge noted that there was no sound of breaking glass that might suggest a break in. In short not even a man of low intelligence could have really believed he might be in danger. Contrast this with op. He's on his stumps. He thinks the danger is very close. It's hard to see the comparison. I'd have thought it was obvious that someone in his place might think he was possibly in danger and would have the right to shoot to defend himself. It doesn't matter whether this is the truth, it's the version the court us working on. The only argument against this is that he did know he shouldn't shoot without seeing his target, but I'd say that what you know when writing on a piece of paper when safe and what you do when you think you're in danger are two different things and the court should put themselves in the place of the accused to answer whether there's a chance he could have believed he was acting in self defence.
Ok so how many other cases of people shooting intruders in their home have ended in a murder conviction in sa?
DexterMorgan
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I wished that Nel or the hack group Anonymous checked Oscars internet usage directly after the murder to see if he was truly remorseful or if he simply moved on as if nothing happened directly after the murder of Reeva.
Sherbert
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He might have got away with one bullet, but four is a different story. Four is shooting to kill.
Thanks, Sleuth-d, for this much needed help!!! This seems like a good time to go off-board to try more googling. ;-)
I think that's where his disability might come in. An overreaction due to being unable to do anything else and knowing he couldn't do anything else.
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