Trial Discussion Thread #16

[DebinGA]

He did have an alarm system with motion detection technology. Photographs of the security system, outside lamp posts and lighting conditions were all taken and turned in to the Judge with the albums.

TY. All operable, but not turned on?

 

[Gbtaketwo]

TY. All operable, but not turned on?

Apparently not which is why I can't accept that he is as vunerable as he makes out in his statement . We do not live in a dangerous high crime area but still set our downstairs alarm every night .
I do accept his disability makes him more vunerable than an average man but get the feeling his gun and extreme fitness and strength takes care of that if not why not be more security conscious .

Just adding to this that I also feel the lack of pressing the panic alarm goes beyond normal reaction .
I am ashamed to admit I pressed our panic alarm when woken one night by what I thought was our burglar alarm but it turned out to be a fault on our fire alarm system causing them to ring simultaneously .
It was like being on auto pilot ,didn't need to think twice panic alarm ,daughter find safety and wait for police who were marvellous when they arrived and told me I did the right thing . Never face someone unnecessarily is what they said . This is in the UK though .

 

[steveml]

Thanks
I must have been dreaming because I thought one witness had heard some thuds/bangs within the hour prior to the shooting . Maybe I have just read it in a press statement . I have read so much now it is all blurring . I have also done so many screen shots to my iPad I struggle to find things when I want to refer to them ,need to sort into albums lol

It really can become mind boggling. :waitasec:

Haven't a clue how some of these lawyers just manage to switch off at the end of the day. I guess they have a lot more help to keep organised though.

I need some staff. :juggle:

 

[strydohj]

Here is the photo that my post was questioning, it is not blood on the glass shower door:

http://juror13lw.files.wordpress.com/2014/04/10.jpg

There are 12 marks.

But why is there white sticker with black arrows pointing to them? Which investigator marked crime scene evidence with those? It seems there are ones on the door as well. SS was maybe used because of fine blood spatter there but the other marks looks like something else, and it appear to have been marked and identified as something else as well.

 

[jay-jay]

It's not fantasyland to show that last 3 shots were all directed towards Reeva's head area.

It's a fact.

It's only fact that one of the shots hit the top of her skull .. it's not fact that OP actually knew where her head was at the time. He didn't even need to hit it to kill her, it's just that it actually did hit it by chance .. he was only interested in getting enough hits to wipe her out (imo) and that could've been pretty much anywhere on her body, and once he heard the silence then he knew he had done the job.

 

[lisasalinger]

Shane, the phone issue is something I would expect to have been investigated, although nothing has been mentioned in prosecution.
It could be that aside from delay, they may feel there's nothing to be gained from it.

The state's own cellular telephone expert could see no signs of tampering with the phone once it was unlocked, and they also had the help of Apple technicians.

They've been thorough with this phone and may well have need FBI intervention to allow Apple to become involved.

I agree that the nature of how and why the phone wasn't immediately retained in evidence from OP is something that deserves more focus than is being given though.

BBM

It's not entirely true that it wasn't mentioned by the prosecution. If you look at my blog for the testimony of Moller, he explains how he figured out there was a missing phone. And Nel included in the testimony that the missing phone was turned off after the Pete Van Zyl calls around 4am and left the scene at 8am. He has laid down a foundation for this evidence. He didn't totally blow it off.

My guess is that he will definitely cover this with Oscar and/or other defense witnesses that take the stand.

If he does not, I will be shocked, amazed and very disappointed.

I am in 100% agreement that this was a crime to remove evidence from the scene and that it needs to be fully addressed in court, which it hasn't yet.

 

[shane13]

It could affect the case from a legal perspective, but I don't think it would help the trial.

Where should the blame be apportioned? It was the bungling Hilton Botha's error again.
This is the likely reason the state are happy to let it lie.

BBM
1st sentence--self-contradictrory.

2nd sentence--dead wrong. Before ssying and blaming the usual scapegoat, I suggest you find BH testimiony, or my comments on same.

This again is part of why I make a thing of the 5th phone and the Pros and BH Mag. not charging or investigating DT for taking/having the 5th phone.

At BH Botha was absurdly castigated for not getting info from the 5th phone, when he said he only found about about the very existence of the 5th phone the afternoon before when Roux brought it up in court.

Now we see that PT did not even receive the 5th phone from DT till the 26th.

Please stop trying to use Botha as a scapegoat for DT's criminal action of taking/having evidence from the crime scene.

 

[Interested Bystander]

Worth a quick look.

http://www.citypress.co.za/news/mr-nice-guy-oscar/

“Asked how he would defend Pistorius, a top Joburg senior counsel said: “I would put him on the stand and pray.
Some of the evidence against him is strong and his version is improbable enough that any slip-ups or contradictions by him could be fatal,” said the senior counsel, who asked not to be named.

“I would have gone with a temporary insanity defence,” said a top-flight criminal defence ¬ lawyer who was less optimistic about Pistorius’ chances.”

 

[Cherwell]

It could affect the case from a legal perspective, but I don't think it would help the trial.

Where should the blame be apportioned? It was the bungling Hilton Botha's error again.

This is the likely reason the state are happy to let it lie.

How could Botha be expected to know that phone existed?

I would think someone could have been charged with perverting the course of justice here.

 

[lisasalinger]

TY. All operable, but not turned on?

They did not specify what was operable and what wasn't, just that it was all included in the binder for the Judge.

This trial is very different than the ones I typically watch. Providing evidence and testimony to a Judge is apparently very different than putting on a performance for a jury. I think that we are not going to be privy to everything that we wish we could be.

 

[Gryffindor]

Mid Dec 2012. RT from Oscar.
"Find someone who knows how lucky they are to have you."

Narcissistic much?? Reckon he didn't appreciate that Reeva didn't see herself as lucky and worship him then?

 

[steveml]

But why is there white sticker with black arrows pointing to them? Which investigator marked crime scene evidence with those? It seems there are ones on the door as well. SS was maybe used because of fine blood spatter there but the other marks looks like something else, and it appear to have been marked and identified as something else as well.

I think that the stickers are there just to indicate an initial mark that warrants closer inspection. They just come in a standard crime scene kit.

There may be soap residue spots on the shower screen door for example, and forensics will stick the labels there so they can go straight to that spot when they do the test.

They're sticky labels, so they just probably left them on when they took the photo's.

 

[anagrammy]

Isn't it just brilliant how much all this is costing him though .. and having to sell his house to finance it .. the longer they string it out the better, imo, I bet the finance aspect of it is the thing he finds most destroying of all. God, who in their right minds would want to buy a house with that history/'provenance'?

Need is stronger than revulsion. Imagine yourself with a big family and no way in HELL you will ever be able to buy the big house you need.

Need is stronger than fear of provenance.

Proof: Travis Alexander's house now has a happy family with five kids living in it.

I once bought a beautiful house and learned a man hanged himself in my lovely bedroom. I learned to live with the idea.

 

[whiterum]

I don't understand the need to shout for help out of any window, not at gone 3 am. He had the means to call security, which he knew to be 24 hour, and Netcare, ditto.

And as Baba wisely questioned ,why didn't he activate his security alarm. Now that obvious action certainly wouldn't fit into his version of an intruder since help would have been there in minutes and no- one would have been lying shot to death behind the toilet door.

 

[jay-jay]

I just keep reliving her nightmare end .
I have lost weight this week and can't understand why this case has so much effect on me when I know women are being murdered all over the world regularly by their partners which i do get upset by them but not to this degree.

I know what you mean, Gb .. every time I go in my bathroom to use the loo now, and close the door, I think of poor Reeva behind her closed door (although mine is a loo and bath all in one, not a cubicle as such) .. but I've almost got to the stage of leaving it open now!

Even if it was a total accident a message needs to be sent out that using a gun so recklessly will result in tough punishments.

Yes, and some good has to come from this horrific tragedy .. and as I've mentioned before, if it is proven to be a domestic abuse/violence incident, then hopefully a high profile case such as this can be used as something to teach others that this kind of behaviour just isn't acceptable .. because that was what Reeva herself was already involved in campaigning against.

 

[steveml]

How could Botha be expected to know that phone existed?

I would think someone could have been charged with perverting the course of justice here.

I'm not entirely sure how it works to be honest.

I think the accused has to be asked does he have any more, or something like that, and if he is then found to have lied the above could happen.

Looking at all the other errors Mr Botha has made, it would not surprise me if he didn't ask this question.

I'm only guessing here, but Botha got a blasting for it, so it would appear he did something wrong.

 

[whiterum]

Good point.

Which is why I asked here a few days ago, if anyone else caught the Tuesday very beginning live as I did, and it was a bit of a surprise to see those first several minutes excised from all videos of Sessioin 1 Tuesday.

I even asked if anyone can find me a Session 1 from any other day, that does not begin with everyone standing as Judge walks in--but not from last Tuesday's Session 1 videos!!

I answered your post Shane and said that I never saw the live beginning but that Karen Maughan had tweeted from the court that day that the phone wasn't handed over to the police until two weeks after the incident.

 

[lisasalinger]

BBM
Link please.

Oscar Pistorius Trial: Tuesday, 25 March 2014, Session 1 - YouTube

Start at 1:10

 

[steveml]

Oscar Pistorius trial: Athlete won't be first defence witness


http://www.independent.co.uk/news/w...te-wont-be-first-defence-witness-9232859.html

 

[screecher]

Did Aimee cuddle/pat Oscar's arm or touch a bloodied part of his arm before she collected a watch? If so, might that explain the blood on watch case?

...why even touch the watch case?

WTH even go upsatairs?