...to feel terrible for Reeva Steenkamp's parents as once again her murderer Oscar Pistorius has been sentenced to far less than the mandatory minimum?

[Proginoskes]

I've just watched the sentencing live. He was sentenced by the same judge who erred in the first case and caused it to be sent back for review. Supposedly the mandatory minimum for murder, the crime for which he was convicted, is fifteen years, however Judge Thokozile Masipa gave him...six. Six years for pumping four high-powered rounds through a bathroom door at a person whose identity he claimed not to know, a person who he knew had nowhere to hide from those rounds. To top it all off as Reeva Steenkamp's poor parents sat there they had to hear their daughter repeatedly referred to as "the deceased" without even the courtesy and dignity of her name.

I do hope there's a procedure for judicial recall in SA and this judge gets to go through it. So much blatant favouritism through both trials and sentencing phases, it makes me ill.

I've been reduced to embarrassed laughter at the immature rhetoric used by many 'feminist' posters, I no longer give a shit

hahahahahahaha! (

gone & got
The SCA have reviewed the evidence and held he is guilty of murder. That is the end of the matter. Judges with access to all the evidence, who know SA law and understand the risks of intruders and the prison system, have decided it wasn't manslaughter, it wasn't self-defence, it was murder.

I think it is valid to question why he has been given substantially less than the mandatory minimum sentence for murder in SA. He is a convicted murder and he should have been sentenced accordingly. It will be interesting to see if there is an appeal.

Your posts are not "reasoned", Gone. If they were you might be worth listening to.

I have addressed every point you made - you've ignored all of mine.

Your position is nothing more than, "He was scared and SA is dangerous". Trying to show that the forensics failed and the State's case unravelled on close inspection won't get you anywhere because it's not true.

Stop whining. You are not some brave soul in pursuit of truth and justice up against a bunch of pitchfork wavers. You're a Pistorian trying to defend the indefensible and getting your arse handed to you on a plate.

gone there is no point whatsoever going over evidence. He has been convicted of murder. My issue is with the sentence he received and as I understand it, there is an outcry about it in SA too.

I don't get your point at all. I'm older than most on here, I can't profess to be a feminist but my god, do I think that man got lucky. No one will ever know what really happened but I watched the trial live daily online and my opinion is that he lost his temper with her and chased her up the corridor and shot into the door (4 times). Now... that is just my opinion but having heard all the evidence as it unfurled there were a hell of a lot of unanswered questions which led me to believe this.

He never covered himself in glory before this happened did he... I think he snapped. My opinion, with no swearing, no feminism, whatever...

I'm glad he was convicted or murder. He shot to kill. It's just a shame the punishment didn't fit the crime.

What vitriol.

He was found guilty of murder. Not of intentionally trying to kill Reeva. There is no moral argument and no intellectual argument compelling one to believe he was intentionally trying to kill her. Opinion is all we have - and forensic evidence that clearly hasn't convinced everyone either way, despite what has been said here.

Reading mumsnet reminds me to be grateful for the world we actually do have...it could always be worse. It could be mumsnet where I do believe juries would be abused and hounded into whatever opinion the hive mind dictated.

And just for the record, that little summing up of my opinions on abortion and rape was utterly inaccurate. But I think you left anything approaching truth behind a long time ago.

He was found guilty of the intentional and deliberate murder of whoever happened to be behind the door. That was Reeva.

I have no idea why you have decided that he should be given a pass because (according to him) he murdered the wrong person. All lives matter.

And, quite honestly, it's people like you who make me worry about having juries randomly drawn from the electorate. How many murderers would be wandering around free with you on the case?

Spot on Apricot. Only OP knows whether he knew Reeva was behind that door or not. However, he took a life. It could have been a 14 year old black kid who'd taken a bad risk. Or Reeva. Either way he shot to kill. End of.

You're right Gone all we have is opinion. Yours seems to differ to everyone else's but hey we're all entitled to one. I'm sure you would agree with the rest of us, however, that the lowest sentence ever given for murder in SA is not right. Taking a life - any life - and possibly spending only a couple of years in prison is not right. There is shock and anger in SA at the sentence and there should be here too, even from you. The SA press is reporting that he could actually be out within a year.

Gone I urge you to read this article and rethink.

Apricot, that's what worries me about rape trials. The numbers of the general public who believe various ridiculous things about what constitutes rape and whether women are responsible for men's actions. In some ways gone is a good indicator of how far we still have to go to combat those myths even while she believes and posts them as factual. Also in posting in this way, she gives us a good example of the type of things misogynists believe which, if they weren't being posted, could be discounted by some as the wild imaginings of "those feminists". So even in her deliberate mistakes, she's useful in her way.

the act of murder includes the intention to kill gone.

Unfortunately Reeva isn't here to testify to either their relationship or to if she thought he was going to kill her.

But the fact remains that he did actually kill her. More than that he murdered her.

There are so many different things going on here - some people think Oscar should get a longer sentence because he meant to kill Reeva and specifically Reeva, others simply because he clearly meant to kill someone, others because he did kill someone and others because a sentence of murder should always, always carry a longer jail term - or a mixture of all of the above. Personally, I don't think everyone has to agree about it, nor is it necessary to make disparaging assumptions about people who have come to different conclusions.

Oscar has stated that he would willingly serve time for manslaughter because he has taken a life. Whether he was speaking honestly about any of it, we simply don't know and the court doesn't know. If the prosecution had been more successful and perhaps less eager to throw a soap opera narrative together on inadequately checked out assumptions, there might be more clarity now. As it is, we have only opinions.

As I've said, I found the prosecution's narrative utterly unconvincing in key respects. I'm not a fan of his - hadn't heard of him before now and was inclined to believe the SA's media narrative until it began to come together. IMO, in the absence of the prosecution making a convincing case that Oscar intended to kill Reeva knowing who she was, this is not really about domestic violence in the way it first appeared when there was supposedly a cricket bat used as a bludgeon and a drug-crazed boyfriend reacting to an ex-boyfriend's text. If it had been found to fit that scenario, I would be in favour of Oscar having an unlimited jail term. But I wasn't won over to that narrative. Others were. That's how a jury works and we need a world in which different members of a jury can make a free decision without being labelled in any manner. Same should apply on mumsnet IMO.

come together fall apart

Oscar has stated that he would willingly serve time for manslaughter because he has taken a life.

I have never ever heard him say that. He did everything he could to get out of a prison sentence. In fact, the court heard from the prison staff that he constantly said "he shouldn't be in here".

You're confused, gone. Facts are: Oscar is convicted of murder. It matters not who he thought was behind the door - he knew somebody was. He intentionally shot through the door.

Some of us (most of us?) think he knew it was Reeva - I am one of them. But that makes no difference to the fact that he is a convicted murderer. That is a matter of (our) opinion - and as you say, we are all entitled to our opinions.

As I've said, I found the prosecution's narrative utterly unconvincing in key respects.
...supposedly a cricket bat used as a bludgeon

That was not part of the Prosecution's evidence.

...a drug-crazed boyfriend reacting to an ex-boyfriend's text.

Also, not part of the Prosecution's evidence.

That's how a jury works

There was no jury. SA doesn't have a jury system.

If it had been found to fit that scenario, I would be in favour of Oscar having an unlimited jail term.

I'd be in favour of him getting the minimum sentence for the crime he was convicted of - ie 15yrs.

Not 6yrs.

rousette

I read the article and I can see the points made - the question about white privilege certainly needs to be raised. At the same time, I think each of these cases needs to be looked at individually. There may be a similarity in the way Brock and Oscar were responded to - but there may not. The article assumes that there are, which seems to be 'law by numbers' to me. I clicked on the article expecting to see a convincing case for why the prosecution's narrative should have been upheld and I was disappointed because that should be the focus.

I'm not at all sure that any leniency was the result of white male privilege here. The prosecution pulled no punches and had every opportunity to nail him. IMO, unlike with Brock, they didn't nail him on what they were trying to nail him on, and that had nothing to do with how white he was or how male he was. But that's a personal opinion and is doubtless influenced by my beliefs about what constitutes murder, manslaughter, self-defence and the relationship of self-defence to disability.

South Africa is full of contradictions. In some ways, white privilege is sickening. In other ways, so much is being done to end white privilege that getting a job or getting onto a university course can be impossible because you're white. Corruption is a double edged sword also - Oscar may have bought someone off but he could also have found it difficult to get a fair hearing at all (not saying that happened). The assumptions made in the article don't take this into account.

they didn't nail him on what they were trying to nail him on

They nailed him for murder - yet he still got the lowest sentence ever in SA for murder.

Talking about the mumsnet jury, Green.

No, there was so much that couldn't be used to support their narrative but which they had originally hoped would support their narrative, which says a lot.

I didn't know MN was a court of law

Last time I checked it was a website where individuals chat online.

You're confused, gone

Are you usually so patronising, or only when you're trying to strengthen a position? I lose respect for the arguments of someone who resorts to this and don't think it should be necessary.

I've been wondering... Has anyone watched this whole debacle and decided that jury-less trials are a better thing?

So we're having a joke together now? Great :)

Well, you do seem awful confused, gone. About the factual definition of murder, about the prosecution's case about juries and where they are. I can't help but point out the factual errors in your posts.

Oh and you said you had no respect for me already, a couple of pages back - so no problem. I'll try to bear it as best I can.