Oscar pistorius

[spiderbabymum]

Heard the news this am

I'm just Devastated for him and his family and partners family

Animation, I agree he's a suicide risk. But I can't see how it would be fair to send him to prison on such shaky evidence at this stage.

no, but if aquittall is normal in the case of shooting dead an intruder then thinking it was an intruder would be a normal defense given he would know that he'd be likely to be aquitted had there genuinely been an intruder, iyswim?

I don´t think that it´s murder as in he wanted to kill her.

But it is surely something bloody reckless to shoot through a door knowing that someone is there?

Why wasn´t he calling the police & getting himself & her to safety?

I just don´t get confronting an intruder.

Is SA like this?

[[http://www.thestar.com/news/world/2013/02/19/oscar_pistorius_will_likely_get_off_because_fear_animates_much_of_south_african_lives_kelly.html On my first night in Johannesburg, I accidentally shut the rape door behind me, trapping myself in the bedroom.
Most middle-class homes in South Africa feature ?rape doors? ? sliding jail doors that compartmentalize a house so that no intruder can get at you if ? and this is the phrase commonly used ? ?your perimeter is breached.?]]

I think perhaps the fact that ignorance is not a defense would prevent him from being acquitted, even if they believed his story as the fact remains that this was no burglar.

Maryz yes that analagy is about right.

It's slightly different in SA in that you are allowed to own a gun for self defense, whereas here the self defense angle is a bit of a grey area. e.g. if someone broke into my house and I was confronted by him in my kitchen, grabbed a carving knife and stabbed him to death I could probably claim self defense. However if I habitually kept a carving knife under my bed it shows more intent, iyswim.

Why wasn´t he calling the police & getting himself & her to safety?

Assuming for a moment that OP is telling the truth about not wearing his prosthetic legs at the time, it is likely that his mobility would have been significantly hampered (balance/speed/etc compromised by walking on his stumps). At that point it could be argued that he thought the only way to ensure his and Reeva's safety was by confrontation and (again, assuming fro a minute that he's telling the truth) shouting for Reeva to call the police (thus alerting her to the 'danger').

Oops I meant to put 'ignorance is not a defense' in italics not bold. I am far from sure about that sentence but I would hope that the fact that she was not a burglar would mean that he could not claim self defense.

diddl in SA you confront an intruder before they confront you first.

Most intruders come armed - it's not like the UK where, as a rule, a burglar comes to steal your telly and then leaves - they come to steal whatever they can lay their hands on, then rape the women and murder the occupants on their way out for good measure. That's how it was when I lived there twenty years ago, and unfortunately this isn't a uniquely SA thing - it's a uniquely Africa thing. So if you're broken into it is often a case of kill or die.

Is there a Grounds of Diminished Responsibility or equivalent in SA?

CFSKate - my SA family (without exception) lock themselves into a secure part of the house and put on burglar alarms on the other areas.

You do not get house insurance unless you have membership to an armed response/private security firm.

Being armed is also a dodgy ground - unless you are able to use the gun and are able to operate it under stress it can so easily be used against you.

But would it be reasonable for him to think that there was an intruder?

Is it reasonable to mistake your partner going to the toilet for an intruder?

If this kind of defence worked, how would anyone ever be committed of killing their partner, for example. "Oh I was scared, I thought he/she was an intruder and going to hurt me. No I didn't see them at all, and they were behind a door, but I was so frightened I felt I had to shoot them."

Women experience enough DV in SA (and elsewhere) as it is without defences like this being allowed to succeed.

Article on femicide/Reeva/Oscar in SA

To quote "A 2009 Medical Research Council study revealed 2363 reported femicides in that year alone. Of those killings, 57.4% were attributed to those women?s intimate partners and 17.1% were gun related. That?s, loosely, one women killed by her intimate partner every eight hours. Every eight hours!"

lady I think there is culpable homicide. There was a case of a father is SA shooting what he thought was a car thief but it was actually was his daughter who had got early & was 'borrowing' the car. I am sure that case would up as an aquittal.

when I was younger (in SA as it happens) we were taught that some of the best things to keep as self defense (if you don't have a gun) are a can of hair spray or other aerosol as spraying that in someone's face will blind them for long enough to let you get away, and a bunch of keys because if you're grabbed you can use those quickly

The defence are clearly running rings around the prosecution.
I just can't imagine how he could possibly have retrieved his gun from under the bed without noticing that Reeva was not there. That he didn't even cast a cursory glance at the bed, but went straight to a locked door and started shooting at it. It doesn't make sense - on any level. If you hear an unexpected noise, the very first thing you would do would be to establish that the other person you know for certain to be in the room wasn't responsible for making the unexpected noise. Surely?

I get the "kill or be killed" idea.

But also-if he asked Reeva to call the police & there was no reply-where did he think she was?

The bathroom window was open-but why would the intruder go into the toilet?

Was there no scream after the first shot?

A lot of it just makes no sense.

THERE WAS NO INTRUDER!!!! THERE WAS NO BREAK-IN!!!

There was (perhaps) a mistaken belief that there was an intruder, based on hearing noises from the bathroom - noises made by his GF going to the toilet! he was very very very wrong. You couldn't get more wrong.

thefirstmrsrochester That was Rudi Visagie. He mistook his daughter for a car jacker, shot her and the charges against him were dropped as it was considered that he had suffered enough through the loss of his daughter.

Think you should consider a new career as a defence barrister, Mary. You're awfully good at this :)

I keep thinking his defence is so weak that it could be true.
Or he would have come out with a better story.

"If he came in from the balcony (no legs) and immediately ducked down to get gun from under bed, he could have crept around the bottom of the bed without standing up again, and therefore never looked at the bed ( and it was dark).

You could come up with an argument against any of the what-ifs."

Sorry, but this argument really does not explain it at all. It does not explain why he went straight to get a gun without even glancing across to see whether Reeva was in the bed.