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Oscar Pistorius Trial Part 8

986 replies

Roussette · 15/05/2014 09:14

here is Number 7.

OP posts:
emotionsecho · 07/08/2014 22:10

If you get a definitive idea of the significance please let me know BookSmile

I'd like to see the Heads from the Defence, I can't see how they are going to argue that OP is not guilty on any of the options/charges.

BookABooSue · 07/08/2014 23:39

Will do echo. My dsis called so RL intervened again and I'm no further forward yet.

I hope they do release the Heads from the Defence too.

BookABooSue · 08/08/2014 01:12

CNN has this summary about the charging phone:

Nel says Pistorius must've plugged his phone into the charger sometime between shooting Steenkamp and taking her downstairs. Meaning he did that before trying to get help

So the charger is significant because Nel is reading it that OP left Reeva and spent time putting a phone on charge rather than rushing back up to help her/be with her.

It's odd that the charger isn't mentioned in the media copy of the Heads of Argument. However, regardless of that, I do think Nel provided a strong timeline. I think he demolished the defence's case. Although I did worry OP would have grounds for appeal because Nel was so scathing of all the defence witnesses that it could read as though the defence team were incompetent.

Nerf · 08/08/2014 07:22

I can't find the defence from yesterday: the earlier link stops at lunch.
The whole thing is bizarre and if he did deliberately kill Reeva we will never know why or what they argued about. I
I do think sometimes Nel talks about something being impossible where I see it as normal or okay - I'm a phone addict and take mine into the loo sometimes at night, she might have been hot and opened the window, farted and opened the window (in the bathroom) but I just can't get past the too dark to see but not too dark to get a gun and then charge up the corridor:

Roussette · 08/08/2014 08:39

Roux seems to be answering Nel's points from yesterday as opposed to trying to prove OP's innocence but I suppose there is a lot to answer from Nel's summary as he was fairly thorough.

OP posts:
LookingThroughTheFog · 08/08/2014 08:43

Phone confusion - this was subtle, but I think Nel referenced it.

There were three phones.

Reeva's which OP tried to use but couldn't.

His two phones. The white phone stayed in the bathroom and was found and photographed there. His other phone was used in the bathroom to make a call (according to OP he was in the bathroom when that call was made). That happened prior to him moving Reeva. The next time the phone appears is when it was in the kitchen on a charger.

From what I understand, OP says he had that phone in his pocket when he carried Reeva downstairs. He was intercepted on the stairs by Carisse(?) and they then tended Reeva. Then his phone was suddenly on the charger in the kitchen.

Now to my mind, he could easily have put the phone on the charger when he went to the kitchen to find bags or just before he started making the calls. I have, from time to time, used my phone when it was plugged in because I needed to make a call on no battery.

However, Nel takes issue with the fact that he carried his phone downstairs when carrying Reeva. He says that he must have put the phone in the kitchen to charge prior to that event. He doesn't explicitly state, but I believe he was leaving the opinion dangling, that OP must have either gone downstairs without Reeva between shooting her and moving her, or he made the phonecall on that phone from the kitchen, not the bathroom. He was with people or being watched from the time of bringing Reeva downstairs, and nobody seems to have seen the phone anywhere but on the charger. He didn't plug it in in front of anyone, so when did he do that?

I do think sometimes Nel talks about something being impossible where I see it as normal or okay

I do too.

What Nel was saying yesterday was that there are just so many incidents of this in the story that it starts to look odd. Everything had to happen precisely as OP says, no matter how strange or unusual. He had to spend the whole time from moving the fans with his back to the bed - all of it, so he didn't see her move. The room had to be pitch black, to the extent of him covering the light on the amp, so that he could not have seen Reeva. It must be normal for her to not respond at all when he says there's an intruder in the house and to call the police.

She must have taken the phone with her for a perfectly ordinary reason. She must have opened the toilet window for an ordinary reason. She must have moved the magazine rack which, if he shot instantly on hearing that sound, placed her at the wrong side of the toilet room.

Then he must have spent some time walking on stumps around the room, crawling across the bed, onto the floor, onto the balcony, back to the room for his legs, all carrying a gun with this apparent hair-trigger, without it discharging another time.

He must have screamed like a woman. What is interesting about this point is that the Defence never said 'it didn't sound like a woman'. They said 'OP sounds like a woman' and then failed to prove this in any way. They never said that that sound wasn't there, and that the witnesses must be mistaken. Now I've just typed that, that troubles me. It's like on hearing that witnesses heard a woman scream, OP has tried to weave that sound into his narrative.

The bat and gun must sound exactly alike for his narrative to work. I can't remember who pointed out upthread (and I haven't gone back over all the witnesses) that in the whole thing, Dr Stipp was the only one who heard two sets of noises at all. All the other witnesses heard one set, or no bangs whatsoever.

So all of these things, yes, there could be a reasonable explanation, but with all of them together, it starts to sound almost freakish or bizarre. As if he just has the world's worst luck or something for this chain of events to take place in this way.

LookingThroughTheFog · 08/08/2014 08:46

Annoyingly, I can't watch today. If anyone finds the written argument, I'd love a link.

I would say, even after that lengthy post, I'm still not convinced that OP knew it was Reeva in the toilet before he shot.

I do think that he knew it was Reeva immediately afterwards - as in, before he checked the room.

Nerf · 08/08/2014 09:02

He says he shot, ran back, looks for her, them realised he may have killed her doesn't he? And then bashed the door down.
I don't know, the damage to the room, she's dead, no intruder, the simplest explanation is a row isn't it.
But I can see the panicky realisation happening as well once the adrenalin stopped flowing.

LookingThroughTheFog · 08/08/2014 09:02

I'm sneaking a bit in. In response to Nel's 'he wasn't the worst witness...' Roux has just come out with 'I thought [Baba] was quite entertaining in the box...'

It would appear to be a way that lawyers just behave.

Nerf · 08/08/2014 09:03

Plus there was an interesting comment in a telegraph piece about the state saying two things concurrently - she's screaming until shot but also standing talking by the door.

Roussette · 08/08/2014 09:05

Roux keeps saying "OP foresaw he might have to make a shot at the door." He keeps using the words 'he foresaw'. Surely this makes a complete mockery of OP on the stand when he was saying it was an involuntary reaction.

OP posts:
LookingThroughTheFog · 08/08/2014 09:08

Now this is interesting; Roux is talking about the 'slow burn' of the startle reflex.

He uses as a case to demonstrate this slow burn that of an abused woman who eventually killed her abuser. He says you can't take her single action, but must considered when you see the cumulation of abuse.

He says you have to do the same here - he's trained to react to sound, and he's regularly stressed etc.

But isn't that a very strange case to choose to demonstrate this account! Like the case of an abused woman with a cumulation of stress, OP is the same.

I'm finding that a bit... wow.

Roussette · 08/08/2014 09:11

Yes and the polar bear and the woman protecting her child which Roux said.

I just find it bizarre that so much hinged on voluntary reaction before and now it is slow burn and being startled by a noise. I can't get my head round this.

OP posts:
Roussette · 08/08/2014 09:13

Is it me... or has Roux just referred to the starting gun of a race when talking about a sudden noise? Is this some sort of defence? e.g. OP is used to reacting when hearing a sudden noise.

OP posts:
LookingThroughTheFog · 08/08/2014 09:14

He says he shot, ran back, looks for her, them realised he may have killed her doesn't he? And then bashed the door down.

Yes. My inkling (and it's nothing more than that) is that he knew he wouldn't find her when he went to look for her.

the damage to the room, she's dead, no intruder, the simplest explanation is a row isn't it.

Yes. I fear that it is. However, I can still see the idea of 'I wasn't careful - I was frustrated and annoyed and wasn't thinking of Reeva at all. I heard a noise, assumed, shot and realised as I did so that it was Reeva.' I could see that as working

The reason with that idea though, is that he shot four times, and didn't stop until the headshot.

LookingThroughTheFog · 08/08/2014 09:15

Masipa has just brought him up on the abused woman correlation.

He's clarifying that the relevant part is just to say that there is a cumulative effect and a slow-burn.

I agree that this is vaguely new - if there's a slow burn going on, then he's arguing that at some point, OP was always going to snap.

Roussette · 08/08/2014 09:20

To me it seems like a change of tack... how could this work. It's focussing on his disability with fight not flight. As you say, Looking, he is sort of saying it was inevitable.

As one commentator says...
Roux: when that woman picks up that firearm, it's not about one punch or slap, it's about the cumulation of the 67 punches before @eNCAnews

OP posts:
LookingThroughTheFog · 08/08/2014 09:37

WTF?

Roux is discussing the discharge of firearm on in the restaurant, and says OP says he should never have taken the gun.

Masipa: He should never have asked for the gun.

Roux: No, he says he should not have asked for the gun, or taken the gun, and he was sorry for it.

Masipa: So what should the court find?

Roux: Guilty in the alternative charge.

He says he admits fault, however, he still pleaded not guilty.

LookingThroughTheFog · 08/08/2014 09:47

Also vaguely interesting of the Tasha's incident; the point has been made that the Glock cannot fire without a finger on the trigger. For what I think is the first time, Roux claims that the gun had a mechanical fault. He says that the State should have insisted on a report on the gun to prove that it was not mechanically unsound.

Surely there's as much emphasis on the Defence proving that it was?

Roussette · 08/08/2014 09:54

Yes, Looking, I read somewhere that it was up to OP to prove that the gun was or was not faulty and it was very strange that he hadn't got the gun checked out.

OP posts:
LookingThroughTheFog · 08/08/2014 10:15

Lots and lots of detail on the timeline just then, which I only had half an ear on. It appeared to be largely based around 'please dismiss Dr Stipp's evidence - he was unreliable'.

BookABooSue · 08/08/2014 10:20

In the state summary they said OP never said to his friend that the gun was faulty. He went straight into damage limitation mode ie getting someone else to take the blame. The state made the point that surely if a gun suddenly discharges when it shouldn't be able to, then you would make sure the gun owner knew about the fault.

I'm sorry but I think the gun suddenly firing itself is nonsense. I don't think OP meant to fire it but his version doesn't seem plausible.

Regarding the phones (yet again!) it seems that Nel is implying that maybe OP's call for help wasn't made from the bathroom but from the kitchen. He doesn't state it explicitly but his argument does imply the kitchen was quite important that evening ie they argued there, they ate there, the phone was there. I think the real issue with that is then everything OP said happened could be fabricated.

It's made me wonder if they weren't ever in bed tbh. The other gap in the narrative from Nel is what made the first set of sounds that the ear witnesses heard before the screaming and gunshots.

I have a theory - THIS IS PURELY SPECULATIVE ON MY PART - but they could have eaten downstairs, argued in the kitchen (as the witness heard) , ran upstairs still arguing, banged the bedroom door (causing the damage which OP says happened after Reeva was killed) banging the toilet door (that would provide two noises as the first set of sounds heard by the ear witnesses). Then we have the screaming and shots.

CNN noticed the lack of explanation for the first set of sounds too. I wonder how Roux will explain them because they can't be the gunshots as the screaming was after them and OP said he didn't scream after the gunshots.

msrisotto · 08/08/2014 10:46

All this nit picking over what time witnesses reported is not convincing me - their focus would not have been on the exact minute, that would be retrospectively guessed. The important thing is what they heard. IMO.

BookABooSue · 08/08/2014 10:58

mrsrisotto I agree. Clocks can be set differently too. The only times that anyone can be absolutely sure of are the time the calls were logged with the telephone companies.

Roussette · 08/08/2014 11:05

Yes absolutely. My clocks show all different times! Blush

The woman or man screaming - it is people's perception isn't it. To some it will sound female, to others not.

OP posts: