Oscar Pistorius Trial Part 8

[Roussette]

here is Number 7.

Book the media training aspect could well explain it, I often think that if he had taken a completely different approach it would actually have worked out a lot better for him in the long run. The impression a lot of people have of him now is, I'm sure, not the one he anticipated them having when he took the route he did with respect to the trial. I wonder how much of it was at his instigation and how much of it was as a result of legal or other advice.

I find OP's family so distasteful and have done the whole way through this trial. Just read his uncle described Roux as a "Mercedes" to Nel's "Fiat". Whether OP is found guilty or not, he did something wrong and they need to pipe down and show some respect for the process.

Sky News link

From that link, it looks like the Defence wants OP acquitted. They are adamant he had no intention of killing RS, but surely he had an intention of killing someone, if not her.

Is it just me or does anyone else feel uncomfortable with Roux's assertion that because of OP's disability, this would mean he would not react like an able bodied person which then means he cannot be held responsible for Reeva's death. OP had some sort of thought process when he found his gun and fired it four times.... primal instincts and not knowing what he was doing - is this a good enough defence??

I am even more uncomfortable with the DV analogy - the slow burn and him snapping - he was startled and it was an 'involuntary reflexive reaction'. The Defence says this means he cannot be held criminally responsible for his actions. I just don't get this at all. DV is indefensible and surely that makes OP's actions indefensible too? or am I just being thick

I am actually abroad on 11th Sept so after all this time with me following the trial I won't actually be around to hear the verdict - typical!

Regarding my last paragraph... I have looked some more and on the DV analogy, Roux means the DV victim snapping after years of abuse. He is then likening OP's vulnerability to this. I just don't like that example at all but I see what he is getting at.

To me, those assertions just say that he is an ongoing danger to the public!

Roux means the DV victim snapping after years of abuse. He is then likening OP's vulnerability to this. I just don't like that example at all but I see what he is getting at.

I understand he was using this as a description of 'slow burn'. However, the critical difference is that in the case given, and in general in abuse cases, the abused person finally snaps back at the abuser.

He's extrapolating that to say that no, with the slow burn effect the person affected could basically turn and snap at pretty much anyone in any circumstances, whether he/she is away from the cause or not.

Personally, I don't think they're comparable at all. If he'd just have said 'you have to understand and take into account the accumulative effect of all the years of stress and strain from when he was a tiny child...' and left it at that. Or find something more like-for-like - a person suffering mental illness (I know he didn't do this either, but it remained his argument - look he's stressed so startles more quickly) eventually snapping after a last straw and attacking indiscriminately.

Did anyone else get the impression that Roux was also busy racking up an appeal case. When he discussed the necessity to find intent in cases of murder, he mentioned two cases that were acquitted at appeal. He didn't find any (or he didn't use any) where they were acquitted at the initial trial because they didn't know who they were murdering.

They are adamant he had no intention of killing RS, but surely he had an intention of killing someone, if not her.

Yes, this bit got me too (and Nel). SA law has these three different descriptions of murder, and whether Roux likes it or not, they stand. It means that they don't have to prove intent to kill Reeva. Roux argues that no, you have to prove intent with murder, and if he didn't intend to kill Reeva, then it doesn't stand as murder. As he puts it, they should have gone for Culpable Homicide, but he isn't on trial for that.

He pointed out these other two cases that were successfully appealed because they had no intent.

Nel brought him back and pointed out that he could not like it all he wants, but the law's the law.

Looking yy I think the indiscriminate nature of OP's response (he didn't snap at an abuser - he killed an innocent person) makes OP seem like a danger. I think it's a precarious argument because the month of out-patients' testing said OP was criminally responsible.

It almost seems as though Roux is presenting a medical/psychological reason for OP's actions without any medical/psychological diagnosis to support it.

I guess Roux kept using 'foresaw' to try to mitigate against 'intent'. He kept saying OP 'foresaw' he might need to be armed or to defend himself. And, at the point where OP goes to arm himself and loads the gun then yes there is still the option that he won't use it, so Roux is arguing that arming yourself isn't enough to show 'intent'.

Yes Book I agree - he has been tested for any possible personality or disorder problems and no he doesn't suffer from even General Anxiety Disorder (I think they said that..) so he has to be tried as a functioning aware human being. But then Roux spent a long time almost justifying his actions and almost making out that he is a completely exceptional case and should be treated as so.

And if 'arming' yourself doesn't show intent, I don't know what does...

I think this sums it up for me...
"Because Pistorius had said he wanted to shoot an intruder at his Pretoria home on 14 February last year, and not his girlfriend, does not change the fact that it was murder", added Nel.

You are all saying exactly what I am thinking. The fact that OP's first words to witnesses were "I shot Reeva, I thought she was an intruder" says to me "I intended to shoot an intruder".

The legal bods on the Sky programme last night seemed to be saying that Roux had done enough to plant reasonable doubt on the intention of murdering Reeva, but probably not enough on the intention of murdering an intruder/someone. They both agreed that the culpable homicide charge was home and dry and guilty on the additional firearms charges. They also indicated that doulus eventualis was proven.

They also agreed that it was highly likely OP would receive jail time, none of them agreed with Roux that he should be acquitted of all charges relating to the murder of Reeva.

I think Roux's verbal semantics around the word foresaw change nothing, if he foresaw that by aiming a loaded weapon at a closed door and fatally injuring a person behind it, then he foresaw and accepted his actions would lead to someone's death, doesn't matter if that was a second or an hour before he pulled the trigger.

I felt very uncomfortable with Roux's make a special exception for him defence, the precedent that would set is terrible. Also, thought his victim of DV analogy was awful and completely the wrong thing to do.

There was a part of Roux's summing up yesterday that I came in at the tail end of, so haven't wanted to post on it, but Emotion's post made me think of it again.

He was going through the evidence and rebutting each of Nel's points, the way we did the day before, with 'but this could have been ordinary, explainable behaviour'. When I argued it, I said that yes, one or two of the things could be written off as being perfectly normal things to do, but by the time you've got each thing which sounds odd and needs to be explained away (Nel counted 13 of these 'no, but that's normal...' things) then it's just a huge probability of it actually not going that way at all.

Anyhow, as he was going through them, Roux said something along the lines of 'what we have is 30 seconds of Oscar's life in which a series of deeply unfortunate things happened and resulted in this terrible accident.'

I found it really jarring - possibly because I'd missed the build up as I needed to talk about a bloody excel spreadsheet to someone - but coming in at the end of this 'poor Oscar - so many terrible things happened to him in that minute...' really threw me.

It strikes me that with either in very subtle ways (as with the DV comparison) or more clear ways (as with the 'remember he is disabled...) Roux has tried really quite hard to paint Oscar as the victim of that night. He was the victim of circumstances, the victim of his background, the victim of his disabilities.

I found it really, really unsettling.

Like I say, it's really a half formed thought because of only catching the last comment on this section.

I feel quite differently to people on this thread I think.
I don't have a problem with Roux at all, and I don't see him as intellectually inferior to Nel. I found Nel irritating and badgering to the witnesses, to the point of trying to force the sound expert to agree something over and over again, only proving his point when he added ten decibels to an already top range number.
As Roux is defending OP his job is to present the best possible case for the defence - it would be utterly bizarre for his disability not to be mentioned.
I don't see OPs family as needing to 'pipe down' - there has been one reported silly comment about fiat v Mercedes but otherwise both families appear to have been calm and dignified.
I'm so sorry that OP appears to have fudged the truth so Reeva's family won't have answers, but I don't blame anyone other then OP.

Yes Looking I really get what you are saying but it's hard to explain how Roux came across to me. He just wanted OP to be different and sort of ummm excused his behaviour and 'let's forget all about it, it was only 30 seconds, let's get back to normal now'. The only time I saw a glimmer of normality was when Roux said yes he was guilty of the previous firearms charge. I presume he realised that OP couldn't be acquitted on absolutely everything..

I bet Nel is relieved he pushed for the mental assessment.

Nerf I don't have an issue as such with Roux, but with his arguments and I thought he was exceptionally harsh on some of the civilian witnesses for the State. Nel was harsh on the expert witnesses for the Defence but that is to be expected, they should know their stuff as they are terming themselves as 'experts' in that field.

I know that Roux has to put forward the best case for his client, but I am uncomfortable with the way he did it, and also the fact that his sole aim is to have OP acquitted completely, to bear no blame or responsibility for Reeva's death. Roux even argued that OP should be found not guilty of the much lesser charge of culpable homicide, whilst conceding he should be found guilty of the discharge of the firearm in Tasha's due to his negligence. It just sounds so wrong to me, he'll take responsibility for an incident in which no-one was hurt, but he must be excused from any blame or responsibility for the appalling death of Reeva because of his disability and early life.

Reeva died at his hands, whether by accident or design, surely it is not right that he escapes all culpability for that?

Reeva died at his hands, whether by accident or design, surely it is not right that he escapes all culpability for that?

Yes, totally agree.

Hello. Not contributed here before, but have followed the trial from the beginning so here's my shillings worth.....

I think the chances of OP escaping culpability are somewhere between slim and non existent at this stage. I can't even see him getting culpable homicide - his actions were not, by any stretch of the imagination, merely negligent....they were murderous. I think the State have demonstrated that very well.

IMO Nel is correct - evaluating circumstantial evidence means standing back and looking at the whole picture and seeing what emerges. It's always going to be possible to pick apart anything and find alternative explanations, no matter how improbable, and to continually do this means that you miss seeing the mosaic image as a whole.

Overall, putting it together, the circumstantial evidence against OP is extremely damning:

A woman hears a loud female voice coming from the vicinity of OP's house, an hour before a woman is shot there. Hearing a loud female voice at 2am is not a common event, neither is a neighbour getting shot. Coincidence that both unusual things happened within an hour of each other?

Reeva's stomach contents show that she was very, very probably awake at the time the neighbour heard the voice. Another coincidence?

(Worth remembering that no other woman has ever come forward to say it may have been her talking loudly).

A married couple are awoken by bangs and female screams, interspersed with a male voice. They are under the impression that there may have been a family murder because they clearly heard both a male and a female. It's this belief that there may have been a family murder and concern that children might be involved that prompts Dr Stipp to go and see if he can help.

Mistaking a male voice for a female one would be an unusual thing, although not totally impossible. Common sense tells us all that men and women do generally sound very different, and Lin confirmed that on the stand.

However, yet another coincidence has another couple a further distance away making the same unusual mistake. They also make the identical mistake of believing a couple are involved for the same reason....they hear a man and a woman at the same time.

In their case, it's the very fact that they heard both a man and a woman that has them coming forward at all. They didn't want to get involved and only came forward because the explanation given by OP at the bail hearing conflicted so massively with what they knew they'd heard. Incidentally, they had told colleagues and friends the next morning so really can't be accused of tailoring.

The biggest coincidence of all, though, is this:

They thought they heard gunshots and someone getting murdered. But they didn't hear that at all....if we believe OP.

Even though this had actually happened that night, none of them heard it. They all heard the after effects, which managed to sound exactly the same as the event (that they missed) 15 minutes earlier.

What they heard was the shooter screaming and bashing down a door. Not a woman, a man.....not gunshots but a cricket bat.

That there were gunshots earlier and that there was a woman who could conceivably have screamed is nothing but coincidence. None of them heard that.

Add to this a bedroom scene that looks nothing at all as it should have done if OP was telling the truth AND a clearly deceitful performance on the stand, then I think the picture of what happened that night emerges very clearly.

Reeva screamed and OP shot her. Four neighbours heard a terrified woman get shot. I believe them.

I know we can sit and pick apart piece of evidence by piece of evidence - yoga could have slowed down her digestion, Johnson's call time doesn't seem to fit, YouTube vids demonstrate a gun can sound like a bat, and vice versa - but overall, when you stand back and look at the evidence in it's entirety I think it's obvious what happened, and I would be most surprised if Milady doesn't too.

I reckon it will be eventualis, and he'll get 20 years plus.

Just my thoughts after listening to it all.

(Thanks for an interesting thread, all of you).

Interesting post, Helena.

I have followed most of the trial, and felt that the Prosecution had proved directus, not necessarily against Reeva, but that he intended to murder whoever (the intruder) was behind that door, and my belief is that he fully intended to kill whoever was in the toilet cubicle.

However, after the Defence has finished and I read their Heads of Defence, and heard some of the SA Legal people talking about it, I got the feeling that eventualis is the best they could hope for.

As the trial went on, and through discussions on this thread, I did move between where on the scale of the charges OP's actions were. On the other hand, my dh and my df, have never once altered their opinion in that he is guilty of deliberately murdering her.

Could I ask why you think he will get a 20 year sentence, I kind of felt after the case closed that it might not be so severe and had a feeling it would be culpable homicide, no real reason just a feeling on the way it was being reported I suppose. Although I have found Judge Masipa to be very good, I thought Roux argued well against the 30 day observation period and thought Judge Masipa wouldn't impose it and was surprised when she, quite rightly, did. I think my feelings on what the Judgement will be are probably because I thought the written Heads from the Defence seemed far more impressive than those supplied by the Prosecution, but then as you say the Prosecution had to work with circumstantial evidence.

I still think the most damning evidence came out of OP's own mouth "I shot Reeva, I thought she was an intruder." to me that is an absolute admission of his intent to kill whoever was in the cubicle, and I just don't buy any of the not seeing/hearing her go to the toilet, the opening of the window, etc. Surely you would always make sure your loved one is safe before you do what he did. There were only two people in that bedroom with access to the bathroom/toilet you know it's not you in there, so you make sure it isn't your partner before you go in all guns blazing.

OP is culpable, he needs to take responsibility and face the consequences of his actions.

I agree pretty much with all of that, emotion.

I should probably point out that, in spite of my user id I have absolutely no legal expertise of any kind....so it's all just my opinion :)

The reason I think it will be eventualis with 20 plus years is this....

I think Milady will believe that OP probably knew it was Reeva, but she has to be very strict with herself when applying the law. If she can think of any reason to be doubtful, and that doubt is reasonable, then she has to give OP the benefit of it, whether she likes it or not.

I think Roux may well have done just enough to insert a few doubts that OP absolutely knew it was Reeva. That's all he needs to do (as far as that bit is concerned).

But I think it's been proven beyond all reasonable doubt that he intended to shoot whoever was behind the door and that he had no lawful justification for doing so. Milady has a reputation for harsh sentencing, particularly of men who hurt women, and I think he'll be facing a sentence approaching life.

I don't personally think culpable homicide is very likely, because that doesn't fit with what happened.

It's the difference between he "ought" to have known what would happen if he fired into the toilet, but didn't actually intend to kill anyone and he knew what would happen and he wanted to kill or seriously harm them.

Given his history with guns and his training, he DID know what would happen - it goes well beyond "ought to have known". And given that he armed himself, headed into the bathroom, aimed at the door and shot FOUR times (with a probable pause after the first shot) then it's impossible to believe that at the time he fired his intention was anything other than to kill whoever was there. Four shots proves this.

So my prediction is eventualis with a very heavy sentence - and I bet Milady makes some reference in her summing up to the fact that she's highly doubtful of his story, just like the bail magistrate did.

I disagree Nerf, they don't seem to have much compassion for Reeva's family at all - Arnold Pistorius (his uncle) tweeted: "As LIGHT destroy DARKNESS
TRUTH will destroy the EVIL" at the end of the trial, which is just bizarre. I don't think they grasp that Oscar did something wrong, I think they just see it as the world versus Oscar. The truth will destroy the evil? The evil being the State? Prosecuting on behalf of a dead woman that he killed? Absolutely bizarre.

twitter link

Great posts helenaQC and emotions. (I'm glad you cleared up you aren't in the legal field Helena, I might have reverted to calling you M'Lady out of deference if not!) I think Roux did as good a job as he could given the damning chain of events that night and whatever happens OP won't be acquitted and walk free, especially as Roux has said he is guilty of the previous firearms charge.

HowAbout that tweet is dreadful - I agree they (the family) seem so blinkered in this and of course they will support their family member (OP) but he did kill someone, whoever he thought that someone was. Is the EVIL Nel? That tweet follows on from one with a youtube link of Nel on the Uncle's twitter.

roussette I assume it is about Nel. His sister tweeted the same link. Nel is doing a job ultimately, he's not evil. If my relative were on trial for murder - and not a case of mistaken identity or anything, it's clear OP killed someone - I could not behave like that. I would support them, but the Pistorius family are just being bullish in my opinion.

Thanks for your further explanation Helena , the wording of your post did make me wonder if the QC was indicative of your profession, I agree with everything you have written.

My heart tells me there is enough proof for directus of "someone", but my head tells me that on an absolute legal test there probably isn't, and if it was found as that it would be more likely to be overturned on appeal.

I didn't know that the bail magistrate cast doubt on OP's story, I may have to look that up.

On a totally separate note I think OP's family should switch off/get off social media, it's unedifying and is doing exactly the opposite of what I presume they intend for OP.

www.newyorker.com/news/amy-davidson/bail-for-oscar-pistorius-but-doubt-about-his-story

Thanks for the link Nerf.