Oscar Pistorius Trial Part 8

[Roussette]

here is Number 7.

Thanks Gosh. I only heard a bit of the discussion and just caught the gist of it, so it'll be good to listen again properly.

Thanks for the link Gosh. This had dropped off my TIO so would have missed this.

Marking place again, keeps dropping off my TIO.

So when is the trial resuming?

It should have been next Monday, Anon, but the following tweet has just popped up:

?@barrybateman

OscarPistorius Advocate Barry Roux says they’ve been told a psychiatrist on the panel which observed his client has been hospitalised. BB

@barrybateman

OscarPistorius Roux says he received a text message informing him of the development. He can't say whether this will affect proceedings. BB

?@barrybateman

#OscarPistorius the NPA’s Nathi Mncube was unaware of the development. As far as he is aware the report will be ready by Monday. BB

@barrybateman
#OscarPistorius Roux suggested proceedings could continue until such time the report is ready. BB

The BBC are saying it should still resume on Mon. They linked to a website that said the evaluators were unanimous in their decisions and the report had been submitted to the court although it wasn't signed by the psychiatrist who had a heart attack.
It's the defence psychiatrist who had a heart attack.

hmm, this thread had dropped off my active conversations. Anyways, looking forward to hearing the psych evaluation....

Dropped off mine too - wonder what we'll learn tomorrow?

So, we back tomorrow, am marking place for the morning.

On holiday, with patchy wifi and pesky day trips.

Will catch up at night - if there's anything to catch up on

From BBC headlines the feeling is this shouldn't particularly change the course of the trial.

They're not investigating the psych reports yet, but in brief, they agree that OP did not have, at the time of the incident, any mental deficiency which altered his ability to understand the difference between right and wrong, or his ability to act upon that.

(I'm getting this from Twitter at the moment, so will need to go back over the day to verify it.)

They're now talking about his ability to balance on his stumps. I'm going to tune in now, but I've missed quarter of an hour.

It seems to me that they are clutching at straws now, really don't see the benefit of going over the stumps again?

So far, they are really driving home how unstable he is without his prothetic legs on, he can't carry stuff, he can't run or turn around without falling. I've forgotten what the big question is around whether he had the prosthetics on though. It seems a bit irrelevant to me, unless it is to prove that he is lying about something.

Ok, they're saying that he couldn't use a cricket bat without falling.

What they seem to be driving at (from what I can make out) is that he had severely impaired ability to flee.

The thing is, to my mind, he could either have fled towards the bedroom door and lock it behind him, or he could pick up the gun and fled towards the bathroom.

Given that they're talking about how precariously balanced he is on his stumps, particularly if he is carrying something (such as a gun, restricting how many hands he had free to right himself), then he was putting himself in a position of considerable danger if he thought that there was an intruder in the bathroom.

There really was nothing he could do about an intruder in the bathroom other than shooting them dead, which sounds premeditated to me.

I seem to remember that OP said he was not wearing his prosthetics. The orthopaedic surgeon has said that he couldn't swing a cricket bat without falling and also, that he wouldn't be able to walk around in the dark, on his stumps.

As you say though, it's a bit irrelevant, the whole point of the trial is to prove whether he shot Reeva deliberately or thinking it was an intruder. Don't know when this trial is going to end!

Nel is pointing out the times that OP says he ran between the bathroom and the bedroom when he was describing the incident.

The doctor has said he cannot run in the sense that we would see the term 'run', his turning is difficult, turning 180 degrees and he regularly falls.

But not on the night in question - he was able to run in and out and turn then.

He's also asking how he was able to fire four shots when on his stumps - the doctor says he'll have severe difficulty, depending on how he's firing - he'd have a recoil problem that 'could' knock him off his stumps.

The implication is that OP may have been exaggerating some of his difficulty when he saw this doctor - who saw him for the first time in May of this year.

Yes, think there's only going to be one result of all this!

OK, the objection that Roux is making is that OP balanced by putting his back to the wall when he was shooting. This is how he was able to balance.

I'm on a delay, but we're back to the darkness. OP and his doctor say that he would have been considerably less able to balance in the dark. Nel puts this to the doctor.

The doctor says 'it depends how dark it is.'

Nel pounces on this and says that OP says it was pitch dark. Roux objects and says the darkness levels at different times.

After clarification, the doctor says it's 'improbable' that he would have been able to walk in the pitch dark, on his stumps, into the bathroom without holding onto something or falling.

They're now discussing whether he could have picked up the jeans (the denim) in the pitched/limited light.

I think there may come a point where OP may have to be put back on the stand. Unless Judge Masipa decides she's had heard enough to balance her judgment and pronounce.

Can they do that, Jill?

And I get he must have been v traumatised last year, but why are these experts examining him in May this year? Surely they should've been with him last year unless people thought there wouldn't be a trial or didn't want to be involved