Posted on by juror13

Oscar Trial – Was the Verdict… Reasonable?

justice

Count 1: Murder – Not guilty and discharged. Alternatively, guilty of Culpable Homicide

Count 2: Illegal Discharge of Firearm, Sunroof Incident – Not guilty and discharged

Count 3: Illegal Discharge of Firearm, Tasha’s Incident – Guilty of 2nd alternative

Count 4: Illegal Possession of Unlicensed Ammo – Not guilty and discharged

To say that I am shocked, saddened and angry about the verdicts that were rendered in the Oscar Pistorius trial would be an enormous understatement. Yes, I do blog as a hobby, but it is not to be mistaken for entertainment. It is with great purpose and passion that I write about these trials, and I believe that the majority of my readers share that same drive. We are invested in these trials because they are central to our humanity and our freedom. How can we possibly be disinterested in the value of human life or in the safety of our societies? I do not believe that human beings were intended to live isolated existences. We are physically, psychologically and emotionally designed to need each other on so many different levels. We need to care about the outcomes of these trials and we need to voice our opinions to hopefully affect change for our collective future.

The concept of what is considered to be reasonable has been a central theme in this case. When we first heard about the shooting in 2013, we all asked – is it reasonable that Oscar heard a window open, failed to check on the well-being of his bed partner or ask her if she too heard the noise, and instead took off running with a loaded gun to kill an unidentified person who was in a toilet room with the door closed? Now that we are at the end of this trial, we are asking – was it reasonable for the Judge to make the statement that Oscar was a terrible witness, was evasive and gave contradictory evidence, and acted negligently, and then turn around and determine his lack of guilt based on HIS story alone? I think we need to take a serious look at what the hell reasonable means to all of us.

Reasonable doubt means exactly that – a doubt that is “reasonable”. It doesn’t mean that every single other explanation presented for the crime has been ruled out because that would actually be impossible. What if I told you that an alien entered Oscar’s house that night and had his finger on top of Oscar’s finger, and the alien was the one who actually pulled the trigger. That’s another explanation. Surely if the Defense gave us this alternative explanation it must mean that we have to acquit because that’s another possibility. That is literally how ridiculous it is for me to believe that Oscar was the source of EVERY single vocal noise coming from the house that night. Not only does he scream like a woman, but he’s also a ventriloquist because he can throw two different voices at the very same time. It’s quite amazing actually. But since a few ear witnesses may have had their times off by a minute or two, let’s just totally consider them unreliable and believe whatever the Defense tells us because it’s not like they have any reason to make something up. Right?

Do you sense my sarcasm? Good. I’m pissed off and sarcasm feels appropriate right now.

The Judge made some very puzzling decisions when she cherry-picked through the evidence. For instance…

Mrs. Stipp testified that the time on her alarm clock when she and her husband heard the first set of bangs was 3:02. She stated that her clock typically ran 3-4 minutes fast. The time on her clock when she and her husband heard the second bangs was 3:17. Again, running 3-4 minutes fast. The Judge thought it was unreasonable that the Stipps would have heard a woman screaming for 15 minutes without calling security. She also noted that Mrs. Stipp had the flu. Because of this, she decided that the Stipps were unreliable and threw out their evidence. She believed that the shots must have been at 3:14-3:15.

Now here is the important part… Dr. Stipp got through to security at 3:15:51. He testified that he heard the SECOND set of bangs just moments BEFORE the phone call. He reported to Baba that he heard gunshots and Baba substantiated this on the stand with his own testimony. Security phone records introduced as evidence proved that Stipp got thru at 3:15:51.

Next, Mike Nhlengethwa got through to security at 3:16:36 (his second attempt to get through) and he also reported bangs/gunshots, further solidified by Baba’s testimony. Based on these three witnesses, all bangs/gunshots were heard prior to 3:15:51.

But then… Charl Johnson testified that he heard the bangs/gunshots around 3:17. He estimated this due to a call that he made to security (a different company than Baba’s) around 3:16 that lasted just under a minute. After he hung up and went back outside, the bangs/gunshots rang out. His phone records were not introduced as evidence in this case.

So what did Judge Masipa do? She decided to believe Charl Johnson over the others. Why did she do this? Because the Defense told her to believe this.

And because she believed the Defense’s false timeline, she fell hook line and sinker for the gunshots being first at 3:14 and the cricket bat being the second bangs at 3:17, even though it defies logic. Does it seem reasonable to you that everybody (except the Stipps) slept through the gunshots but all heard the cricket bat hitting the door? And does it seem reasonable that the sounds were really a cricket bat when every witness described them to be gunshots? Keep in mind, almost all of these witnesses owned and had used guns previously and knew exactly what they sounded like. Is all of this reasonable?

My issues with Judge Masipa are three-fold. First, I question her application of the law to the facts of this case. Second, I’m appalled by her lack of common sense when it comes to determining subjective elements. Third, I’m concerned about her ability to understand and properly interrogate the objective facts put before her.

Here are the verdicts that were rendered in this case, and my thoughts about why I disagree.

Count 1 – Murder

Dolus Directus: The intentional and unlawful killing of another human being. Judge Masipa makes the determination that the State’s arguments for premeditation are not conclusive. This means that she has rejected the following evidence that when pieced together actually make a good circumstantial case for Directus, in my opinion:

• Mrs. van der Mewre hearing a loud female voice arguing from 1:56 until about 3:00am, intermittently. She stated it was intermittent so for the Judge to disregard it completely, solely because the guard (Baba) did not hear it when he walked by the house at 2:20am, does not seem appropriate. Hearing an arguing voice one hour before a person is shot and killed, and all sounds are coming from the same location – I say it’s very reasonable to infer that they are associated with each other. On Oscar’s story, they were supposed to be sleeping at that time. No other neighborhood witnesses were identified to be fighting at that hour on February 14th.

• Samantha Taylor testified that Oscar did sometimes lose his temper and yell at her, as well as other friends and family, while they were dating. There was also character evidence entered of him threatening to break a man’s legs (Mark Batchelor), verbally assault Quinton van der Burgh in a public setting, yelling at a police officer after the Vaal, getting in to a verbal argument at a party which lead to him getting hit on the head and there was evidence introduced via Peet Van Zyl that Oscar could get agitated easily. So how is it a stretch to believe that Oscar and Reeva were fighting that night?

• The Whatsapp messages between Reeva and Oscar that indicated they had recently fought and Reeva was sometimes afraid of him and how he would snap at her. Now typically I would agree that it’s hard to make a judgement call about a relationship based on text messages. But I also know that I have never once texted somebody and told them I was afraid of them. If I did text something like that, I would mean it. The Judge seems to forget that two weeks after those text messages were sent, the author was killed. That hardly seems like just a bad coincidence to me.

reeva3

• The bathroom light that was on at the time of the first bangs, per the Stipps’ testimonies. Lights being on during those initial bangs mean that Oscar’s story is not true. Period. But apparently the Stipps were not reliable because there seemed to be some time discrepancies. The Judge is illogically far more critical of the witnesses than she is of the accused. She stated that the accused was evasive and gave contradictory evidence, yet she believed his story. With the Stipps, because Mrs. Stipp may have gotten the time of the initial bangs wrong, the Judge immediately discounted EVERYTHING they witnessed. Does that seem reasonable to you?

• Terrified female screams heard by Dr. and Mrs. Stipp, Burger and Johnson which lasted several minutes, intermingled with a different, male voice, that were later stifled by the sound of gunfire. Then silence. Is it reasonable to you that Oscar would have been screaming like a terrified woman, and a man, starting immediately after the gunshots right up until the moment that he hit the door with the cricket bat? There is no reason for him to be screaming at that point – he hasn’t even checked the bedroom yet for Reeva. The Stipps testified that the screams started immediately after the bangs. Why is he screaming immediately after? That wasn’t his version, but it sure became his tailored version after he heard Stipp’s evidence. But then even after he goes to check the bedroom and doesn’t see her, he claims to be screaming at the top of his lungs. Let’s consider his supposed physical movements at that point which do not support him being able to yell like that… Oscar was roaming around a pitch black room, rolling across the bed, checking curtains, running over duvets and cords and not falling… do you honestly believe he was screaming like a terrified woman, and a man at the same time, all throughout those movements? I say no, that is completely unbelievable and unreasonable to believe any of that. And once again, Judge Masipa decided to ignore critical evidence – the physical evidence in the bedroom.

• The undigested food in Reeva’s stomach pointing towards her eating much later that night than Oscar testified. I will concede that this point is subjective and can’t be considered conclusively on its own. But when you consider it in light of the other information listed above, it’s not a huge leap to believe that Reeva was awake later than Oscar says she was. Mrs. van der Mewre’s testimony supports that they were not asleep at 2am, even if she heard one angry voice only, and the Stipps seeing the bathroom light on further bolsters that.

• The pause after the first shot, allowing Reeva time to scream and Oscar to re-aim. This was a point that was substantiated by 4 pieces of evidence. First, Burger’s testimony. She stated she clearly heard a pause after the first shot and before the remaining three shots. Second, bullet holes B, C and D are from a different angle than shot A. Oscar changed positions after shot A. Third, Mangena’s ballistics evidence showed that in order for the bullets to hit Reeva on her body where they did, utilizing the trajectories of the holes in the door, there had to have been a period of time in which Reeva fell down after the first (hip) shot and when the second shot was fired that missed her. If she had not fallen down yet, that second shot would have hit her somewhere on her body. It did not. So some period of time, even if it was small, had to pass between shot A and shot B. A pause! Fourth, the blood spatter, brain matter and hair that were found on the toilet bowl lid proved that Reeva’s head was directly in front of the toilet when it was hit. In rapid succession, her head would not have been in that position. Judge Masipa is deliberately ignoring physical evidence here.

To me, the above evidence pieced together makes a very compelling case for Directus. Oscar’s lying alone makes a compelling case. But let’s be conservative. If you are part of the camp that just can’t make that stretch, just like the Judge, then let’s look at the next level of Murder – Dolus Eventualis.

Dolus Eventualis: In considering the issue of intention to kill, the test is whether the
[accused] foresaw the possibility that the act in question would have fatal consequences, and was reckless whether death resulted or not.

Since the Judge did not believe that the grand majority of the State’s witnesses were reliable, she accepted Oscar’s version of events as reasonable. She deemed it reasonable that Oscar truly thought Reeva was still in bed at the time that he fired.

The Judge says that we are clearly dealing with “error in persona”, in which who it was behind the door is irrelevant because the accused had the intention to shoot, but not the intention to kill. She incredibly came to this determination because very shortly after the shooting, Oscar told everyone at the scene that he didn’t meant to kill Reeva, and he was consistent in that story. Seriously? Did you expect him to tell his neighbors that he shot her in cold blood because he was pissed at her? An accused or defendant’s remorse, or lack thereof, after a crime should NEVER be considered in a verdict. That is something that you take in to consideration for sentencing. I’m just simply astonished that she actually told the world that because he said he didn’t mean to do it, that we should believe him. That is ludicrous.

Professor James Grant, Associate Professor of Law, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa, has contributed many helpful articles about the law, as well as their appropriate applications, throughout this trial. He has once again provided a thorough take on the verdict, particularly as it relates to Dolus Eventualis, and believes that the State should appeal.

You can read it here:

http://criminallawza.net/2014/09/13/pistorius-remains-in-jeopardy-of-a-murder-conviction/

When I heard Judge Masipa utter the words that Oscar clearly could not have foreseen the possibility that he would kill the person behind the door, my jaw dropped. So I guess that means that Sean Rens was a useless witness too. Sean Rens came to court with Oscar’s gun competency test results and also testified about Oscar’s time spent at the range, and proficiency with shooting. There is no question that Oscar knew the law and it is illogical for the Judge to assert that he didn’t. But more importantly, he absolutely was aware of what four hollow point bullets would do, thanks to the watermelon video that Nel showed at the beginning of Oscar’s cross-examination. Of course Oscar could foresee that he would kill the person. He foresaw that he should not shoot at the shower because the bullet could ricochet and hurt him. Too bad he didn’t give that much consideration to the person in the toilet. Add to that the legal issues that Professor Grant highlights on his blog and it certainly does seem that the Judge got this part of the verdict very wrong.

She did however decide to find him guilty of Culpable Homicide.

Culpable Homicide: Negligent, unlawful killing of another human being.

Ironically, her reasoning used to determine Culpable Homicide was that the accused must have foresaw the possibility of the death of the person behind the door and was negligent in his actions.

How is this possible? She said exactly the opposite when she found Oscar not guilty of Dolus Eventualis. I’m confused. She goes on to say that he should have taken a different course of action such as calling security or Johan Stander after hearing the window open and before firing his gun. Well ok then. Thanks for your sudden bought of common sense.

We move on to Count 2, the illegal discharge of firearm out of a sunroof. Darren Fresco and Samantha Taylor both testified that this incident did take place. The Judge states that Fresco was not an impressive witness and he was proved to be dishonest. She points out the evidence of Darren driving over 200km/hour and blaming it on Oscar during trial. She actually spent more time criticizing Darren’s credibility than she ever did Oscar’s.

She next questions the sincerity of Samantha Taylor’s testimony as she and Oscar did not have an amicable split. Even though the Judge felt there was a “ring of truth” to her testimony, she could not ignore that Darren and Samantha gave differing details about the event and made the determination to acquit Oscar on this charge.

I was not surprised by this verdict, and actually could go one step further and say that I agree with it. I too did not find Darren to be an impressive witness. I do think he held back and potentially may have changed some of the details of that day to preserve his own reputation. I don’t want to totally throw him under the bus. I give him credit for his courage to get up on the stand against his ex-friend. He probably wanted to do the right thing, but was just in a difficult spot and didn’t want to get himself in any further trouble. As for Samantha, I just feel bad for her in general. In the last few days she has chosen to finally reveal the true nature of her relationship with Oscar via media interviews, and it was pretty disturbing.

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/ex-girlfriend-how-oscar-pistorius-terrorised-4206556

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/48-hours-to-air-special-on-oscar-pistorius-verdict/

Next is Count 3, the illegal discharge of a firearm at Tasha’s Restaurant. Oscar was correctly found guilty on this charge. Although Oscar tried to point blame at Darren Fresco for handing him a loaded weapon in a public place, the Judge countered that it was Oscar who requested to see the weapon in a crowded, public place. The gun went off in his possession therefore it was his responsibility.

Finally, Count 4, the illegal possession of ammunition. The Judge found Oscar not guilty, to which I disagree. She cited case law which illustrated that the accused not only had to possess the ammunition but they also must have had the necessary mental intention (animus) to use the ammunition. The Judge claims that the State did not provide this evidence but she seems to forget that Sean Rens did provide a receipt for 7 new guns that Oscar had purchased, and was pending the proper licensing. One of those weapons was a .38 Special, the exact ammunition that was in his safe. Is it not reasonable to consider that gun purchase as animus?

After the verdicts were rendered, the Judge then heard some brief arguments about whether or not Oscar should be granted bail while pending sentencing. Can you take a guess what she did? Well of course she granted bail. Sentencing will be held on October 13. I’m sure we can all expect it to be a light punishment, if any.

In the meantime, there is much discussion about the State appealing the verdict. Yes, that is correct… in South Africa the State can appeal according to section 310 of the Criminal Procedure Act, if there is a potential error (question) in law. Gerrie Nel is reportedly investigating this possibility and I think the grand majority of us agree that an appeal would be more than… reasonable.

243 Replies to “Oscar Trial – Was the Verdict… Reasonable?”

  1. Juror13, was waiting for your post on the verdict! thank you…
    Respectfully, although i doubt that he was innocent of charge 1, the judge explained it in length, and being that Nel failed to establish a corrected version of the timeline, the defenses made alot of sense. I had posted a timeline, not aware that Dr. Stipp did make an attempted call@3:17 to 10111 and that is when he heard the second shots. @ 3:15 51 he had heard the first sounds and what he thought were female screams. The timeline as set by the defense does prove that the screams between the 2 sets of sound had to be the accused. There is no other explanation as to the first sounds heard. I went thru each ear witness with this added fact and it does all fall correctly together. That is why Nel did not even go there, he knew it would prove what it did. The only aspect i disagree with the timeline is that the first sounds of gunshots were at about 3:00 as per Merwe and Anitta Stipp who looked at her clock. For the Judge to accept that the second sounds were at 3:17 as Anitta Stipp looked at her clock and it did read 3:17, yet she moves the time to 3:12-3:14 for the first sounds contrary to A. Stipp’s evidence of reading her clock 3:02 and Ms. Merwe saying about 3:00 is beyond comprehension. Regardlless, Judge said ‘the timeline tipped the scale in favor of the accused version. She is correct with that. she had to follow the law that the onus of proof is on the prosecution and Nel did fail to prove that the screams heard was that of Reeva beyond a reasonable doubt because of this timeline. I kept saying this all along, that Nel had to explain the first bangs heard by Stipp, Merwe.and the patrol guard..btw; Neghentwa heard the last bang of the first sounds and Burger only heard the sounds of the cricket bat after the female screaming. However, her explanation for acquitting him on the intent to kill the” perceived intruder” is very confusing to me and makes no sense. When she said ‘ intent to shoot is not always intent to kill” REALLY? why else would a trained gunman shoot a lethal weapon thru a closed door 4x, to threaten someone or what? what planet is she from? How does she believe his statement that it was never his intention to kill anyone when he pulled the trigger?? I understand that the law requires the standard of ‘subjectivity’ with regard to Dolus Evantualis, meaning the main point is ; what was in the accused frame of mind when he pulled the trigger” and no one knows that…well if he is holding a loaded gun and shoots 4x , we do know what his frame of mind was !! On this matter he should have been found guilty of murder 2nd degree. I am baffled as well that he was acquitted on 2 of the firearms charges.

    Reply

    1. Sorry, Rita, but I disagree with you. I really don’t want to get in to a huge long explanation of why as I’ve already outlined my reasoning, but it is clear as day to me how the Defense has manipulated the timeline in their favor and the Judge intentionally ignored valuable evidence to believe them.

      Reply

      1. If the defense manipulated it , then Nel failed to address it , as he was given the chance when Masipa specifically asked him “is the chronoly of calls common cause?”…he said the call log was but not the explanations. she expected him to address it then, and he did not because the timeline is correct and so are the screams, they fit in perfectly if you would take the time to analyze it again as I did.

    2. Agree with you Rita. It’s possible it was an emotional row and he was in despair after therefore crying out, or alternatively an accident, but either way the state timeline never convinced me. I felt they unfortunately fell into a mistake and worked it up into a flawed theory based on very patchy evidence viz. people at 180m hearing faintly audible sounds. And it just went wrong as a result. Without that, they might yet have persuaded a court it was a domestic situation. Less evidence, but no wrong evidence, and the judge would have been inclined to consider his poor credibility finding in a lot more depth IMO. How it goes. I don’t blame Masipa for the intruder part of the ruling, but I do blame her for going even more lenient than that, particularly on the legal questions where there was a clear breach of the standards and in fact it sets bad precedents in general now. So may in any event, be overturned.

      Oscar I feel was stretching things to their very breaking point, so were his legal team, and they overstepped marks and she followed suit, by mistake. It won’t do them any good in the long run if it’s legally unsound, anyway…as can be appealed if so.

      Reply

  2. FEB14, 2013 Timeline of calls & circumstances as per testimony: Revised as per Judge :

    1:56 A.M Estelle Van Merwe hears a female voice loudly in an argument for about 1 hour. She dozes off covering her ears with a pillow.

    2:20 AM Security Guide tracks by area of the accused, all is quiet

    3:00 (about)AM Estelle Van Merwe awakes to 4 gunshot sounds. Later on hears commotion and OP crying…thought he sounded like a woman crying.

    3:12-3:14 First set of gunshots heard .(By Dr. Stipp, Merwe, Neghenthwa)

    3:12 thru 3:17 Screams/ shouting/ crying heard

    3:14-3:15 Accused yelled “help, help, help” (I would say it was aprox 3:16)

    3:15:51 (16 sec) Dr. Stipp call to Security. Had heard 3 gunshots @about 3 am, female screams intermingled with a male voice, saw OP’s bathroom lights ON immediately after the initial gunshots. Ending this call Stipp heard male voice scream “help, help, help”. As Anette Stipp walks into the bedroom from big balcony, clock reads 3:17(3-4 min fast), she hears 3 more “thuds/bangs”
    ; this is the cricket bat striking on the toilet door.

    3:15 accused is seen walking in bathroom, (I would say it was 3:18 since Stipp was on the phone @3:15)

    *3:16 (58s sec) Mr. Johnson dialed to wrong security # – Had heard female screams, female followed by male screams” help, help, help”. After he drops this call, he runs to balcony and hears more female screams and then the “gunshots” with the female’s voice fading after the last shot. These sounds that were interpreted as gunshots is the cricket bat striking on the door and the screams before are that of the accused, since the deceased has suffered multiple gunshot wounds @ 3:12-3:14

    3:16:13 & 3:16:36 (44 sec.) Mr. Nheglenthwa got thru on 2nd try, he had heard male voice crying helps & his wife had woken up from a bang and then male help ,help, help. The ‘bang’ was heard minutes BEFORE 3:16:13, since he went to investigate inside and outside his house as to where the sounds were coming from before calling security. This was the last bang of the gunshots heard @ 3;12 -3:14. Nheglenthwa’s did not hear the cricket sounds since they were busy on this call.

    3:17 AM Second sounds heard (Stipps, Burger), these are sounds of the cricket bat.
    3:17 AM Dr. Stipp attempts to call 10111(This is when Dr. heard the second set of sounds-cricket bat)
    3:19:03 (24 sec) OP calls Johan Stander “please please please come quickly “.
    3:20:05 (66sec) OP calls Ambulance 089111
    3:21:33 (9 sec) OP calls Security Baba, call drops(OP has no recollection )
    3:22:05 (12 sec) Security Baba returns OP’s call OP says “Everything is OK”
    3:22 Stander & Baba arrive @ OP ‘s home first on scene. Stander & his daughter, Clarice enters the unlocked home. They all see Oscar coming down the stairs carrying Reeva. Mr Stander tells Baba to assure no cars parked in front of home and to contact the police and paramedics.
    3:23-3:24 Dr. Stipp arrives @OP home
    3:27:06 Stander calls to 911 at the presence of Dr. Stipp
    3:27:14 Dr. Stipp calls to security from outside Pistorius’ home, but did not get thru
    3:41:57 Netcare-Paramedics arrive at Pistorius Estate.
    3:50 Paramedics declares the deceased dead
    3:55 Police arrives @ scene, Ambulance is there.

    Reply

  3. Totally in agreement with you and I think most of us South Africans would agree too.
    I’ve just read Trish Taylor’s (Samantha Taylor’s mother) book that was released on Friday. Although initially sceptical about the ulterior motives for her release of this book, I do think there is a thread of sincerity throughout. It does provide insight into the person that Oscar was away from the public eye and leaves one even more convinced that his emotional insecurity, immaturity and unresolved anger issues caused him to commit this crime. What stood out for me was the very short time period between the end of his relationship with Sam Taylor and the beginning of his relationship with Reeva, the supposed love of his life. If the book is to be believed, playing the victim is his classic go-to defence in all situations where he finds himself in trouble. And unfortunately, that pitiful crying face has swayed even a court of law…

    Reply

  4. Questions regards count 4.
    Are we allowed to possess ammunition in our homes as long as we can deny ownership and intention to use it, even though we have a lisence for other guns and therefore expected to know the law? Is lack of intention to use enough in this case.

    Reply

  5. SPEAK OUT / SPEAK UP

    Contact the NPA!

    http://www.npa.gov.za/ReadContent402.aspx

    – – – – – – – – – –

    When I get mad I get moving, and I’m REALLY, REALLY mad about this verdict.

    I just sent a short email to the National Prosecuting Authority
    of South Africa (NPA) requesting that they appeal Masipa’s verdict.

    I added a brief note of support and asked that it be forwarded to Gerrie Nel.

    The larger and louder the outcry on this, especially by global citizens, the greater the chance the NPA will take action.

    – – – – – – – –

    If you have any other ideas for direct action on this, please share them.

    Reply

      1. An appeal by the NPA could only consider matters of law. The matters of fact concluded by Justice Masipa in her verdict would remain the facts of the case.

        It is even possible that the “facts”, which include Pistorius’s “beliefs” at the time, would lead to the verdict of putative self defence and therefore not guilty of culpable homicide. I realize that this is perverse, but there is a line of reasoning behind it, which for example Alan Dershowitz has been putting forward.

        Dolus eventualis is the other possibility. Oscar knew or believed there was a person behind the door. He knew is ammo, he knew the confined space of the toilet, he knew his responsibilities viz a viz the use of a firearm, he must have reconciled himself to the probability that he would kill a person.

        Ironically given the “facts” established by Judge Masipa, the one verdict I do not understand is culpable homicide.

        The injustice is more profound in my view than a mere misinterpretation or misapplication of a point of law. I hate to think it, let alone express it, but I wonder if there has been incompetence or corruption. If proved, corruption would lead to a retrial. I am not sure about incompetence, or if the relevant parties would come out with this view.

        Or alternatively could the Court of Appeal find reasons due to these exceptional circumstances review Masipa’s judgement altogether, including the reasoning which led to her conclusions as to the facts?

        This looks very bad for South Africa. I’m sure they want to patch it up somehow. In April, a source told me that the verdict would be a non-custodial sentence with a life ban on owning a firearm. I would have got very good odds if I’d put a bet on it then.

      2. I emailed the NPA Spokesman who spoke outside the court directly after the verdict and he kindly acknowledged receipt.

        His name is Nathi Mncube and his personal email address is…

        vnmncube@npa.gov.za

      3. A follow on from my other post. Legal commentators who are defending Masipa’s verdict suggest that what it is, is what I will call putative self defence Plus. Oscar believed that he was acting against an intruder, therefore not carrying out an unlawful act, psd. However, he was unreasonable in the step he took, hence culpable homicide. He COULD HAVE taken other measures to protect himself, for example run away, ring security, etc. etc.

        HOWEVER, put ourselves into the “Oscar mode”: To protect Reeva, he put himself between her and the intruder. He would not have had time to agree a plan with her, put on his legs, run away effectively, if he rang security they might not arrive on time, If he switched on the lights he would give their position away, etc. etc. So who is to say the measure he took was unreasonable?

        Then still in “Oscar mod”, when he was in the bathroom and heard a noise from within the toilet, he believed he was in immanent danger and shot …, and killed. His confusing evidence on the witness stand? Well, he doesn’t understand the legal terminology, he can’t express it better.

        As Dershowitz points out, suppose there were a vicious intruder in the toilet with gun cocked? Wouldn’t the verdict have been not guilty?

        Q.E.D. Putative self defence.

      4. Question For Ros

        “Oscar believed that he was acting against an intruder, therefore not carrying out an unlawful act, psd.”

        Not sure what you mean by psd, but my question: is if he could SEE that he was not under IMMEDIATE threat then surely he MUST know (conditions of gun license) that it would be UNLAWFUL to shoot? … and know that shooting through the door can lead to the death of the person behind the door?

        Hence his only defence against this unlawful (?) action would be he was startled and shot before he could think … a defence I think Judge Masipa rejected.

  7. I don’t know whether I’m allowed to ask for feedback on these questions, if not, just delete this, Lisa.

    I absolutely do NOT understand her verdict on Dolus Eventualis or Tasha’s or the possession of .38 ammunition. There is no easily explicable reason I’ve been able to come up with for this and so my mind wanders to things I think about and things I’ve read over the past few days, in no particular order:

    Is it possible that Masipa…

    1. Has slight early onset dementia?
    2. Is afraid of white people?
    3. Has been bribed with something?
    4. Has been threatened, overtly or covertly?
    4. Is somewhat incompetent?
    5. Seems debilitated with a limp? arthritis? other? and therefore really connected with OP in some way around his disability and cut him a LOT of slack?
    6. Lacks common sense?
    7. Is completely clueless?
    8. Is naive?
    9. Thinks it would best for South Africa to get their star runner up and running, again.
    10. Isn’t street smart enough to be able to read people who are such obvious cons?
    11. Is an overly co-dependent former social worker who is really an enabler?
    12. Is committed to domestic violence only because it’s trendy and in fact, for her it’s only lip service?
    13. Isn’t being lighter on OP in her ruling but rather is harder on black Africans?
    14. Other?
    15. Other?
    16. Other?

    I’m not smart enough or patient enough to try to work through timelines, but I’m haunted by the “why” of all this. Something is wrong with this picture. Something is just not right.

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    2. Judge Masipa’s argument to get OP off the Dolus Eventualis charge for the person behind the door was legally and logically flawed. This case will never be closed until this is satisfactorily addressed. It may be covered up and swept under the carpet by legal jargon.

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      1. Peter, I’m glancing at this old thread, sorry no button to reply to your question to me so reply here. I wrote psd but meant putative PRIVATE defence ppd. Please understand – I don’t AGREE with that line of thinking but trying to understand the logic in it. It’s best to try to understand what your opponent is trying to say, which is more than Masipa did. Not that she should have had an opponent but unfortunately I think she did. There is a certain bizarre logic in favour of ppd plus culp homicide, as expressed by say Kelly Phelps.

        HOWEVER – The whole intruder story is a lot of b.s. anyway. Not since people speculated on who killed J.R. has so much speculation been invested in total fiction. Oscar must think that he can walk on water.

        Also, even confining ourselves to this fiction – Masipa is wrong about Oscart intending not to kill re dolus eventualis. On HIS version, he testified that seconds before he fired, he understood the danger that a shot fired into the shower could ricochet. And with 4 shots with black talon bullets, he would foresee that aiming anywhere higher than her toes could kill her. Why would a bullet to the shoulder be more likely to kill than a bullet to say the gut? It’s all rubbish.

        Where we are now, I hope there will be an appeal, but there is the obstacle of S v Seekoei, which held and excludes an appeal if there is a competent verdict, which there is. It couldn’t be more complicated so pleased if James Grant likes a challenge. IMO the state would have been in a better position had Masipa acquitted altogether. On the other hand, I can’t see how the SA judiciary can let this Judgment stand.

    3. I think the “elephant in the living room” has to do w/ numbers 4 & 5. This judge did not relate to beautiful Reeva but did relate to crippled OP. When she dismissed the WhatsApp messages as relationships being “dynamic” it proved she is incompetent. When someone writes “I am scared of you” & is then killed by that person – to call that “dynamic” is clueless. This judge has the mentality of “it’s a white man’s world” & they hold the power. Her judgment & reasoning is laughable & the fact that she believes OP’s ludicrous story of “I heard a noise” & went ballistic is incomprehensible.

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      1. I agree with you absolutely Clara. The judge turned a blind eye to all the evidence placed before the court that the state presented, proving beyond all reasonable doubt that he is guilty.
        It was totally ludicrous that the judge dismissed the four lengthy whats app messages from Reeva voicing her fear of him, proves her bias towards the accused.

    5. Lulu, your question is flawed; you wrote Tasha’s incident? Judge found him ‘guilty’ on that charge. Sorry, i do not like bashing the Judge and I would answer NO to all your far fetched queries. She is very clever and applied the objective facts to the law as she understood it. Perhaps it is us laypeople who do not understand how to weigh the evidence and apply it to the SA law books. I do agree that her explanation for her finding of ” Not guilty in the ” the Error in Objecto ” was wrong. But she is the Judge and found that it was not proven beyond a reasonable doubt that OP SUBJECTIVELY intended to kill anyone when he shot 4x thru that door.To me, intent to shoot is equal to intent to kill… that is where I disagree with her finding with all due respect.

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  8. I share your sense of outrage. Thank you for highlighting the many absurdities in the judgement.

    Out of respect and compassion for Reeva and her family I sincerely hope that the state will appeal and this ridiculous verdict will be overturned.

    Justice has not yet been served.

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  9. Separate questions about Masipa, right now.

    1. Does she know that so many are angry …not in disagreement with … not unhappy with – but genuinely ANGRY with her ruling?

    2. If so, what might she think about that and could it influence her sentence, in either direction?

    3. Will she watch the OP “leaked” running video?

    4. Will she read articles and the book by Sam Taylor’s mother?

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  10. One doesn’t need a legal degree to know this is a clear case of Dolus Eventualis at least, and how the judge could have found otherwise is beyond me. I think she made some fundamental errors in reaching her judgement and misinterpreted the law in such a way that a higher court would come to different conclusion.

    As you rightly point out, Pistorius said he didn’t fire a warning shot into the adjacent shower cubicle because it could have ricochet and hit him – proving he had foresight into the possible consequences of his actions during those critical moments. This conscious thought process could not have changed seconds later when he fired four bullets into the toilet door – regardless of who he thought was standing behind it.

    It’s incredible that the judge gave credence to the gestures of remorse shown by Pistorius as Reeva’s body lay at the bottom of the stairs, …crying, praying to God to let her live with promises to devote their lives to Him and that he tried to keep her airways open by inserting his fingers into her mouth – all of which she said could not have been faked. But this proves nothing! In fact, he knew she was dead already – he testified as much during cross examination when he wailed “she wasn’t breathing” when he flung open the toilet door (and with a head injury like that anyone would think the same). Sure he was remorseful – even if he killed her in a fit of rage, he’d be sorry – not because he’d taken the life of another but rather that he had damaged his own.

    To clear him of illegal possession of ammunition was a failure too for the exact reason you gave.

    I guess we’ll just have to see what sentence is handed down but if she shows leniency – as well she might – I’d be very surprised if the prosecution didn’t take this case further – not just in pursuit of justice for Reeva and her family but for the people of South Africa and the reputation of the South African legal system.

    Juror13, can I just say what a fantastic job you’ve done in reporting every single detail of this long running and complex case – better than any journalistic piece that I’ve read! I have a feeling we haven’t heard the last of this matter by a long shot, so I’ll keep a look out for any updates.

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    1. Paulsheen you are right on every point. It is a complete and utter mystery what that judge was thinking. Oye vay.
      It’s going to get interesting – watch this space Masipa! It’s not over till the fat lady sings……….

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  11. juror13, thank you for the fantastic summaries and pertinent comments on this case!

    I went back to the Defense’s ludicrous timeline because it seems many have found it convincing (even the judge).

    Did I understand this correctly: the Defense reasons that A.Stipp’s testimony can be relied on when it comes to her movements between the first and second sets of sounds, in fact they rely on it to be so precise that they calculate her actions couldn’t have taken 13 minutes? But her recounting of looking at the clock and noting it was 03:02 as the first bangs sounded, that is where her testimony is unreliable ?!? Therefore the first sets of sounds must have happened at 03:12??? What kind of resoning is this?

    And why did Nel not stress how inconsistent the timeline was? He could have found pleny to argue and it wouldn’t have even taken him long (areal spurts 10 mins after she was killed according to the Defense). The State has not been above pointing out things that are commonsense or obviously false before. The judge even asked him if the timeline is common cause during the closing arguments. That she should even ask is a sign it was not obvious to her.

    I just don’t understand how someone who has been so brilliant in conducting the State’s case thus far could have been so negligent in this (instead they argued about the indemnity of Darren Fresco back and forth).

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    1. Anzi, i also questioned that about Nel during the trial, however after reading the defense timeline and hearing Judge explain, they got it right. The first sounds had to be the gunshots , therefore the screams heard by many had to be the accused. The reason i was wrong is that the Stipp’s evidence was interrupted by the point were Roux was cross-exam about the 3:17 attempted call to 10111 and that has made all the difference. Nel did not fix it during redirect because he knew that Roux did get it right according to the phone data. So with that Masipa had no choice, the state did fail to prove that the screams heard were that of Reeva. However, I am baffled as to how she acquitted him of dolus direct that he intended to kill whoever was behind that door. Perhaps, i dont understand the law as she did explain how she came to that …I think it had to do with “intent to shoot does not always mean intent to kill” which i totally disagree….which trained gunmen shoots 4x thru a door without intent to kill??

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  12. She often said ,as if it were an reasonble argument, that we are all human beings. But so is she. I think she accept this statement
    As a psychologist I wonder what concious and onconcious motives
    played a role in her judgement besides legal considerations. There
    must be because she is a human being (which I accept)
    In the netherlands there are more and more books about this
    topic.
    Perhaps the readers can further speculate on this.

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  13. I am correct to assume that OP had stated that he shouted out to the intruder in the WC “get the FK out of my house” before shooting. If so this is extremely important and to what i’ve seen so far there’s not much reference to it. If he had shouted then Reeva would have reacted if she was in the bedroom, the intruder in the WC may have well reacted by trying to get out of the situation which makes the shooting of the intruder because there was a noise difficult to understand and justify, the intruder doing what was asked.

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  14. Being brutally honest, Masipa called the premed charge correct. The ear witnesses could not be relied upon having heard correctly after waking up from sleep, and the fact that Nel never offered his own timeline and explanation for the first sounds really didn’t give her any choice; the charge would never stick. As unpalatable as it is, she had no option but to “accept” (not believe) OP`s version of events. Chris Greenland warned us that this was a possibility and that this is exactly what she would do. Since most of Nel`s evidence was pointing towards the premed charge everything went out. Stipps, Burgers, Mangena, Saayman, everything. Seems incredible as the State had more than proved that OP could NOT have shot in quick succession as he claimed and many other “peculiar” things

    But there was no question of the murder charge. If Masipa didn’t have any choice but to accept OP`s version of killing Reeva, then which of his defences is she “accepting” to acquitting him for murdering the intruder? As James has already said, in essence, OP is guilty until proving himself innocent, which he clearly didn’t.

    On her ruling it wasn’t Putative Self Defence, as there was no direct attack against him
    It wasn’t involuntary action as she herself ruled this out.
    Being “startled” is not a defence. And as for the Polar bear and battered woman defence, well Roux can stick that up his arse.

    But that is FOUR and none of them work…so what did she/could she acquit him against?

    In the end it seemed like she accepted the good bits of all of them.

    We will just have to wait and see what she sentences him to next October, but the max 15 years is a rarity apparently.

    Totally lost faith in her to call that right.

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    1. I respectfully disagree with everybody saying that she had to accept the timeline given by the defense in closing. She did not have to buy what they were selling. She sat through the evidence of all those other witnesses (just like we did from afar) and had the ability to make a determination on credibility. In many instances, multiple other pieces of evidence supported those testimonies, but she ignored all of that. When I heard the Defense argument, I laughed out loud at how manipulated that timeline was and rejected it. She could have easily done the same. In her explanations she mentioned a few times that this is a circumstantial case and I kept thinking, damn right it is and you have a thousand details in front of you to put it all together. Apparently to her circumstantial evidence is crap and in response I say that her reasoning is either crap or corrupt. Yes, I too have considered that nasty c word.

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      1. I think I remember reading one of your post where you said that, Nel must produce his own timeline to explain what the first set of noises were. He stretched inference as far as he could IMO and left too many things open/unanswered. He did the second part of his proof very well when he tore OP apart, but the others didn’t back it up.
        It was very interesting to hear that Masipa didn’t find the whatsapps proving that they were having problems, nor were particularly loving.

        Listen, I agree with you, he did kill her in a fit of rage, but it seems that he has gotten very lucky with the circumstances around it.

      2. Yep, I did say that. My commentary throughout has been as I viewed it at that time. I’ve often gone back to read my earlier comments to see how my thoughts & beliefs have developed. Sometimes I agree with myself and sometimes I don’t 🙂 It’s a process. As the case neared conclusion I felt much better about the details that came together. I truly do respect the comments I have seen here about the need for a timeline.. there are elements in those arguments (for a timeline) that make sense. I just see it differently. I am a 100% supporter of the mosaic over the timeline. I’ve seen circumstantial evidence like this win very complicated cases and it’s powerful stuff.

      3. Juror13 – I agree with you fully about timeline. I thought the defence’s Heads of Argument was more polished than the state’s. But so what? These are just Cole’s notes, or debating club summaries. Tedious, but she should have read and thought through the entire evidence. That’s her job. She also seemed to have a layman’s understanding of “circumstantial” evidence. Some circumstantial evidence is very powerful, some direct evidence is very suspect. Oscar’s was direct evidence. And she had corroborating evidence, which is a goldmine. In this fantasy world, Oscar must have been a ventriloquist and the bat strike a quick succession of thunderbolts, all because it supposedly fit into the defence’s timeline.

        That nasty c word – which one? Since April, I’ve made occasional peeps about a rumour of corruption from a credible source. The ‘he said she said he said’ seemed too improbable, and it was not mine to come out with anyway. But it’s all coming true.

        I’m mad too. Was very moved by your Benjamin Franklin quotation. Thank you.

      4. Just what in the timeline set by the judge do you find to be wrong? one needs to use logic, not emotion. I for one thought the timeline Roux gave was twisted until I analyzed the judge’s listing and realized I was wrong. i did not know about the 3:17 call Dr. Stipp made as he attempted to call 10111. That is when he had heard the second set of bangs…which had to be the cricket bat…because @ 3:19 Oscar called Stander, 911 and security in that order. As I requested before, how can one review DR.Stipps ENTIRE cross without INTERRUPTIONS or commercials??? I tried many times on youtube and was not successful in hearing towards the time they discuss the timelog.

      5. I have seen the Stipp cross in it’s entirety and did hear the part about the 10111 call. My apologies for not finding that video for you. It’s hard to keep up here all the time. That call is not a concern to me. There was a lot of calling going on by everyone that night, some accidental. Stipp was very clear on the stand that when he connected with Baba, he had already heard BOTH sets of bangs. We know that convo with Baba took place at 3:15:51. Baba corroborates that.

      6. That is NOT what he stated. Please provide the link where you heard him say that he had heard BOTH set of bangs ? @ 3:15 call Stipp stated he had heard the first set of shots, female screaming…he stated that he first tried to call 2 x (to security and to 10111)and he did not get thru However, he got that wrong, as per the state’s phone records of his phone and that of security.. It showed that he got thru on his first attempt @ 3:15 to report the shooting, then as he was trying to call 10111 he did not get thru but heard the 2nd set of bangs @ 3:17(cricket bat) as per the phone records. He clearly confused the sequence of those calls. As the Judge said, you gotta to go by the phone records rather than human memory that may fade ..Why did Stipp try to call again 10111 at 3:17, if he had reached security @3:15 and they were on their way to his house? Because he was trying to get the ambulance (10111) to the scene as well.Dr. Stipp’s evidence turned out to assist the DEFENSE’S case in many aspects and to corroborate OP’s sequence of events. Just think about it , if the Stipp’s had NOT heard the first set of gunshots, there’s a good chance that Oscar would have been convicted of direct intent of killing the deceased. All the female screams before the 2nd set of bangs would have made it clear it was the deceased female voice.without a reasonable doubt…

      7. Start around 28:00. At this point, Stipp and his wife had already been awakened by the first bangs and he is out on to the balcony, hearing female screaming… and listen to the rest.

        As he was dialing and trying to get somebody, the 2nd group of bangs (gunshots) rang out. He told his wife to duck so she wouldn’t get hit. He then got thru to the guard on duty (Baba) and told him what he heard. At the time that he talked to Baba, he had already heard both sets of shots.

        Stipp then mentions he was still busy on the phone after that, put the phone down and went back out on the balcony while he’s waiting for security to arrive, and he hears a man yell help, help, help.

        A few minutes later, guards arrive in buggy, he talks to them, points them across the way and they leave. Stipp looks back up at OP’s house and can see him moving from right to left in the bathroom. That must be the time when he’s pulling her out of there. The time on that would have to be probably close to 3:19 or 3:20.

        I am now going back to re-listen to the whole cross-examination and will let you know my thoughts in another post..

      8. Rita I don’t think we have been given ALL the telephone records – only those pertinent to the timeline.

        The Stipps first call to security at 3:15 was when he got through but was left hanging without an answer (put on hold). This lasted 16 seconds. Then he put the phone down and tried 1110 or whatever but this time he didn’t get the dialing tone because he misdialled. He then called back security and got through – this must have lasted more than 16 seconds – at least the way he described that call.

        But I assume that call wasn’t included because it didn’t add anything to the timeline. The first call to security did add to the timeline because that was after he heard the first set of noises.

        Do you agree Rita?

      9. Jason, sorry i do not agree. The court has the records and i am sure the judge went through them, Nel said the call data was common cause. What you and juror13 are missing, is that Stipp clearly was mistaken about the sequence of his 3 calls.The phone data records show the calls placed in reverse order and only 2 calls from Stipp’s house. Cannot argue with hard core evidence…Bear in mind the judge said that the Stipp’s were honest and credible but not reliable due to the discrepencies from the objective data. In additon, he and his wife had discrepencies as to when he saw the movement in the bathroom window.

      10. Juror13, thank you for Dr. Stipp’s link but this is the one I reviewed many times…Dr. Stipp’s sequence of calls were proved to be wrong during cross..and you will see that when they got to the circumstances around the 3:17 attempted call he made….the video is interupted for quite a while. Regardless, he heard the 2nd set of sounds at 3:17 as per phone recs NOT before the 3:15:51 call. Look, I just want the truth in this matter and the Judge was correct about the timeline, because people can genuinely be mistaken as to wthe order of how things unfolded…the phone records however is objective evidence which cannot be refuted. This put the screams and yells AFTER the actual gunshots heard at the earlier timeframe. Reeva had suffered multiple fatal wounds , she would not be able to scream…If you find the entire cross by roux without interruption or cuttoffs , please post the link …thanks again

      11. @Rita Castel

        The evidence of Mr and Mrs N proves conclusively that the final bangs happened before Mr N’s call at 3.16

        Neither of them hear any bangs after 3.16 despite them hearing OP yelling and calling for help.

        3.17 is supposedly the time that Johnson hears screams cut off by gunshots – yet Mr and Mrs N, directly net door hear nothing.

        I am experienced with guns.

        When someone fires a gun next door to your house 4 times, you will hear it. Especially if you can hear mere shouting.

        Laughably bad mistake from the judge there

        But what is even worse – is she doesn’t even deal with this massive logical inconsistency – it is simply absent from her judgement

    3. I find it disturbing that the magazine rack was not even mentioned, nor the perception of the door opening, which goes right to the heart of his credibility in opening fire, as does the mistaken shots claim, as does his failure to tell the court about his firing angles (what reason behind them). They are making inferences right, left and centre, and suppressing key prosecution arguments.

      What possible justification can there be for suppressing the fact the magazine rack was testified falsely by himself in the wrong location, and reverting – as though no cross-exam ever occurred – to his bail version on the ‘movement’.

      The panel stated the ‘window being open’ and the ‘door being closed’ somehow ‘supported’ his version. And then turned a blind eye to the one thing that did NOT support that version: The magazine rack.

      How can they proceed to say there is ‘no’ evidence his perception was not sincere? There is evidence of that. The prosecution provided it. They just ignored it.

      They effectively ignored Oscar’s cross-examination. It actually didn’t matter what he said because it was not used as evidence in the end.

      Reply

  15. I don’t think you can say Masipa got it wrong about the timeline. The bottom line is that the prosecution didn’t provide one of their own or stand up and explain why the defense timeline was wrong when they had the chance.

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    1. Ptiteange,this time I agree with you! The timeline as set by the Judge answered many hanging questions . However, i still wonder how Burgers/Johnson heard the cricket bat from 177 meters away and not the gunshots which are much louder??

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  16. If the Judge, in her opinion, only had the dodgy evidence of Oscar to go on, how does she reconcile his irrational fear of intruders with the fact that 1) he was uncertain whether his outside security beams were armed and/or working 2) he happily falls asleep with the balcony doors, right next to the bed, wide open 3) there’s a broken window he doesn’t have repaired 4) there’s a ladder(s) laying around the house.

    I am not famous and I have never had any death threats, but I have been assaulted in my home and do have a fear of intruders. I would never, ever, ever go to bed not knowing that my beams are armed and that all sliding doors are locked and, if there is anything that could provide intruders easy access to my home, those things have not been repaired/locked away.

    Besides all his other lies, Oscar was not a fearful man. Not in the slightest. This alone, in my opinion, points to murder rather than culpable homicide.

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    1. And I am sure you would also check to see where your partner is when you hear a noise and make sure your partner responds before you shoot him/her through a locked bathroom door without a shooting a warning shot, and suddenly turning deaf when your partner screams from the tiny toilet cubicle ……what do you say about that, Judge? And all the arm chair lawyers who don’t have the common sense to see the big picture and instead waste time dissecting time lines……get with the program sheeple – it was murder.

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  17. Hi Lisa,
    completly agree with your statement & analysis, brilliant.
    Especially how Masipa cherry-picked the evidence without any try to proof evidenca against an other assumption – that it might a be a lie, conjured in the spur of the moment.

    OP is kind of ‘not stupid’ – might have instantly grasped the enormous implications of this fatal tantrum (future, money, reputation, career), maybe got idea/advice of brother Carl (wasn’t there a call also to Carl? Van Zyl & Fresco were called by Carice, no?) – & knew he has to act devasted, remorseful, appearing to try to rescue Reeva, even remembered (on stand) to chastise Stipp on allegedly ‘not knowing what he’s doing’ (‘You shot her wt Black Talons, was nothing left to do!’) – and to stick to his story.

    I would’ve NEVER believed that Masipa falls for that, that she not even tried to anticipate this might be a concealment/cover/camouflage from right (after) the shots.

    She could have worked with two working-thesises:
    1. OP story: believed in intruder
    2. intruder-story just cover up for kill in rage

    Seems like she never once EVEN considered approach 2.!!!!
    Let alone examining evidence under assumption 2.

    If she just slaps OP in hand, the state WILL appeal!
    God’s mills ground slowly but steady.
    I think, OP feels them by now very well.
    But more to come and rightfully so.

    Sincerely
    Alfred

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  19. Just one comment, about the 3:17, it wasn’t only the defence that told her to believe that, it was for the majority of the trial also Nel. Nel adjusted it to 3:16-3:17 and also “in the region of 3:17” in his closing arguments, but he still never stated it could have been prior to 3:15, or that Johnson’s notes could be in error. Given the distance to Burger/Johnson’s property, it was clearly demonstrated that any sounds they might have heard from inside the cubicle would have been faint indeed.

    Even accounting for minor variations from the model Lin created and which was cross-examined but not significantly dented (though there was a sound expert with Nel to check the details for scientific accuracy) the best that could be achieved was a volume similar to ambient noise level in a very quiet room. I.e. a very quiet sound indeed, little more than a whisper. This is really unreliable evidence therefore. There’s no getting around it 180m + acoustic barrier of a door makes the passage of the scream highly improbable. One must respect science when reaching findings.

    In addition no evidence was advanced by the state to indicate the timings of two separate collections of “help help help”. One would have been all male, for 3 households to hear, and the other would have had a female help tagged before 2-3 male ones (MR. Johnson), or perhaps 3 female tagged before (Mrs. Burger). This requires two separate collections yet the Stipps were awake through the entire period, even on the balcony, and only heard one set. No one else heard the woman call “help” before male helps.

    This is simplified by assuming Johnson and Nhlengethwa heard the exact same set at the very same time, as their face value evidence suggests is the case. So I can’t see how a judge can ignore the coincidence and assume that Burger/Johnson are [1] wrong about the times but [2] unique in hearing a separate collection of “helps”.

    It’s not really good enough for legal standard of proof to rest a second collection of “helps” on observations of just one witness pair, particularly if at the furthest distance. It would need to have been corroborated by the Stipps on that aspect to stand up.

    There is also the “bat fracture” running through bullet hole D and proving major damage to the door occurred AFTER the shots, so once again, it is simpler if there was only one set of blows to that door in which all the fractures happened, not blows before, then shots, then another significant blow after. the state theory – if they had actually made one – would have been improbable.

    There is also the evidence of the Van der Merwe’s: Heard “crying out of Oscar” (Mr) but “sounded more like a woman to me” (Mrs). So the “very improbable” fact of Oscar’s voice sounding female is in fact attested to in that same context. This cannot be ignored and is very significant for the possibility of the error with other witnesses.

    Which only leaves “screams” versus “cries”. Given what witnesses knew about the circumstances had they heard any kinds of high pitched cries at all, they would naturally have interpreted them in terms of “terror” by a woman, since she was in fact shot. There is a “confirmation bias” of matching observations to assumptions about circumstances, and I do believe that must have played a role. We tend to describe woman more as ‘screaming’ but men more as ‘crying out’ anyway. I don’t think the language is sufficiently clear to infer a hard and fast difference between the two meanings. Not without being privy to the actual sounds that witnesses heard, and then interpreted, that morning.

    The strength of the case for female screams rests on only 4 out of perhaps 9 individuals that were awake after loud bangs and in the area of 3:10-3:17, with some uncertainties. It is entirely possibly they were all listening to the very same shrill cries but since the houses are widely spaced and they had no “visual correlate” on who was crying out some of the properties made mistakes. Burger and Johnson live so distantly that the volume would be too quiet for reliable inference. With the Stipps they were very busy doing a lot of things so again there is possibility of confusion. Indeed, Dr., Stipp did not even hear any screams during the second 2-3 bangs.

    Finally, the two houses that report screams are both South facing towards Oscar’s bathroom and were the only properties, perhaps, in which cricket bat strikes were audible. Given they interpreted the bangs as shots, then it would only serve to reinforce the impression of who had been crying out. This was in fact Oscar’s “lucky break” in this case – apart from the door – since it gave the defence something concrete with which they could argue part of the prosecution case was in error.

    I sincerely believe that this is what cost the prosecution the case since it provided a factual framework in which there were very probable – even clear – errors by witnesses coming forwards and the prosecution had even turned Oscar’s own “cries” against him as a mistaken evidence. But it was indeed mistaken IMO.

    Why was he crying out then? Well if it was him either in an accident or an emotional domestic shooting, killing someone either way is a terrifying thing to face up to after wards as it wrecks your life, and if you didn’t have a plan how to salvage the situation, despair would be a natural emotion.

    Did Reeva scream? If during the first bangs = shots, then still yes, she cried or screamed i’m sure, it would only be natural. but it doesn’t follow that anyone outside of Oscar’s house heard that since the cubicle provides a barrier meaning the sound wouldn’t necessarily travel far. So he might have thought that only he had heard it, particularly if the shots were fast, so only a few seconds in which screams or cries happened. Also, the nearest neighbours and others were still asleep.

    If you want the answer to why the state lost “dolus directus” charge look no further than this timeline blunder the state made, to which everyone is still so attached.

    As for the answer to why they lost “dolus eventualis” as well, for that you have to blame Masipa, as there was no question oscar’s credibility findings and the circumstances should have ensured he had adequate foresight he might kill the intruder, at the very least, One might also blame the defence for putting so many confused legal examples in their heads of argument in the hopes she was talked into one of them, which in the end, she was!

    This might not pay in the long run however, as it is a fresh source of controversy, and the courts in South Africa need more clarity. The ruling can’t be so lenient as that on fundamental points of law!

    Reply

    1. DJ you stated: “This requires two separate collections yet the Stipps were awake through the entire period, even on the balcony, and only heard one set. No one else heard the woman call “help” before male helps.” …The reason the Stipps did not hear the female helps is they were trying to get thru to 10111 at the time and did not pay attention to any screams … I totally agree with your entire assessment of the timeline being a solid basis to ‘tip the scale in favor of the accused version” yet how did the judge deal with these witnesses that she found to be honest said they heard the female and male voice either seperately or intermingled and sounded like 2 diff voices? why did she not mention that the Stipp’s saw the bathroom light ‘on’ immid. after the first set of bangs which does contradict his version of events, Stipps and Merwe did not hear the accused yelling ‘get out of my house” BEFORE the gunshots…on top of his voice either… the duvet, pants , fans position also contradicts that he ran back and forth to the bedroom/bathroom? In my opinion , Oscar did not go back and forth 2 times…hard core photo evidence proved it was not pitch dark, since the bedroom curtains and windows were opened…Did she reject all of the police work and photos taken?? she did not explain that..

      Reply

      1. Yeah I found the judgement to be very jumbled and really not exploring things. It was a form of common sense reasoning however it might politely be termed “very” common sense. It is perhaps more a matter of coincidence rather than brilliance that in my view the panel got the timeline analysis correct. It could simply be down to Nel not providing an actual sequence of events to ponder (although whatever he tried to set out, would have been hard to defend.).

        TWO VOICES

        This judge is very diplomatic she could have been a lot harsher to most of the witnesses in that courtroom however she let numerous off the hook or simply did not remark. I think almost all 37 witnesses arrives with a certain bias or confusion lol. So in regard to Annette hearing “2 voices at once” although she may have convinced herself of that or be keen to say it (as a matter of personal belief) it doesn’t follow that it must be true. Dr. stipp didn’t say the same about “at once” – intermingled is more ambiguous – and neither of them gave shape to the 2 pitches in order to indicate strong evidence of what type of situation it might have been.

        It sounded mainly like “crying” or “distress” but I might have expected something more along the lines of: I heard the woman crying out and THEN angry shouts from the man and THEN the woman fell quiet. There was silence THEN some more shouts and THEN she screamed and this is when the shots happened. It just didn’t really persuade me it was a domestic, based on either of their testimonies, as there was no ebb and flow between tears on the one hand, rage on the other, or similar.

        Not to mention there was no sighting of any kind of Pistorius hammering on the toilet door, being violent in bathroom, or of Reeva yelling out the toilet window, or Reeva running in bathroom. Both stipps were looking in the windows. OK, they might have missed all this VISUALS happening but it doesn’t reassure me as to such high degree of emotions in progress in that very room if no one was spotted. The state’s circumstantial case would have been incredibly strong had that been seen. It would have changed everything.

        One reason it might not have been seen is since Reeva was dead and it was only ever Oscar crying and wailing in the bedroom, having shot her dead.

        Burger and Johnson simply live too far away, the sounds would be quiet and hard to interpret. The “helps” should have given Nel a clue to be wary about that evidence, especially with the timings Johnson wrote down indicating Nhelengethwas were already awake.

        A high pitched cry on its own is insufficiently strong evidence for a damsel in distress, since Oscar’s own voice was mistaken for that of a woman crying out by Mrs. Van der Merwe.

        LIGHTS

        Unfortunately the doubts on the voice testimonies infects the lights evidence as well, since it is the same witnesses saying it. If those witnesses got lots of details wrong, e.g. Stipps phone call times, or Annette’s “two voices”, then their certainty about the lights is not enough to convict a man to jail for 25 years. Had the screams / cries evidence been handled differently, then the lights might have been stronger.

        I do in fact think the lights were on as the most logical explanation for Oscar’s very short search for Reeva – a bad lie – however understandable on hypothesis he needs to return to bathroom to switch the lights on ASAP!

        POLICE WORK IN BEDROOM

        I really feel for Van Staden. He’s a good copper and it is his evidence that would have convicted Oscar better than anyone else’s in the case. His + Gerrie’s exam + Magnena.

        I think out of respect for their efforts the judge should have given more consideration to their work.

        Unfortunately, as stated above, the timeline came to hold sway and trump all other considerations. Being the one area that the state got wrong. Had that not been the case, those other types of evidence might have been given proper consideration.

        The other reason they weren’t is since the terms of the judgement were relatively superficial analysis. For example, remarking that the door being closed supported his version that it slammed, indicating he is truthful. Huh? How would Oscar have proposed to lie about the door, exactly? Say it was open when he shot. How’s that gonna work!

        All of Gerrie’s elegant arguments about the tailoring can be forgotten about since the panel didn’t understand them. As the door example proves.

        Even if they DID understand some of it, they didn’t consider it relevant in light of (I) lack of established motive (2) timeline (3) conceding the stumps (4) Schultz report making the state’s motive “improbable”, which Gerrie did not contest, and perhaps: (5) the defence closing arguments being thorough on other points of evidence, like the empty bladder, evidence she might have taken her phone to the loo, etc.

        Of course, Hilton Botha and Rensberg didn’t help.

        It’s a massive shame.

        I think it deftly illustrates the danger of a trial in the context of media though, the screams and the bats, especially… one wonders how much the prosecution was initially affected by Sky News gossip on the cricket bat being used to bludgeon her before shooting her, for example, and if this image had ever adequately shifted from their minds, even as Saayman was called to state that wasn’t an option.

  20. P.S. About Burger/Johnson hearing the woman calling “help”. It was only once according to Johnson so can clearly be the first of the three, and in a higher pitch, nothing more elaborate than that. Stipp said they sounded “embarrassed” meaning what – a weak voice, high pitched? It’s a faint trace of an indication for a woman from 180m but much more probably an error.

    Burger hearing 3 by the female is concerning anyway since she heard 6 in a row, yet everyone else heard 3, even her husband.

    She may have been affected by this incident on an emotional level and so given slightly unreliable evidence as a result. That also happens in court fairly often.

    And about the screams they DID hear, or cries, whatever they really were, if it was Oscar near to balcony window or in bathroom, there’s no longer a door in the way, so the sound can more realistically carry.

    If he shot in a split second “without thinking” at Reeva it would really be no different, emotionally, to if he had had an accident, so it is not incompatible with a domestic situation for him to be distraught afterwards.

    Particularly when about to face the consequence of his deeds i.e. breaking through the door.

    OK, that’s it. Cheers.

    Reply

  21. Last remark for you to ponder:

    If Oscar was so intent upon tailoring his version to fit all the evidence (as I and many others believe) then why did he make not a single reference to the screams in his bail affidavit.

    If he had known that Reeva had screamed loudly, with that bathroom window open, he would have known that was probably heard in other properties. He would have explicitly included a statement in his bail: I was screaming in panic. To cover it.

    He even knew that Dr. Stipp had heard both sets of bangs, since Stipp spoke to Stander, and told him that, and Stander spoke to Kenny Oldwage. And they knew were Stipp lived, opposite. So Oscar would have been well aware that Reeva’s screams were probably heard.

    It would have been absolutely imperative to make reference to that in his bail. It makes no sense to tailor all the little details but miss out something so huge as that.

    But if it was him crying in a desperate way then clearly it wouldn’t have ever crossed his mind that was going to be incriminating. Why would he be concerned if people heard him being upset? If anything, that would help his case considerably. The irony therefore is that those cries were interpreted as Reeva’s and it must have taken him completely by surprise.

    Obliging his defense to say at the bail “it was him, screaming, but sounds like a woman when anxious.” Much like Mrs Van der Merwe observed in reference to him “crying out” during the “commotion”.

    He didn’t even try to tailor it more in his plea. Simply disregarded the screams altogether. The defense always knew they had this one in the bag and left Nel to dig himself a hole using just a few witnesses in the south facing houses that heard bat strikes, took them as shots, and took the cries, inevitably, as reeva.

    It got even worse because those witnesses, such as Michelle Burger, turned out to be quite unreliable and prone to embellishments of the narrative, as their fear-filled fantasies got mingled with their actual memories e.g. with the extra two helps.

    Defense just sat back and waited to trot out the Nhlengethwas, the phone records, the sound expert, the bat fracture analysis, and wait for it all to collapse, which it did.

    The factual corroboration in favour of Oscar then became the strongest plank of their case and the reason for which Nel’s was dismissed.

    It’s very annoying actually. Very annoying that the prosecution weren’t more wary of the possibility of this happening, had they kept an open mind and not make a big thing of these “screams” they might have won the case, as then Oscar’s “poor credibility” would not have been matched by anything “poor” on the prosecution side!

    But anyway yes consider that he did not include a single sentence about screams in his bail and it’s pretty obvious he never expected to be challenged with such evidence, therefore, it is likely to be incorrect…

    Reply

      1. Your assuming what is fact and what is error.

        If there were no female screams, then that is the reason why he did not mention them. If there were such screams, it is a puzzle why he failed to do so.

        It was only ever himself crying out – that is the reason it was not mentioned.

        Oscar was already aware Stipp had heard both sets of bangs and they knew where stipps house was (Stipp talked to Stander, Stander to Oldwage, and Oldwage to Oscar).

        So Oscar would have known that the cries, or screams, were overheard. But he was unconcerned. So therefore it is very significant he left the screams out of the affidavit. It was however NOT a factual failure.

        That honour belongs to the state for putting them in.

        The state contested a totally futile way, the period between the shots and the bats, when in fact Oscar’s order of events there is true. Certain witnesses put too much interpretation onto certain high pitched cries and bat sounds that morning.

        It is for this reason that they lost the case.

  22. I feel I spent more time reviewing tje evidence than Masipa did.

    Of you say the ear witnesses were a few minutes out on their timeline who can blame them, at 3am?

    Bottom line is there was a clear womans voice and a mans.

    What about the fans, the jeans, duvet, etc?
    Called evasive and a poor witness but his version is still accepted?

    Reply

    1. I have been saying that since day 1. who can be exact at 3.00am. So a second out here or there in this case really does NOT constitute the ear witness’ testemonies to be thrown out the way there were. and what about FRANK. Unless he is deaf, he would have heard something???? why was he not put onto the Witness stand. Gerrie Nel would have got an answer out of him very quickly.

      Reply

      1. Frank is the person in this whole sordid tale that I just don’t understand. I have a sick feeling his silence was bought. He cannot be that deaf.

    2. It is not that the witnesses were a few minutes off. If it was’nt for the evidence of Stipp’s hearing TWO sets of what they thought were gunshots….OP would have been found guilty…get it?

      Reply

  24. If Reeva was fatally wounded at 3:12 but there was still arterial spurt at 3:22 when he was carrying her downstairs and Stander arrived, then the timeline needs to be looked at again. I’m no forensic pathologist but believe it’s highly improbable that her heart would still be beating after the severe head wound and haemorrhaging from this and the other wounds inflicted by the Black Talon ammo. Arterial spurt was common cause.

    Reply

    1. Exactly.

      Its not possible.

      OP made the following mistakes that prove he shot Reeva around 3.16

      1. He testified he saw her trying to breathe. Only the murderer could have seen that in the moments after shooting. Not possible 5 mins later.

      2. No blood on the alarm or bedroom door handle supposedly handled after 3.17

      3. Arterial bleed on wall.

      It wasn’t until these crowd sourced insights that I realised exactly how he did it.

      The bedroom door was open and the alarm was off. He batted the toilet door just after 3am. He shot Reeva at 3.16. He broke one panel, opens door and sees Reeva dying at @ 3.17. He make calls and moves Reeva’s phone etc. He moves body to bathroom floor. Hearing cars arrive @3.22 he picks up Reeva and goes downstairs She sprays once on the wall.

      His mistake – which he got away with – was revealing he saw her dying, and staging the body which left the critical blood evidence on the wall/duvet but no blood on the door/alarm.

      This is why he couldn’t explain when he turned the alarm off – because it can’t be fitted into the narrative.

      If after moving Reeva to the bathroom – then blood should be on the alarm. If before moving Reeva he can’t explain why he would have run off and left her there dying

      Reply

      1. Not sure I agree with those proofs for 3:16 shots.

        1. He testified that but it is a lie. It is part of his case that he ‘sincerely wanted to save her life’ – so it helps to say she started breathing, even though it is impossible (whatever time the shots were, she would never have started again after stopping).

        She did not breathe for more than a few moments after that head wound.

        She may have had a faint pulse. Probably by the time he picked up the phone to Stander, that had stopped. So the entire time he was doing life-saving she had already died much earlier, before the 3:19 phone call I daresay.

        It is no coincidence he also testified that she “died in his arms” around about when Stipp arrived, the first medically trained person in a position to actually realize she was clearly dead.

        Carice ran around cluelessly trying to revive someone that died perhaps 10 minutes earlier.

        Pity Nel did not remark on the ‘breathing’ claim however as it would have been a contradiction with Oscar’s version nonetheless.

        2. The alarm was already off and the door was already open?

        3. The trace on the wall is very faint. It consists of an S-shape pattern but arterial spurt is not the only possible cause of such a shape. Reeva had long hair covered in blood, and her body was being carried and jolted on the way down the stairs.

        What is more significant is that that is the ONLY such S-shape pattern, at least, in all the photographs I have seen it is. There is ZERO blood on the floor downstairs. There are no S-shapes in the bedroom.

        Van der Nest also referred to spatter on the carpet as ‘arterial spurts’ but retracted it and said it could be caused by a flicking blood off a hand.

        Compare the volume of blood in the toilet to elsewhere…

        Another dodgy or “not great” policeman?

  26. “..and I think the grand majority of us agree that an appeal would be more than… reasonable.’

    I feel your anger and I share it.

    What a travesty

    Reply

  27. Hi Lisa,
    Cricket bats were the first set of noises, screams, then gunshots. Just don’t know why judge and her 2 assessors didn’t get this. I’m hoping that OP does get some jail time for CH, but I’m not holding my breath. Judge appears to feel sorry for OP. I feel sorry for the Steenkamps, they want to find the truth of what happened to their daughter, instead they have been fed this BS story about an intruder.
    Thanks for your excellent summaries.

    Reply

    1. Hi Angela,

      If I remember correctly, this sequence of events (bats first then shots) was looked into at some stage during the trial (could have been Capt Mangena’s testimony), but forensics showed that it was bullets first and then bat. Also, it was common cause that shots were fired while on stumps and bat marks with legs on.

      I remember one of the early state witnesses (someone from the police) being grilled by Roux to show the angle of the bat against the door and whether the markings would fit if he were ‘shorter’ – i.e. on stumps.

      I doubt that he would put legs on to bash the door down and then pull legs off to fire the shots. However, shots could still have been fired, with legs on, from hip height and not shoulder height. But if I recall there was some evidence that it was shots first and then bat.

      But, I may be recalling this all incorrectly.

      Reply

      1. So here’s the thing with the sounds… It is absolutely feasible that NOBODY heard the cricket bat. The only reason we’re discussing it is because the defense wants us too. The general common cause is that shots were first then bat after BUT keep in mind that the sounds the Stipps heard earlier don’t have to be a gun or a bat. They could be anything! The defense, in my opinion, did a shitty job with their bat sound testing and I am in no way convinced that anybody heard the bat hitting the door at all after the gunshots that I strongly believe took place around 3:15.

        It is simply illogical to believe that everybody heard the bat but not the gun, that the bat can swing that fast & hard to replicate that sound, and that OP screaming like a banshee ended exactly with the 4th shot. It’s just not logical or reasonable for me to believe those things.

  28. Juror 13 is the awesome

    I hoped there was a site like this on the internet that had delved into the timelines and sure enough I found this place.

    Reply

  29. Excellent post. I too was amazed during the verdict that the Judge discounted the witness accounts as being unreliable. I live in the UK and have met only a few S.Africans, they are a very meticulous and switched on people, even if they weren’t t don’t think you can discount witness accounts so easily when they form such a backbone of the case. So that was the first thing that stunk about the verdict.

    Secondly, its the whole picture that was not considered by the Judge whose job is to take all the evidence and use her brain to come to a judgement. Its not always possible for the prosecution to 100% prove the case, but if all the signs are there pointing towards a murder surely the experience and intuition have to come into play otherwise why not just input all the data into a computer and get a verdict.

    The picture for me is a man who dated an exceptionally beautiful woman for 3 months, which is not a very long time. In that time he had put her in a state of mind where she had to express through writing she was ‘scared of him’. He has a strong interest in guns and a history of being irresponsible with guns in public. He has a history of being abusive or disrespectful to his ex-girlfriends, which demonstrates a low option of women in general. In the 3 months they were together he already had heated arguments with Reeva, he has physically threatened other men. He is an Olympic champion with an olympic size ego, which is constantly fed by those around him.

    Now for the night of the murder…the one thing I cannot get to grips with and will never understand is how on this earth, in his version of events could he have been woken up by a noise and not realised another person was no longer in bed with him.

    Just think about that for a minute. You are in bed with your partner, you hear a noise. Would you not tap your partner and ask them if they heard a noise or in some way alert them. At the least you may look in there direction and realise immediately if they are still in bed or not.

    We have to believe that OP in a state of combat mode when all your senses are heightened and your blood is pumping could not even glance at the bed to determine if Reeva was still in bed?

    Then, in his version of events, we have to believe that he approached the toilet shouting and Reeva who was in the toilet did not reply to say it was her?

    If all of what he says is true, then why did the Judge say he was an evasive, poor witness.

    Because NONE of it was true. Forget the picture of a man with a thing for guns and an irresponsible attitude with a history of being aggressive towards women, particularly the woman he killed and just think deeply about his story, it does not make sense.

    It is a nonsense and once you see that the only reasonable truth is that he is lying.

    Why would he lie, because the truth is he knew Reeva was in the toilet and he shot to kill her.

    The Judge has to be able to see through him and make a judgement that based on all the evidence, his history and the crime scene he is guilty of murder.

    Once he had killed her, he is not stupid. He was not going to run away to compound his guilt.

    Of course he has to act contrite and overwhelmed with grief in the immediate aftermath, his story is even forming in his head the moment he pulled the trigger, ‘I thought she was a burglar’.

    Reply

    1. OP’s version was not that a sound woke him but rather that he woke from being hot. He and Reeva spoke briefly at that point, her saying “can’t you sleep?”
      He then gets up in the supposed pitch dark to move the fans further in the room and close his door & curtains. Then he hears the window noise.

      Two things here – first, why close the door if you are hot and your AC doesn’t work? Second – the balcony light was on so his room was not pitch dark. If Reeva mysteriously slipped out of bed, he would have seen her. His answer to that was that his back was to the bed the entire time. It’s all bullshit.

      Reply

      1. “why close the door if you are hot and your AC doesn’t work?”

        Spot on. I wish the judge and the assessors had asked such questions while dealing with OP’s evidence. Actually I am still finding it difficult to come to terms with the fact that the judge and the two assessors messed it up so bad in understanding and interpreting all the evidence on record. For a high court judge with 15 years’ experience to use the kind of arguments that she has, it is simply unbelievable. At the moment I am not even clear which one is more unreasonable: OP’s testimony, or this verdict?

      3. On his version, Reeva would have been up and walking before he closed the curtains. The back to the bed at all times was a ridiculous story.

    1. Exactly… Look at all of the damage in the bathroom- metal plate, broken tiles, battered door… It was a loud, chaotic night there! It reeks of a domestic situation.

      Reply

      1. It certainly does.

        Also, what about the jeans outside the toilet window, that is a very odd thing to have considering RS neatness.
        What about the issue with the duvet and the lair of jeans in the room, clear indications of OP lies.

        One must remember of his version was true he would not have been caught lying and contradicting himself so many times. His story would have been the facts of the night.
        He would have had an explanation for everything, but he didnt!!

      3. You mean the excessive damage in the bathroom, plus the jeans outside?

        And in contrast – her neatly packed bag on the couch versus the jeans thrown on the floor

      1. Maybe there was also an intruder hiding under the bath?

        Then there is the question of the broken window downstairs

  31. Some other things for me that were never picked up on in cross examination:
    1) OP says he thought Reeva was in the room phoning the cops as he instructed her to and he never foresaw that it was her in the toilet. What was the one thing, after shot number 4, that suddenly made him think it was Reeva in the toilet and not Togetherness Thsabalala the intruder?

    2) Apparently the toilet light wasn’t working and on OP’s version, everything (except the pin prick LED light) was in pitch darkness. So he bashes down the door and, despite the imagined shock and horror of the realisation that it was Reeva in the toilet and not Togetherness Thsabalala, he in a split second ‘sees’ the keys lying on the inside of the toilet on the floor. In the pitch darkness!! And then reaches in to pick up the keys through a rather small hole in the door.

    All lies – that door was never, ever locked and he KNEW Reeva was in the toilet.

    Reply

    1. I have given some thought as well as to whether the door was locked.

      There was a poster here who argued that maybe OP had locked Reeva in the toilet from the outside.

      I haven’t looked at the door to see if that is possible.

      Reply

      1. nonsense..why would he lock her in just to bang the door down with the cricket bat??? so many people here are grasping at straws with no evidence to back up their unfounded theories.

    2. This may seem strange but do we actually have any independent evidence that the door was locked?

      I know that is OPs version

      IMO it could be a clue to the only real mystery in the case which is how he got into the toilet so quickly.

      It seems clear he smashed stuff up with the bat including damaging the door.

      Then he shoots.

      Did he then simply open the door?

      Reply

      1. James, no, we only have his version that he picked the keys up from the floor. This has never made sense to me and I can’t believe Nel didn’t question him on this.

        Sadly there was evidence that it definitely was shots first then bat.

        But in my mind, even at the time OP was on the stand, it was patently clear that a lot of things happened in that bathroom that was never brought up for questioning.

      2. I know this is a bit late, but I’ve only recently found this blog and am just catching up! I found this reference to the keys in the door in a Sydney Morning Herald article: “Images of the smashed toilet door revealed its key was inserted into the lock on the outside. This appeared consistent with Pistorius’ version that after beating down the locked door he grabbed the key and unlocked it from the bathroom-side of the cubicle to reach Ms Steenkamp.”

        http://www.smh.com.au/world/oscar-pistorius-trial-follows-the-trail-of-blood-20140314-hvin3.html

        I wonder about the air rifle shot in/near the bedroom door – are air rifle shots as loud as normal guns? I do wonder if the first ‘sounds’ heard had something to do with that air rifle shot and other damage to the bedroom door.

        Was Pistorius asked how many times he swung the bat at the door? (I guess he’d either say ‘four times’ or that he couldn’t remember!)

      3. Sorry, I just realized I assumed it was an air rifle shot because the air rifle was near the bedroom door. I’ll have to go read through the summaries to find out if the hole was forensically proven to be a bullet hole. I missed a lot of the forensic evidence because I was overseas at the time.

    3. Very well said Hanret. You are spot on !!!! Why didn’t the judge take all the facts into account? What do you think her reasoning was? Or the pay-off ……she must have been highly motivated to expose herself to the world, on camera, reaching such an absurd, senseless verdict. All the facts were laid out in court by the state.
      This has been the biggest shocker since watching the Twin Towers drop to the ground – un-be-bloody-lievable. Eish!

      Reply

  32. I have only gotten this far in your blog.

    ” Now that we are at the end of this trial, we are asking – was it reasonable for the Judge to make the statement that Oscar was a terrible witness, was evasive and gave contradictory evidence, and acted negligently, and then turn around and determine his lack of guilt based on HIS story alone?”

    Here is the answer to your question. Judge Masipa was bound by the rule of law to determine Oscar’s lack of guilt not solely because of his story, because the onus was never on Oscar to prove his innocence, the onus was 100% on the State to prove his guilt. The State did not disprove Oscar’s version of Feb. 14th, 2013, the judge rendered the only lawful verdict that could she could render.

    The judge said as much in her verdict.

    Reply

      1. 90% of the state’s case was the ‘Female’ Screams heard…That was disproved by the defense in the timeline and the TWO sets of gunshots heard by the Stipp’s…So yes, the state did FAIL miserably..I recall Nel saying during a 20 min objection regarding this by cross of Dr. Stipp, “we will deal with the first shots and the discrepencies between state witnesses” yet he NEVER did! even when judge masipa asked him about it. after closing arg..that is very weak in my view..Nel never asked the accused how his bedroom door had a rifle gunshot hole in it or about the pants found outside his home or the damaged silver plate tile on the rim of the bathtub…so why are we blaming the judge? blame the prosecutor who lacked in his thoroughness of the case

    3. “…because the onus was never on Oscar to prove his innocence,”

      Thats is completely wrong in the present case. He HAS shot her dead, there is no dispute about that, so the onus is on him to give a satisfactory explanation of why and how he did it.

      And forget about State disproving Oscar’s version (which they did), OP himself disproved his own version, by giving contradictory versions, versions that changed over time; even some of the Defense witnesses disproved (i.e. contradicted) some of his versions.

      Reply

      1. Agreed. It seems to get forgotten in this case that it is not disputed OP shot Reeva. Hence an evidential burden arose to make out an active defence – which is what he pleaded.

        To find no oblique intention to kill is bizarre given OP pleaded self
        defence

      2. Read the verdict. Judge Masipa stated emphatically that there was no onus on Oscar to prove his innocence but rather on the State to prove his guilt. Word’s from Judge Masipa’s verdict “Evidence lead by the state in this account is purely circumstantial it was not strong circumstantial evidence moreover the evidence of various witness’s who gave evidence on what they heard, in what sequence and when, proved to be unreliable, the accused denied the allegations, not withstanding that he was an unimpressive witness the accused gave a version which reasonably possibly could be true. In criminal law that is all that is required for an acquittal as the onus to prove the guilt of the accused beyond reasonable doubt rests with the State throughout”

      3. Many of us are trying to argue that there is a lot that is wrong about the verdict. And your main line of reasoning here seems to be just quoting from the verdict, in other words, assuming all the statements to be true there. Clearly, if the starting assumption is that the verdict is correct, and one does not use anything else – like legal principles, logical reasoning etc, – then one can find nothing wrong with it.

  33. I did listen to Nel, as did Judge Masipa and her assessors, and it is their finding of fact that the State did not disprove Oscar’s version nor did the State prove their alternative version.

    You are of course free to disagree with my opinion and the verdict, you are even free to make baseless accusations against me. But when all is said and done your accusation is untrue and without merit. And frankly it is silly to assert that you would know what I have or have not seen.

    The judge ruled correctly in accordance with the law.

    Reply

    1. There is no ways one can say the state did not disprove OP version, he was torn to pieces under cross examination, why was that? Because he telling the truth?

      The only thing that is a grey area and the defence used well is the timeline of the evening according to the ear witnesses. Nothing else.
      Maybe you can indicate how, during cross examination, OP version came across and proved to be truthfull?

      Please, no one is hurling accusations at you.We comment not to offend.

      Reply

    2. You are conflating two things and appear to have misunderstood what’s actually been going on here.

      Pistorius was charged with murder – the unlawful, intentional killing of a person. The State also asserted that the evidence showed that he knew Reeva was the person he was killing, so it was an act of premeditation.

      It’s true that the State were required to prove this, and I think it’s clear that, to Masipa, they did not. The defence raised enough issues to show that there were doubts about this assertion that could be reasonably possibly true. In which case, she had no option but to give him the benefit of those doubts. I vehemently disagree with her reasoning, but that is irrelevant – she’s the judge and she concluded differently. Fine.

      But…there is a dead body to account for, and by Pistorius’s OWN testimony this is because he KNEW there was a person behind the toilet door and he shot them. In order to account for this otherwise unlawful act (which killing people is generally considered to be) he claimed to be acting in self-defence, albeit mistakenly (the putative bit).

      This places an evidential burden on him to demonstrate that this is likely true. The state do not have to prove he wasn’t acting in self-defence (this is a logical impossibility, as you cannot prove a negative) – they instead need to show that the evidence he presented in this regard was unreliable. They succeeded in this, and Pistorius failed.

      Masipa did not accept his defence of PPD or his alternative defence of automatism. In other words, while she did not find it proven that he knew it was Reeva, she did not accept either of his defences that he proffered to account for the dead human being in his toilet.

      And this, apparently, is where her big mistake occurred. She correctly (based on her findings) found him not guilty of Directus…because he hadn’t been directly trying to kill Reeva. But she then, bizarrely, applied exactly the same reasoning to find him NG of Eventualis….which is genuinely and profoundly ridiculous. A finding of Eventualis does NOT require the killer to be directly trying to kill the specific person who was killed, but instead to forsee and reconcile themselves with the high probability that SOMEONE would be killed by his actions.

      Whatever OP did or did not say on the stand, one thing is very, very clear….he KNEW someone was in the toilet, and he shot them four times. He was not acting in mistaken self-defence, he did not shoot accidentally, he was of sound mind and knew right from wrong…therefore the killing of the SOMEONE in the toilet must have been intentional and forseeable and therefore murder.

      Masipa’s reasoning here is quite shockingly poor. He wasn’t trying to kill Reeva, therefore he could not have foreseen her death because he thought she was in bed!

      And I have to say you may think she got it right….but most SA lawyers who have expressed an opinion disagree with you. This is not the end of the story for Pistorius.

      Reply

      2. Perhaps you missed the courts allowance for subjectivity which the judge used in her rendering a verdict.

        From the decision ;

        It cannot be said that the accused did not entertain a genuine belief that there was an intruder in the toilet that posed a threat to him. Therefore he could not be found guilty of murder, dolus directs, this court has already found that the accused cannot be guilty of murder dolus eventualis either on the basis that from his belief and his conduct it could not be said that he foresaw that either the deceased or anyone else for that matter might be killed when he fired the shots at the toilet door. It also cannot be said that he accepted the possibility or that possibility into the bargain…… General Principals of Criminal Law; The courts have warned against any tendency to draw the inference of subjective foresight too easily…due regard to particular circumstances….Subjective foresight like any other factual issue may be proved by inference to constitute proof beyond a reasonable doubt the inference must be the only one that can be reasonably drawn, IT CANNOT BE SO DRAWN IF THERE IS A REASONABLE POSSIBILITY THAT SUBJECTIVELY THE ACCUSED DID NOT FORESEE EVEN IF HE OUGHT TO HAVE REASONABLY DONE SO, AND EVEN IF HE PROBABLY DID DO SO.

        ***

        Not shouting, I just can’t bold in this format and I would like to point out where the emphasis should be for understanding Judge Masipa’s ruling.

        This is a finding of fact.

        It is that simple.

      3. SierraDrawn

        I was confused why Judge Masipa found OP not guilty of Dolus Eventualis of the person behind the door because she never explained clearly – it was a jump missing a step in the reasoning.

        Are you saying that the Judge didn’t believe he would kill the person because he was firing at waist height rather than head or chest height, The Judge made a distinction about shooting and intending to kill. She said something along the lines that OP testimony included that if he had intended to kill he would have aimed at chest or head height and not where he did.

        This she used as evidence that OP was thinking of his actions before the shooting but she seems to have also used this same testimony to show that OP did not intend to kill because he shot at waist level not chest level or head level. Or at least the State did not remove to a reasonable doubt this was the case.

        Do you agree with that Sierra?

      4. @HelenUK:That’s very well put indeed. I just have a little disagreement about the part where you say:
        “I vehemently disagree with her reasoning, but that is irrelevant – she’s the judge and she concluded differently. Fine.”

        In a trial, once the testimonies and HOA’s are over, a judge has two main tasks at hand:
        (a) make a finding, i.e. go through the evidence, and arguments and decide what to accept and what not to. Here the main tool is logical reasoning – there would be places where things are a little hazy and it could go either way, that’s ok – but overall the reasoning should be sound and supported and guided by legal principles where necessary
        (this part should be pretty much the same irrespective of which country the trial is taking place in).

        (b) apply laws of the land to the findings to decide guilt or the lack of it
        (this part would be very much country-specific).

        Now the part from your comment that I quoted above concerns (a). In the present case, based on all the evidence/testimony that we were aware of, many of us reached a completely different conclusion. But that is NOT the reason I am so upset. As you suggest, there might be a different line of reasoning that we all overlooked and somebody else may have used it to reach a different conclusion. It should be acceptable then. But in the present case, what has happened is that the judge’s reasoning for accepting/rejecting various evidence has been all over the place. There are lot of inconsistencies, contradictions, legal blunders in that part of the verdict document that she read out.
        And that should not be acceptable, that should not be fine.

      5. Contrary to what SierraDawn states, the Judge clearly misstates the test for DE in a section of the judgement.

        This opens the door for the SC to find an error of law as the Judge misdirected herself when applying the law to the facts.

        Although the judge also made a number of confusing statements on the matter, the SC has to operate on the face of the record at it seems likely that Masipa applied the law incorrectly.

        The same applies to the possession charge which is clearly incorrect – and laughably poor I might add.

      6. Hi Jason,

        I am trying to say that it doesn’t matter what reason Judge Masipa gave for concluding that the court can not draw the conclusion that Oscar intended to kill the person behind the door or what reason she gave for finding that the state did not prove that Oscar intended to kill the person behind the door.

        It is a finding of fact and unassailable under appeal. Masipa ruled that subjectively Oscar did not intend to kill the person behind the door due to his particular pattern of thinking and reasoning (or lack thereof), she has drawn this conclusion through his “less than impressive” testimony. Still it is the conclusion Masipa and her assessors have drawn.

        Masipa in her reading of the verdict stated that the court may no longer simply judge what a reasonable person would have foreseen in a similar circumstance but must give weight to what the accused may have reasonably possibly believed at the particular moment in that instant even if, and these are Judge Masipa’s own words, THE ACCUSED DID NOT FORESEE EVEN IF HE OUGHT TO HAVE REASONABLY DONE SO, AND EVEN IF HE PROBABLY DID DO SO.”

        I think it is particularly important when she says “and even if he probably did so.” Masipa is sticking to the letter of the law and reaffirming that the State nor the evidence or even Oscar’s own testimony proved that it was not reasonably possibly true that Oscar believed in the seconds that he fired the gun that he foresaw that he would likely kill someone and with disregard to human life he fired the gun anyhow.

        Masipa believes that there is a reasonable possibility that SUBJECTIVELY that Oscar did not foresee that his actions might well result in the death of the person behind the door.

        Again (subjectively not knowing he would likely kill) is a finding of fact not an application of the law, so there is no error in her applying the law to her finding of fact.

      7. Hi Sierra,

        I thought Judge Masipa could have been a little clearer with the reasoning on this aspect of the case – this part of the judgement seems weak and at first very confusing – but I see the point you’re making. There have been some legal experts that thought her argument was wrong in law – at least how she seemed to explain it.

        I recognise this is one case amongst several thousands that Judge Masipa has likely deliberating on, and so is using that experience also to make a decision, plus all her knowledge and experience in the application of the law, plus the court will have all the evidence at their disposal – which the general public and outside experts don’t have,

        As soon as I read the Defence’s Head of Arguments and listened to their closing argument I knew their was reasonable doubt on the States two main claims – the female screams and the second bangs (which even they accepted as occurring at 3:17 am) and that both of these contentions would be thrown out. Once those two central planks had been thrown out the whole State’s case looked a complete mess.

        The key was the State had to go with the female screams at the beginning and they built their whole case around that – it was only when the telephone records became available and the other witnesses statements came in when they must have realised their contention was no longer sustainable – but it seems by then they had dug themselves in a hole and couldn’t get out.

        It was in order to save their female scream argument that they had to place the gunshots with the second noises at 3:17 am … but that fell apart on examination.

        I am also certain that we are not getting the full telephone record a stipps claims to have made three calls Security (3:15) 1110 (3:17) Security (after 3:17 – this one wasn’t given). There seems to be something either missing with the telephone record of the Stipps or there recollection was muddled.

        Ps I acknowledge there are many members of the public that believe the time line as given by the defence was “obviously” wrong and Judge Masipa in accepting it was either deluded, senile or paid off by the OP clan. I acknowledge these opinions although do not necessarily agree with it.

      8. Small correction. On his own version Oscar did not KNOW anyone was behind the toilet door. To “know” implies that it is true. Oscar BELIEVED that there was an intruder (on his version, please don’t scream at me – I don’t agree with his “version”.) I have read through the Judgment and I actually think that Masipa did accept putative private defence, but a reasonable man would have chosen other options which would not have resulted in death, hence culpable homicide.

        Directus is a direct intention to kill. If Oscar intended to kill person A behind the door, and it was person B behind the door who was killed, not A, it would still be dolus directus, but Error in Persona. The reason that dolus eventualis is so persuasive is that Oscar knew his ammo, he knew his toilet, he was thinking clearly about the possibility of bullets ricocheting, he MUST have foreseen the possibility that those shots would kill the person he BELIEVED was behind the door even if it cannot be proved that he intended to kill. It is the widest version of intention in SA law.

  35. Judge Masipa in the reading of her verdict said that the accused version of the incident could possibly reasonably be true, ergo the State did not disprove Oscar’s version of the incident. It is a finding of fact.

    Reply

  36. OP appears to have little or no respect for women. Don’t forget the out of court settlement for alleged assault to Ms Taylor-Memmory just prior to his trial. This incident occurred at a party he held and was enraged after an altercation with his then-girlfriend at the time.
    Seems so many incidents where Oscar lost his cool and become physically aggressive. Even during the trial.

    Reply

  37. Oh dear – the written judgement is a shocker.

    What a horrible blunder on Dolus Eventualis.

    Embarrassing.

    At least we now know the answer to J13’s question above “how is this even possible” that he didn’t mean to shoot the person in the toilet.

    She simply screwed up.

    She thought DE doesn’t apply due to mistaken identity.

    Reply

      1. Can you possibly reasonably pose that this as a scenario where the threats of thuggery will influence a judges sentencing? Let’s hope that the judge continues to rule without emotion or fear of retribution and sticks to the law.

        There is no place in a civilized society for intimidation or mob role.

    1. Thanks for this!

      I think he should immediately offer Lisa a job as his lay prosecutor. She can sit right next to Andrea Johnson!

      Reply

  40. I’m posting this only because it’s an actual comment made to me today by my roommate, who has a unique perspective from which he makes the following claim. Without mincing words, he thinks there’s a very good chance that Masipa is simply incompetent.

    I’m a white American who supports affirmative action. My roommate, born in America, half white and half black Nigerian (self-described as “Half-rican”), does not. Completely African American in appearance, he bemoans the very existence of affirmative action.

    A brilliant young man, he will be graduating from a top US medical school this year. He’s consistently told me that one of the hardest things for him over the past 3.5 years has been his belief that every white person he comes in contact with in medicine assumes that he’s only there as a result of affirmative action. That, if left to his own devices, he wouldn’t be smart enough to have been admitted to medical school on his own.

    I’ve told him that I don’t think that’s the case. He counters that my judgement is clouded by white guilt and my insatiable need to be politically correct. He goes even further to say that if white Americans don’t believe that many black professionals in 2014 are still unqualified, they’re either stupid or they’re lying.

    He feels that, because of affirmative action, blacks give other blacks a bad name, which makes it much harder for those who actually are qualified to be taken seriously. From his point-of-view, and given that Masipa is only the second black woman judge in South Africa, he thinks the answer to the “mystery” of her verdict is very simple. She’s not that smart and she’s not competent as a judge.

    He feels that she wound up in her position after being fast-tracked by a system rushing to integrate itself after Apartheid ended. In his words, this is what you get.

    Reply

    1. Hi Lulu, I have no problem sharing your friends comment. We are all entitled to our opinions and should be able to express them, provided they are not just straight up derogatory to be hurtful or without purpose. Sounds like your friend has a sincere opinion based on his own experience.

      Reply

    2. Hi Lulu

      As I commented before, Google ” Cadre deployment in south africa”

      Your friend may not be far off.

      Im sorry but to my mind if a bunch of layman visitors to a blog can analyse and make a correct call on a judgement and they are backed up In opinion by just about every lawyer who has commented in the media then I dont know.

      Its disgraceful.

      Even now we have pistorians commenting on how the judgement was right when they havnt even watched something as important as OP cross examination and quote things they read out of a newspaper.

      Reply

  41. Sierra Dawn

    You are making the same mistake that Masipa made….and pretty much every lawyer who has commented thinks she was wrong.

    Masipa totally failed to address WHY he should be excused from not forseeing the death of the “intruder”? Her only vague reason is because he was crying afterwards.

    This man shot FOUR TIMES into, basically, a box that contained a human being – and it is reasonable to assume anyone would forsee death being the outcome. It was her responsibility to explain why Oscar Pistorius did not forsee that.

    She tried to save herself, true….she added (the next day) that there should not be an automatic leap between should forsee and did forsee. Not really the point – she failed to address why Pistorius subjectively (in his particular case) did not forsee death occurring and she failed to understand that even if he did not mean to kill Reeva, how on earth this has any relevance I. Terms of his intentions towards the “intruder”.

    If you disagree, or don’t understand, then take it up with Prof James Grant.

    Reply

    1. Thanks but I don’t have the ear of Prof. Grant.

      Masipa did give her reasoning for why she came to the decision that Oscar subjectively did not foresee the likely results of his actions. Oscar said he didn’t and the State did not reprove that he did, the courts must allow for some subjective latitude in what an accused reasonably possibly had foreseen.

      The Judge stated in her ruling that there is and was no onus on the accused to prove his innocence the onus is 100% on the state to prove the accused guilt.

      Now if Oscar’s defense was that 2 intruders had come in the home and one held Oscar in the bedroom at gunpoint, whilst the other chased Reeva into the bathroom, shot her to death and then the two intruders fled, the state could have easily proven that Oscar’s scenario was not reasonably possibly true.

      Oscar’s version of that morning, his hearing a noise in the night and all that emanated from the first second that Oscar heard said noise, has been ruled to be, “reasonably possibly true.”

      Reply

      1. I don’t have his ear either….but I respect the opinion of experts and I I read what they have to say.

        When looking at the questions that need to be asked to support a finding of Eventualis she said:

        A) Did the accused subjectively see that it could be the deceased behind the toilet door?

        B) Not withstanding the foresight, did he then fire the shots, thereby reconciling himself to the possibility that it could be the deceased in the toilet?

        Both of these criteria are relevant to a finding of Directus, not to a finding of Eventualis.

        Doesn’t matter in the latter who the person was, just that it was a person. That she didn’t even attempt to address what his intentions were to the person that he testified to knowing was in the toilet shows immediately where the problem is. Surely you can see that?

        She seems to have assumed (as you are) that if he didn’t murder Reeva deliberately, then he didn’t murder anyone. What about the “intruder”? Or should we just accept it as fact that it can’t be murder because it was only an “intruder”?

        In order to accept his plea of putative private defence, she has to acknowledge some form of intent on his behalf. Any self defence claim relies on an acknowledgment of intent – she said that herself.

        To accept his PPD plea, but not accept that he shot intentionally is genuinely nonsensical.

        In putative private defence the most important word is “defence”. He acted to defend himself – he took an action in order to defend himself. In this case, he shot four times. How can you defend yourself unintentionally? Either he thought he had to protect himself and did so by shooting, or he did not.

        The only alternative to this is “accidental” – and she dismissed that. Along with insanity and automatism.

        So, what she should have done, to accept a PPD plea, is acknowledge his intention to shoot the intruder, acknowledge that he forsaw he would kill the intruder and that he reconciled himself to that….but that his intention was not unlawful, in view of the fact that he believed he was within his rights to shoot given that he truly believed his life was under threat.

        If she’d also found (although she didn’t) that any reasonable person might have made the same mistake and acted in the same way, he could have been acquitted of everything.

        The problem is, because she asked the wrong questions with regard to Eventualis, we don’t know what her reasoning is for not finding him guilty of murdering the intruder.

        Did he forsee that there was a person behind the door? (By his own testimony, yes)

        Did he shoot having reconciled himself with the high probability that the person would be killed? That’s the big question….yes or no?

        If it’s no (for whatever reason, including negligence) then it’s not guilty.

        If it’s yes, then it’s guilty of murder.

        I think, in the interests of justice, that her ruling should make it clear why she does not believe he shot through that door without knowing and reconciling himself to the fact he would kill whoever was there.

        I know what you will say….”but that’s what she meant. He thought it was an intruder, and reconciled himself to killing him becau he thought he was under threat”. Not good enough. This is a judgement handed down by the high court – and it missed out the most important part.

        And please stop going on about the onus being on the state. That is not up for debate, so I am not sure why it keeps coming up.

        You seem to be confusing burden of proof with evidential burden.

        The prosecution always carry the burden of proof and to achieve that they bear an evidential burden too. (Proof and evidence are not the same thing).

        There is an onus on them to produce evidence to prove the defendant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.

        A burden never shifts, but an onus can. In certain cases, there is an onus on the defendant to produce evidence to support his defence. One of these circumstances is self-defence…another might be insanity. It is still the obligation of the prosecution to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the defence cannot be accepted by the court, but the defence does have to produce some evidence to support the plea if they want the court to countenance it.

        So it is not true to simply say, Pistorius has no need to produce evidence of anything…if the state can’t disprove what he says, then the court will simply accept it. Not so. The defence he mounted was putative self-defence and this bears an evidential burden. This is why he took the stand….he had to. The court would not have accepted his plea of self-defence if he didn’t because there would have been no reason to.

      2. Hi Helen,

        From reading Sierra’s comment and reconsidering some of the things that Judge Masipa said would you agree with the following?

        1) Judge Masipa accepted that OP intended to shoot
        2) Judge Masipa concluded that OP in shooting did not intend to kill

        That’s the only way I can see that Judge Masipa could possibly have decided against Dolus Eventualis consistent with correct application of the law, (although she may have been wrong in concluding 2). If she had said 2) would that have been clear as to what her reasoning was (even if you didn’t agree with it).

        However it seems that others are saying she did not state 2) – that she erroneously concluded that if OP didn’t believe he was shooting at RS then … something. To me this part of her judgement was unclear and puzzling.

        I think we can all conclude that Judge Masipa’s argument against Dolus Eventualis was either unclear of wrong from what she said? Surely we wouldn’t have so many experts jumping up and down saying this doesn’t make sense etc.

      3. It is not true that Masipa gave no reason for the court finding that Oscar subjectively did not know and did not foresee that someone would be or would likely be killed if he fired his gun, yet he still acted with disregard to that knowledge when he fired his gun.

        Oscar believed “whoever” was behind the door was an intruder who was advancing toward him and Reeva, Oscar in his own words “Before I knew it I had fired 4 shots at the door.” Oscar also stated under cross examination that he never intended to kill anyone.

        There is really no reason for me to again quote directly the words of Masipa’s findings, but it is her finding that it was reasonably possible to be rule that Oscar did not intend to kill anyone even though objectively a reasonable person would know that the action of discharging a gun into a cubical would likely result in the the death or grave injury of anyone in the cubical.

        Masipa also mentioned something about a difference between “knowing” and “accepting or understanding” a truth. I don’t have time to go through the verdict right now so the knowing/accepting is just from my memory.

        Masipa does not accept that because he didn’t murder Reeva he didn’t murder anyone, she found that he did not murder anyone because the state did not prove that Oscar had the intent to kill “whoever” was behind the door when he pulled the trigger. Again she explained the courts test of “intent”. Masipa stated that the court must conclude that it is possibly reasonably true that Oscar erroneously believed that he was defending himself and Reeva against an intruder, Masipa is not then legally bound to conclude that Oscar’s intent could only have been to kill the intruder. It is not a logical inference to draw.

        Because Oscar shot intentionally does not mean he shot to kill (this again is where Masipa gave a lesson in the court’s evolving acceptance of subjective intent.)

        This case as all cases has come down to state of mind and intention.

        It is a finding of fact that Oscar did not shoot with the intent to kill or after reconciling himself to the high probability that a person would be killed.

        As to evidential burden, I covered that when I said that the judge based her decision partially do to Oscar’s testimony. I gave an example of a defense that Oscar could have presented that would easily have been disproven by the state. Everything I have posted has been clear so to try and muddy my words by insinuating that I do not know what I am talking about is a bit disingenuous or it shows a lack of comprehension of what I have written.

        I have and am willing to clarify anything that I state.

      4. Who shoots 4x without intent to kill? I dont know anyone for that matter that would shoot let alone 1x if not to kill someone? Subjective or objectively.high or low with a lethal weapon..Masipa accepted Oscar’s statement that “he did not intend to kill anyone for that matter “and the prosecutor failed to question Oscar about that…

      5. Thank you Sierra,

        so the court found that OP intended to shoot but that he didn’t intend to kill nor did he foresee (subjectively) he would kill the person behind the door when shooting. So from that finding, which is to within a reasonable doubt, the court had to clear OP of the murder charge.

        I now believe I understand the reason why the court cleared OP of murder and dolus eventualis.

      6. You are saying that because Gerrie Nel focused his whole case on OP’s intent to kill Reeva, he forgot to prove that OP’s intent was to shoot and kill the intruder? I think he did , as he questioned OP over and over again about it. OP stuck to his non-sensible answer that he “never intended to kill anyone for that matter”. Judge accepted this against all logic that no one ‘intends to shoot 4x if not to kill!

      7. Sorry but if the judgement has given the impression of “no onus” on the defense then that is a sign of the fact it is faulty.

        In self-defense, or putative self-defense, the defense has an ‘evidential burden’ to satisfy before they can even raise such a defense.

        If Oscar did not testify, the state of mind would be imputed to him to be the same as anyone reasonable in that situation, and he would be found guilty of murder.

        To escape the inference, he needs to supply evidence about his state of mind.

        The quality of that evidence was said to be ‘very poor’ in fact the judge even found he was lying about how he fired the shots, because she rejected his claim that the gun just went off. She found he had ‘concealed his intentions’. She also surely cannot have missed that his ‘perception’ that the door opening was not substantiated in any proper way, he said ‘wood noise’ and justified it as the magazine rack, even claimed the magazine rack was in a different place so as to allow that Reeva may have kicked it (as it was standing 80cm behind her, too far away to be disturbed).

        The prosecution provided an exhaustive forensic proof to show that is not the case. The judge did not even offer a single remark about it. Nothing.

        She just reverted to his bail affidavit, saying he heard a ‘movement’ in the cubicle. So that is more evidence of dishonesty.

        Her remark that “only he knows what was in his state of mind” drastically misunderstands how the burden of evidence works in self-defense plea. He has to tell her. If he fails, leaves her so confused that it is no defense, then the prosecution case is completed: The inference to “dolus” must be drawn.

        If he is so evasive she does not have a clue why he opened fire, then he has given up his right to use self-defense as an explanation for why he shot and killed a person.

        Now of course there may be grey areas, for example, how much stress was he under while testifying, was he covering up a crime, only a less serious one, but lying because of that, etc., does he have memory difficulties, and this kind of thing. She seems to have just let the matter remain ambiguous. She in fact ruled out all the factors which could get him off the hook. In the end, the judgement just leaves it as a mystery, something that never got analysed, or commented on…that’s the difficulty.

        It seems to imply you can kill a person and admit it, go to court, refuse to give straight answers, but so long as no one else was around to see you kill, then the maximum sentence is culpable homicide…since “no one else knows what was in your mind”. You can even lie, it really doesn’t matter what you say since “no one knows”.

        To escape murder conviction, kill in private, and admit it, but say it was a mistake, this seems to be the moral of the story.

  42. @Akpee

    I agree with you. Her “reasoning” throughout was….these witnesses are unreliable so I shall disregard their testimony. This witness (Pistorius) was unreliable,dishonest and evasive….but I am going to believe him anyway, even though his explanation overall is “peculiar”. And let’s face it, the poor lamb was sobbing afterwards so clearly he couldn’t have been intending to kill anyone”.

    Ludicrous. But hard to counter legally, I imagine, and it’s only on matters of law that the State could appeal.

    So, I only said “fine” because, as dumb and nonsensical as it clearly is. I suspect we have to let that go. Unfortunately.

    Reply

    1. I am no legal expert, but isn’t that legally wrong – using `remorse’ for the purpose of deciding guilt? I thought remorse can only be brought into play at the sentencing stage.

      Reply

      1. The fact that she even raised the “sobbing” issue proves to me that she didn’t understand the Eventualis criteria.

        Does she think he would have sobbed and pleaded with god over the dead body of an intruder?

        Seriously?

        If not, then how can she take it as evidence that he didn’t intend to kill the intruder just because he wasn’t crying?

        Her judgement looks more and more ridiculous by the minute.

  43. I’ve been looking back at the whole timings of the ear witnesses again.

    The following thing seems clear to me:

    1. Only Stipp’s hear the first bangs – and they directly time this around 3.02 am or earlier

    2. No other witnesses hear this – therefore contrary to the Judge’s rulings in fact no other witnesses confuse gunshots with cricket bats. This is a total red herring.

    3. The timing of Johnson’s call is hearsay – not exhibited from a primary source

    4. There is no way to relate whatever “clock” Johnson used for his phone to the “clock” used for security phone log / Exhibit Q

    5. In any case – the shots Johnson heard must have been at the same time as Stipp/Mike N heard shots.

    6. There is simply no evidence from any witness to support shots/bangs at 3.12

    7. Roux seems to have arrived at 3.12 by subtracting 4-5mins (per OP’s version) from the 3.17 times.

    As such the Judge has made the finding of based purely on an unsubstantiated contention from Roux.

    Amateur hour!!

    Reply

    1. James,
      To reply to your statements:

      1. Yes, Anitta Stipp’s clock read 3:02 when she started to get out of bed and heard the FIRST sounds (gunshots)

      2. Those FIRST shots were heard by Ms. Merwe , patrol guard , and Ms. Neghentwa heard the last bang of that series.

      3. Johnson call @ 3:16 was not contradicted, it was common cause.

      4. Nel did not argue this , so the judge must accept the phone data report.

      5. Burger/Johnson both heard the 2nd set of bangs(cricket bat) heard by the Stipp’s @ 3:17. As Mr. Johnson dropped the phone from his call to the wrong security, Burger/Johnson heard the bangs . They had heard yells for help right before that. Oscar called Stander @3:19 after having just banged down the toilet door.

      6. yes there is…Stipp called @3:15 and by that time he had heard the FIRST gunshots a few min. earlier approx 3:12 – 3:14..As he went back inside and attempt to call 10111 @3:17(no answer, because Neghenthwa was on with security then) as per phone record data and Ms. Stipp looked at her clock again which read 3:17, he heard the 2nd bangs which had to be the cricket bat striking the door.

      7. Another way we arrive that the first shots were @ about 3:12? Neghentwa had heard the last bang of that series and yells for Help a few min. prior to the call placed to security @ 3:16. He had gone around his house to see if he could ascertain what the bang and yells for help were coming from.

      As such, the Judge based her findings on the phone data that does NOT fail in it’s memory… that is what ‘tipped’ the case to the favor of the accused version of events that unfolded that night. It clearly corroborated his version in the exact sequence.. Nel did not contradict ANY of this timeline set forth in closing and it does put to rest the lingering questions about the 2 set of sounds the Stipp’s heard and why it was not consistent with what the Burgers heard, that had me confused and concerned during the entire trial waiting for Nel to do what he stated he would , to explain the discrepencies of his witnesses, but he never did. He knew that Roux got it right…and so did the judge.

      Reply

      1. It’s now quite clear why the Judge is incorrect.

        Mr & Mrs N are woken by the bangs pre 3.16 and call them in.

        They continue to hear OP shouting after their security call, and hear help help.

        They DO NOT hear any bangs at 3,17 despite being able to hear Oscar. They are right next door and they simply do not hear any more bags.

        This proves on the balance of probabilities there were no bangs at 3.17.

        Johnson is much further away, and his “clock” is not based on the same security phone record.

        However the N’s and Stipps corroborate each other that there are no bangs after 3.16 [security log time]

    2. How do you explain Dr. Stipp’s activities taking the best part of 15 minutes. He went onto the balcony within ‘moments’, and then after that he was ‘getting dressed’ while looking for a phone to ring. Being a doctor, hearing what he thought were shots, and then cries/screams, I can’t imagine he would have wasted much time to be on the phone.

      The longer the time, the harder it becomes to explain why reeva did not call more clear vocabulary out of window, or why Oscar did not think to shut the windows and switch the lights of, or why neither Stipp saw any violence happening.

      To then go ahead and actually shoot blind through the door after all that time, lights on, windows open, cries heard for miles around, all that obvious evidence, is pretty strange to fathom.

      He would have to be a very rubbish criminal indeed if so. Most of us have more instincts about being seen or overheard doing bad things, in general? It seems inconsistent with his resourcefulness in general.

      Isn’t it perhaps just that Mrs. Stipp fell back to sleep and the time on the clock is a complete red herring? Bearing in mind it is not corroborated evidence.

      Reply

      1. @ DJ

        No disrespect but you seem to have no experience of Domestic Violence

        “To then go ahead and actually shoot blind through the door after all that time, lights on, windows open, cries heard for miles around, all that obvious evidence, is pretty strange to fathom. He would have to be a very rubbish criminal indeed if so.”

        In fact this is what routinely happens with domestic violence.

        The abuser escalates from stand over behaviours to violence which cannot be covered up.

        We had an abuser in our apartment block – he kicked off every weekend. 15 mins is nothing in context as it is hard to tell what is going on, and make a decision as to whether it has gone so far that it is time to call the police.

        Screaming is fairly common, as is sounds of stuff getting broken up.

        There are also gaps of a few mins or even a hour when nothing can be heard – only for it to kick off again.

        We called the Police fairly religiously if things continued beyond about 15-20mins.

        Personally I find the judges decision to change the Stipp’s time as quite arbitrary.

        First they have to wake up and discuss what they heard, in bed. They listen to see if it continues. Sound is not continous so they have to wait.

        Then they spend time trying to see what is happening.

        Then they have to decide whether to call the police.

        For the first time, this tends to be a big decision because you don’t want to get people you know in trouble for no reason.

        For us – the breaking point tended to be the sound of stuff being smashed up – as the screaming and shouting can go on for hours. But once you hear actual violence you tend to act.

        There is really no evidence that 15mins was too long for the Stipps to fail to call security – its simply reading an urgency into their actions which is diametrically opposed to what they said they actually did.

        Poor quality analysis.

      2. @James. ‘There is really no evidence that 15mins was too long for the Stipps to fail to call security – its simply reading an urgency into their actions which is diametrically opposed to what they said they actually did.’

        It is not diametrically opposed. Dr. Stipp said the whole process was very rapid. Not just going onto the balcony. But everything. Mrs. Stipp indicates she lingered on the balcony for some amount of time. She also indicates she looked at her clock.

        You talk as though their testmonies were identical when they clearly were not!

        We’re not talking about people’s expectations for what kind of murder it was.

        We’re talking about what kind of murder it was based on the evidence in this particular case, including the fact that it is Oscar Pistorius that shot. It is not the ‘guy in your apartment block’ that is on trial.

        I think you have the wrong kind of criminal in mind.

        There are many lines of forensics to indicate it was not Reeva. The image is such a powerful one however that it is oblivious to being shifted. Not only that but the £40,000 or so that Oscar spent on lawyers and forensics team before his bail hearing occurred together with his knowledge from day one that Stipp heard both bangs still failed to lead him to provide an answer to the screams in his bail.

        Something of an oversight for an extremely determined, rich, successful, meticulous individual characterised as a “tailoring witness”, facing a full life sentence.

        I wonder whether the bloke in your apartment block would be a “tailoring witness” or just a dumb witness.

      3. @DJ

        Then explain the stoved in bath panel

        Hardly the action of a clever criminal is it.

        These kind of killings are never planned – they are escalations driven by uncontrolled anger.

        In the end the Stipp’s provided a reference point based on a clock observation. The judge shortens this by 10mins on an arbitrary basis.

      4. Not all murders are the result of escalating abuse. For every personality trait and interpersonal dynamic going, there is a type of murderer to match it.

        The fact it is a male that shot a female does not automatically make it into an abusive relationship.

        It’s complex, and specific to those two, what happened. Reeva was quite a forthright person in her own right.

        He’s emotionally unstable, and in my view, could equally well have shot a man.

      5. P.S. Sorry, linguistic malfunction above.

        Not ‘oblivious’ to being shifted. Impervious to being shifted. Oops. lol
        :))

      6. Just a general comment: Forensics is particularly important and carries a higher weight to witnesses due to human error? And in general, have to consider all the witnesses in one go, as a whole.

        A lot of forensics supports the defence timeline?

        – phone calls
        – “fading away” cries
        – bat fracture through D
        – decibel tests

        And in terms of witnesses, there are say 8 important ones, 4 of whom disagree with the state case, and 2 of whom at 180m say they heard the bangs after neighbours 15m from the bathroom windows already called security and heard “no, please, please, no”.

        “Help help help” lines up for Johnson and Nhlengethwa
        mrs Van der Merwe heard his voice like a woman
        Stipps waking on shots explains why only 3 bangs heard
        No one heard bangs after the second lot despite a very large crack through D.

        No sightings of a domestic situation in bathroom by Stipps

        Why do we move Johnson earlier, make Nhlengethwa house search shorter, but at the same time, rely totally on Annette’s observation of the time (in bed, fluish, just before a massively stressful thing unexpectedly happened in the middle of the night).

        There is no evidence to suggest Annette is a perfect observer of events!

      7. P.S. Immediately above: Sorry, it is not that the other 4 disagree with the state case, it is more specific, i’m talking only about the state timeline, and it is rather that their observations provide contradictory evidence of various types to that.

        I agree with the state case but not the timeline.

      8. @DJ

        The mistake is thinking there is anything remarkable about this case.

        Unfortunately we end up arguing about finer detail of a completely implausible story when we know without question that OP fabricated large parts of it.

        Which is of course why the timeline cannot be fitter correctly even under Roux’s version 😉

      9. DJ – cross posting this for you.

        Are you discussing the case elsewhere? This comment thread is no longer practical I think!

        Hi J13

        I now had a chance to review your timeline etc in detail by going through the various posts and I just wanted to record here that I believe you are correct.

        Roux hoodwinked the Court with 2 tricks.

        First the timing of the Johnson call is hearsay. Roux is relying on Johnson’s own notes of his iphone log – but these are clearly not the primary source of this information. In NZ this “evidence” would not be admissible as proof of what time it was.

        Furthermore, there is no evidence to reconcile the security phone clock with Johnson’s iPhone clock. The security phone log is internally consistent but we cannot know how the iphone relates to it. I am stunned that there is no discussion on this matter – even to indicate how the Court produced this timeline. If there are in fact comprehensive call logs from the networks for every call – why was this not mentioned by anyone?

        Second – there simply is no evidence that there were 4 bat sounds mistaken for 4 gunshots.

        This comes only from OPs completely unreliable testimony and is a absurd piece of coincidence.

        Forensics indicate only 2 bat marks on the door.

        Therefore we can make the following conclusions about the hidden timeline.

        1. Mike N reliably sets the timing for the shooting in the minutes before 3.16. This is corroborated by Stipp.

        2. No gunshots or mistaken shots occur after 3.15 [security log time]

        3. After 3,16 – only OP is heard crying. Reeva is dead by the time the Mr & Mrs N are awake.

        4. What Johnson hears must be the same gunshots that woke Mrs N and were heard by Stipp. The exact timing of his clock does not matter as there objectively are no further sounds to hear.

        5. The gunshots silence the screams – multiple witnesses.

        6. The Stipps hear a commotion and what they believed were gunshots at 3.02. From the state of the bathroom there was clearly plenty for them to hear. They observed the light on. Stipp reports 3 bangs (not 4!) A key point is that their timing by the clock of 3.17 (but 3-4 mins fast) actually fits with the security log and with Mike N. I believe this means that the “3.17” bangs per Stipp Radio Clock actually occur at 3.14ish per Security log clock.

        This leads one to wonder if the security log clock is actually 2-3 mins slow compared to real time?

        So this is the timeline we are left

        Before 3am the couple are arguing downstairs. Heard by van der Merwe. A classic Domestic Violence scene develops. At some point Reeva locks herself in the toilet.

        From 3.02 OP is smashing up the bathroom. Especially the bath access panel and the tiles.

        Critically Stipp’s hear and see this.

        They are the only ones who mistake these noises for shots.

        As the shouting (testimony OP) and screaming continue more witnesses wake up and also confirm 2 voices.

        Reeva is shot at most 2-3 mins prior to Mike N / Dr Stipp getting thru to Baba from 3.15.51-3.16

        All witnesses hear the screams silenced by the shots. No further sounds will be heard. Only Johnsons’s iphone clock disagrees as to what time this happens.

        Laughably, pistorious will claim that the screams were actually him, silencing himself, with a cricket bat.

        And with that – I am ending my Pistorious case addiction!!

      10. OK James – just noticed your “cross post” message – feel free to tag on to one of the conversations on YouTube, user “Daniel King”, and we can chat there. Alternatively – PM. I discuss quite a lot of the trial evidence and legal issues there, so for example, on one of the ‘judgement’ feeds, if you wish to chat more. Cheers.

    3. James, Mr. N does not hear the 2nd sounds of cricket bat..because during that time frame, he is still on the phone to security as per phone log.3:16:36 for 44 seconds. The 2nd sounds occurred at about 3:17 as per Johnson’s and Stipp’s evidence. Johnson’s did not hear the first set of sounds, they were asleep, woken by the ‘female’ screams just after the actual gunshots took place.

      Reply

  44. Another absurdity.

    Stipp recounts that he was unable to get thru to security at his first attempts, including the call to 10111

    He then hears the 2nd bangs.

    It is agreed by all he then got thru to security at 3:15:51 for 16s and reports the shots. He doesn’t hear any shots after this.

    So how can Johnson then be hearing the cricket bats at 3.17 according to the Judge?

    Yet the judge says this.

    “At 03:15:51 Dr Stipp made a call to security and then at 03:17 he
    attempted to call 10111.”

    So this makes no sense at all as it would seem to imply Stipp heard 3 sets of bangs!

    “Dr. Stipp went back inside and called Silverwood security. There was no answer. So then he called 10111 (not sure what this is), got a fast ringing. While he was trying to figure out who to call next, he heard another 3 loud bangs. He thought that these also sounded like gunshots. He told his wife to get away from the window, fearing for her safety. He eventually got through to the security.”

    Reply

  45. Further on this

    “At the time the second sounds were heard Dr Stipp was on the
    phone trying to call 10111.”

    This does not seem to be supported from Stipps testimony

    It must be the case there are call exhibits we don’t know about?

    Reply

    1. @ James

      Any ideas why Nel couldnt/wouldnt put a timeline to Masipa?
      Ill say I think yours points set out above are interesting and correct and cant imagine why the state never went into more detail about the timeline.

      Reply

      1. @ crackzn

        Presumably because the “timeline” is a wholly artificial construct based only on OP’s unlikely version

        We know much of what he said was complete nonsense.

        And on the natural view of the evidence there was commotion and a woman screaming from 3am, who was silenced by gunshots.

        We can’t know exactly what OP did when.

        I am sure Nel is simply gobsmacked at Masipa’s approach.

      2. It’s because an scenario you try to suggest to make it all fit together runs into difficulties and there is too much evidence to the contrary.

        For example, there is a significant fracture through bullet hole D. This is consistent with a heavy bat strike to door after the shots. i.e. At least one very heavy bat strike occurred after gunshots. That supports Oscar’s version that the bats came after the shots, more than any other hypothesis.

        Other hypotheses are clearly more complicated. viz. There were bat strikes to the door, however, this specific fracture was not made. Then later on the gunshots happened. Then, Oscar somehow struck the door again (but this was not heard) and a large fracture ran down the panel and through a bullet hole, creating the misleading impression that his bat strikes came after the shots simply by chance. Oscar got incredibly lucky to make a fracture which supported his false claim that the shots came after the bats.

        That would have to be Nel’s argument here. It’s not a good one.

        If he made that argument, then how can he possibly point to the blood pattern on the duvet and carpet and maintain it is ‘objective proof’ the duvet was on the floor, rather than, say, two sets of blood dots which lined up in a rough area by chance.

        To make the late shots work, Nel has to start saying improbable things, in fact, his case ends up even more improbable than Oscar’s as a result. Because there are stronger forensic proofs against it.

        If Oscar’s guilt depended on refuting nel’s timeline with objective proofs, Oscar would be in a prison right now, since it would have passed the “beyond reasonable doubt” threshold… 🙂

      3. It is a sign of Nel’s ethics that he did no argue the point more in closing arguments by the way. He was aware it probably is not true that the late shots came last, but he did not feel he could proceed to cast doubt on the defence timeline in any serious way by “making things up”. He acted with conscience and it unfortunately cost him since the defence did not reciprocate and casted as much doubt as they possibly could on the police work and Oscar’s state of mind!

      4. Just to add – start of trial, Nel definitely believed the late shots. But as his witnesses were cross-examined, and then he cross-examined Pistorius, and further into the trial, especially with the evidence of Lin, he realised there were problems. Nel’s mistake was to be lulled by Roux into showing his hand prematurely and contesting a sequence of events which would prove to go in defence favour. It would have taken a brave prosecutor to turn around at the end and concede that evidence with the TV cameras there but make an impassioned speech nonetheless. He would have had to talk about the media, and all kinds of deep and complicated themes in order to salvage the case at such a late stage.

        He said 3:17 (or at any rate ‘late shots’) – went ‘all in’ on the 3-4 ear witnesses saying screams – and committed for good then. Roux let him expend all his energies in the intervening time quibbling with experts in a variety of fields, and then produced a pair of Aces at the end: schultz + timeline. Neither of which Nel contested.

        He got rope-a-doped by Roux.

      5. @DJ

        “He got rope-a-doped by Roux.”

        Nah.

        This was always the dynamic because the prosecution has to go first. Nel made it more difficult by refusing to present a timeline in opening. Also by adding the premeditated aspect at Bail, OP was forced to play a large number of cards early which caused huge plausibility with his testimony later – e.g. going on the balcony.

        Nel was aware that whatever timeline was produced by the evidence, OP would reverse engineer exact actions to fit.

        For example OP screams both before and after the shooting – because this was potentially necessary to counter the Stipp’s evidence. However on the Judges version – no one actually hears this BEFORE screaming – LMAO!!

        It’s easy to criticise Nel for failing to produce a timeline but of course had he done so – it would have given Roux even more opportunities.

        Nel sensibly stayed around the heart of the case which is the 2-3 mins before the shooting.

        Given OP’s testimony was wholly unreliable and he clearly lied on multiple occasions, a competant court ought to have found there was therefore, no evidence upon which a mistake could be based.

        Sadly we had a judge with vastly inferior qualifications to Roux and Nel who doesn’t even sense the significance of OP abandoning his pleaded defence halfway thu the trial.

      6. @James.

        “This was always the dynamic because the prosecution has to go first. Nel made it more difficult by refusing to present a timeline in opening. Also by adding the premeditated aspect at Bail, OP was forced to play a large number of cards early which caused huge plausibility with his testimony later – e.g. going on the balcony.”

        I completely agree with that. It is part of the reason the story is … elaborate. I think most of the potential evidence that concerned Pistorius did not surface. But he wasn’t to know at the time. Personally I think he showed his motive in the bail affidavit.

        I always thought that was a funny way to phrase a motive btw. It sounds terribly polite, as in: “Reeva and I had an argument about who’s turn it was to wash the dishes. So i shot her.” It could have done with being developed into something a bit more dynamic.

        “Nel was aware that whatever timeline was produced by the evidence, OP would reverse engineer exact actions to fit.”

        That sounds like a bit of a cop-out to me!! Nel might keep it a secret during the trial and try to catch Oscar out with it, but at the end, it should be revealed. It is absolutely the norm. for any circumstantial evidence case to talk the judge or jury through what the investigators believe to have occurred – basically, why they believe it happened, how the crime went, what the individual did after, how they then sought to deceive. I can’t think of any distinguishing characteristics about this trial which would lead to a different expectation on Nel here!

        “It’s easy to criticise Nel for failing to produce a timeline but of course had he done so – it would have given Roux even more opportunities.”

        Easy – and right! lol.

        If it’s beyond doubt, doesn’t matter what defense comes up with – everything is dealt with already!

        I heard many reasons why no timeline: Nel didn’t wish to speculate, or it’s a circumstantial case, or he thought it was so clear Oscar was lying that it didn’t matter, or right of reply is prevented.. But these are all just excuses IMO. And none is terribly impressive conclusion to the matter.

        There could be a much more huge reason why … 😉

      7. @DJ

        “Easy – and right! lol.

        If it’s beyond doubt, doesn’t matter what defense comes up with – everything is dealt with already!”

        Well it is a fair comment – but criminal prosecutions are a semantic rather than mathematical exercise.

        The kind of heavy weight High Court / Court of Appeal judges I grew up reading would take an entirely different view of the evidence in my view.

        The starting point is what defence has OP actually presented?

        He argued Self Defence which failed.

        His evidence of a mistake was simply not credible, relying as it did on clearly falsified testimony (fans, duvet etc).

        I would argue that the natural approach is to start there and work out.

        There was no credible evidence presented of a mistake. Once that is accepted, then there is further corroboration that shows there is indeed no mistake.

        Now of course Roux managed to convince the court to instead approach the evidence the other way round.

        I feel this is something of an OJ result – but such results frequently happen in murder trials.

        But we cannot expect Nel to prove the impossible.

        Only OP knows the real timeline – and he refused to tell the Court what happened that night.

        Sadly the Court accepted he was lying – yet found him not guilty.

        So no I do not criticise Nel because he pursued the best strategy available to him

        When Court’s accept completely bogus testimony and changing of defence in the middle of the trial – its an uphill job.

        When you’ve read 1000s of cases – you come to read between the lines

        Masipa does not deal with the hard evidence because she already decided what the “right verdict” was going to be.

        I fail to see how Nel arguing timeline would change her attitude when you see her bending the law on Dolus and Possession.

        Let’s be realistic.

      8. @James#2!

        The 2-3 mins before shots. Nel suggested a last minute idea of meal and “loud voice” indicating they could have been downstairs. Sounds pretty sensible to me. Problem is the stumps then fails.

        Nel showed some problems with Oscar’s version in terms of it being improbable and changing a bit, in the general bed area. Yet, the problem is, Janet Henzen du Toit has a psychology degree so may have remarked that PTSD can lead to partially retrieved memories surfacing as one talks through the events, more details appearing as time goes on, with a listless quality not dissimilar to Oscar’s speaking style. Of course, the three psychiatrists, equipped with more analytical techniques, did not diagnose Oscar with such a condition.

        But when nearly your entire case depends on testing the accused ability to narrate and recall, I think a very hard fight is needed to eliminate these psychiatric/psychological sources of doubt.

        Also, the majority of witnesses were proven to be forgetful or unreliable, sometimes wildly so e.g. Fresco and Taylor, compared.

        I am really surprised anyone agreed to have ‘vulnerability’ investigated btw. How would that ever have lead to a ‘diminished criminal capacity’ finding? Nah, Roux just wanted to dodge the psychiatrists as their methods are cold and clinical. Whereas a psychologist is trained to let the patient to the talking.

        As soon as one bubble in the carpet was squashed (GAD), another one appeared (PTSD and ‘abnormal fears’). Second time round Gerrie let it go…

      9. @DJ

        Although narrative is quite important in a jury trial, my impression having read many 1000s of commercial Judge only trials is that skilled advocates tend to focus very tightly around the legal issues that are in play.

        The defence wants to get down in the weeds.

        It does not help the prosecution to do so.

        There is an air of unreality to all this in my view.

        On the one hand one may say “why does Nel not argue timeline” but the broadbrushes of the evidence are powerful.

        Nel showed that OP fabricated key testimony.

        So as a general rule, his testimony should not be believed.

        The timeline does not show there was a mistake of identity one way or the other.

        Screaming women and arterial bleeds on the other hand – show the accused is lying.

        This judge was not convinced – such is life.

      10. @James.
        “Nel showed that OP fabricated key testimony.”

        Regarding the shots? Agreed. It was a forest of inconsistencies. A “plethora” of defenses. My biggest criticism of the ruling is that actions and behaviors after shooting lead to weakening of the evidential burden for the affirmative defense, so that the judge accepted lies and evasions about firing as a reasonable defense to the murder charge. This is foolhardy.

        The ballistics was at the heart of this case and she failed to engage with most of the prosecution evidence and arguments about that. Posture reconstruction. Firing posture. The “door opening” and “magazine rack” testimonies and forensics. That is quite unacceptable. If she would argue each of the points and explain the reasoning for leaving them aside, all well and good. This would however lead to absurdities in the event that either the “honest perception” was accepted or that “foresight he might kill” was not imputed.

        I think it’s called brushing issues under the carpet due to a mystical belief in a person’s innocence. For Henzen du Toit, it is probably a combination of psychiatric and police doubts (she is a defense advocate and the police case would have exercised her considerably). For Masipa, however, I suspect rather more of a romantic and / or religious and fundamentally quite sentimental view Pistorius is the problem here. And the other guy – LOL – he’s only just out of law school. He’ll be keeping his head down anyway! 😉

        The problem with the “mosaic” view is it can on occasion produce a false positive.

        Female screams:
        http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gettier_problem

      11. @James#2. See above, also: I think the panel picked the correct option on the timeline, although appreciate this is a matter for debate.

        My impression is this: Around the correct answer, there is going to be a natural slotting together of evidence like solving a Rubik’s cube where all 6 faces are right and this only happens when the shots are early! It came in advance of learning quite a lot of the other evidence but was then onwards predictive of other evidence, to some extent, and also it makes perfect sense out of OP’s priorities and Roux’s strategies. It has not been necessary to update the theory.

        OK, Mrs. Nhlengethwa did not hear the second set of bangs, nor her husband. But Dr. Stipp did not hear “blood-curdling” screams during 2-3 bangs. It’s a draw. People sometimes don’t hear things. Alternatively, the lack of hearing means a thing did not happen, and cannot be explained as “focusing on other things”. It could simply be the two houses which heard those bangs are south/SW facing.

        Alternatively, and most controversially, Oscar asked Mike not to mention them – he got wind of the fact the state might not know which set of bangs was which [Oscar knew that the very first morning i imagine, from Oldwage, via Stander, via Stipp]. It would slow down the investigation if there was this confusion from the outset.

        I don’t imagine Oscar expected to be perceived as a woman, but it must be a fairly common occurrence that his “cries” are high-pitched since how else did Mr. van der Merwe recognize his voice while his wife to this day remarks “sounded more like a woman to me”? Did you notice how Nel sort of tried to act casual when she said that and pretend like she hadn’t – lol.

        How did Mr. Van der Merwe know. Are they well acquainted? Was he Oscar’s counsellor and had heard him crying many times. It seems unlikely. Seems like Oscar is a bit of a drama queen tbh probably had got into hysterics on other occasions when things went badly so perhaps Mr van der Merwe remembered hearing those kinds of cries from his house previously. Otherwise, like his wife, he might have thought it was a woman.

        I’m quite prepared to believe there is more ambiguity between the cries or screams that guys and girls of different emotional make-ups would make, and some areas of greyness. It is as Nel admitted, a common sense argument, but as Lin commented, may not reflect scientific reality.

        I also question why Burger went back to sleep and Stipp did not mention to the paramedics to take extra care, etc, if people were already so deeply concerned and / or sure of their interpretations. As the drama unfolded there were so many rumours and images which would have stoked the idea of the woman screaming that it is hard to believe people, being people, would not have been affected by that. People are very susceptible to outside influences.

        The bloodied cricket bat and so on.

        The things I rate as evidence she screamed are, well clearly that she was shot(!), and fell backwards (involuntary screaming trigger), & also the order of the injuries. Plus, Oscar tailoring screams around the first bangs when he ran into his “she did not scream/my ears were ringing” contradiction. He then promptly supplied screams – having instead provided an articulate shout about the police in his bail. He then got very confused.

        I also think it’s a bit OTT him screaming after shots, at least in the manner which Mrs. Nhlengethwa demonstrated it – so for a man that might have heard Reeva scream as he shot, but not known how far that could carry, or who might have been awake, he may then scream a few times just to muddle it up a bit.

        So in general i believe Reeva screamed. Well, even if he did not hear it, due to the ear ringing, he might have considered she would have! Difficult to adjudge the significance of his tailoring in the case where the evidence against him is false. It could be like extracting a false confession from a man that is scared (though i don’t think that is the case).

        Hence Gettier problem – and more – with this case. 🙂

      12. Hey Juror13 – I POSTED A DUPLICATE BELOW: PLEASE DELETE – REPLIED TO WRONG POST – CHEERS 🙂

        @James#3. Last one. About the media & other impacts:

        I’m sure Mrs. Burger and Mr. Johnson interpreted it as a woman from the word go. Mrs. Burger thought it was the man calling “helps” that had been shot as she & her husband heard the scream fade away for a couple of seconds after the “shots”. She chatted to her friends and Johnson made his notes. I do think they live too far away to distinguish reliably what they heard, as they could have been hearing the same cries as Mrs. Van der Merwe.

        I am puzzled they didn’t ring police after the actual “shots” though.

        I’m wary about that addition of the “pause” and the fixity of the 4 shots – rather than 4-5 – due to a visit from 2 unidentified policemen to their house. Regular police (unless well-disciplined lol) think in terms of making the bad guy look bad – lol – and have been known to ask leading questions to susceptible witnesses.

        I think it’s clear Mrs. Burger was a susceptible witness due to the awkward dynamic in reporting the helps between herself and her husband. It’s like he found a compromise to accommodate her perceptions. He said “1 female” then “2 or 3″ male. Well this could in fact be just plain THREE helps. Same as everyone else. Mrs. Burger is unique in that she heard SIX helps all in a row, three from the woman, and three from the man. That’s a bit troubling to me.

        If it is the case all of this was after the shots, and those helps is none other than the three male helps, then she has basically completely fantasized that detail! She’s human after all. But in my view susceptible. And Masipa is correct, it is significant when a witness says with certainty something they cannot be certain of, for example, sleeping through the shots – saying that would be impossible is strange. Mike did! :).

        In general the evidence seemed folksy to me e.g. mentioning the wild animals that could be heard at night, or hearing her brother beat a door, being a musician (well, it’s not her job, so i’m guessing it’s more of a hobby?) so having a clearer memory of pauses, and this kind of thing. She also fell back on an emotive style of rhetoric “petrified, petrified” – similar to how Stander said “please..please…please…come help me.” Rhetoric tells me these people may be too invested in their messages. That’s fine, but repeating the word you want to say does not make it more reliable!

        The role the media might have played is in giving Burger visual pictures of the events in the house to match to the cries she heard. So rather than reporting only precisely what she heard, it becomes more than that: What she heard, plus, what she thinks happened. The bloodied cricket bat being used to beat the woman before killing her, for example. And now she cannot get the idea out of her mind or something. Instead of falling back to sleep like she did after the actual shots happened, it scares her to think about it in the shower. it scares many people in fairness. And so this is the image of Oscar Pistorius, the demon blade-runner, the guy that bludgeons girls with cricket bats before killing them, for kicks. but as we know from Saayman’s evidence, no bludgeonings occurred. Only in the movies on this occasion. Not in that house.

        She then has a problem: Why did the MAN makes some cries for help while he was doing all this stuff. An evil act of mimicry, mocking Reeva’s terror. Well that is all well and good but if it was the same “helps” everyone else heard with no woman beforehand, perhaps 1 higher-pitched cry, then what purpose does it serve exactly in this court case, other than to show how easy it is to create misrepresentations of reality and falsely incriminate people?

        With Dr. Stipp i had different impression entirely as to what exactly he had heard, one of genuine uncertainty which exists to this day, but that’s another story!!

      13. @James#4.

        Falsely incriminate as in : incriminate based on incorrect evidence.

        Whether innocent or guilty, he can still be falsely incriminated.

        I find false evidence more disturbing than guilty people getting off.

      14. @James#5.

        It’s a major headache for the judge when both sides appear to being talking nonsense – this is the “difficult terrain” that Masipa is referring to.

        It’s true if the late shots + screams would be knocked away, there’s still the question of mistaken identity, but the case is FAR more difficult to prove then. At least, based on the court evidence, it would be.

        I suppose Masipa believes that there is a third option, not the case which Nel gave her, and not exactly what Oscar told her either, but it would be too speculative to go into the matter so deeply at this late stage therefore has to rule in line, more or less, with oscar’s version.

        I know the reasoning is crap for culpable homicide but it’s just on the line between indefensible and merely weak. 4 bullets is too many. And he wasn’t candid. So the onus broke down too. But then again, how to measure the possible impacts on him from false evidence being brought? Maybe this is the source of the weirdly lenient ruling. It has all worked out for him if so.

        What happens to the onus in that case lol. Plus PTSD. “normal” human unreliability. possibly “lying to cover a more minor offense”. It gets murky.

        I’ve no doubt Oscar is thanking God for Mrs. Burger but from Masipa’s perspective she probably thinks the screams evidence shows Oscar may have been wronged. I hope Burger and Johnson do not worry themselves about reprisals as he would be more likely to send them a crate of champagne IMO.

        The working out thing, getting lucky, and generally receiving more sympathy than regular bloke off the street would – it’s all true – but who are we kidding? He comes form an immensely privileged position to start with. Just how it goes.

        Perhaps the sentencing hearing will instil a bit of accountability though at this point in time i’m predicting sentence of X years (to keep the masses at bay) followed by a Medical Parole sooner rather than later to receive therapy.

        Jacqui Selebi was sentenced to 15 years but out in 18 months on a medical parole, out of all the 10,000s of sick inmates, bit of a coincidence how he was one of those granted one, eh. Nel will be used to the outcome. he should stop prosecuting high profile cases if he wants long prison sentences? 😉

      15. @James. Last one.
        Sorry, didn’t mean the ref about “champagne” in poor taste above. It was more that witnesses might be nervous they testified against someone famous, but not realize that person might actually have been relieved when the evidence surfaced (provided they could clear it in the end, it would help their case). Exactly like O.J.: The “bad” policeman helped him to get off. Happens in almost celebrity trial unfortunately.

      16. @DJ

        It seems we certainly agree re the tailoring of the screams.

        It was necessary for OP to add screams

        1. Before the shooting
        2. After the shooting for 5mins
        3. While breaking down the door.

        So implausible.

        But assuming you are right about that – how does Roux’s timeline work?

        Reeva is dead. So who is screaming for the next 5mins?

        And anyway – if he shot her at 3.12 – he doesn’t need 5mins to break in – he can do that straight away.

        If he shot her at 3.12 – why does he then smash the bath cover?

        I don’t believe the original timeline can be determined because there are inherent contradictions.

        I still lean towards the following conclusions

        1. Only Stipps hear the first sounds – these are around 3am – and include the damage to the bath, tiles etc.

        2. Death is at 3.15 approx

        IMO johnson’s timing cannot be relied upon as his clock is not reconciled to the security log.

      17. @DJ

        So to advance our discussion you appear to accept that logically Reeva was screaming – so I presume you believe that OP did in fact murder Reeva (surely the only rational explanation for her dead body being found full of bullets) .

        So it follows therefore that Roux’s timeline is also false in key respects.

        So the question is – how do you see the underlying timeline actually working?

        In my view the following points seem clear – at least on balance of probabilities.

        1. There is a large amount of damage in the bathroom

        2. Even accepting bats 2nd at 3.17, all the bathroom damage cannot have happened at 3.17 because people did not hear it

        3. So this needed to happen prior to 3.12

        4. Therefore there were loud sounds to hear prior to 3.12 and probably 3.10 (See OP’s fake testimony on the build up).

        5. Reeva had been awake at 3am and prior – specifically allowed for in OPs testimony and confirmed by forensics

        6. OP was also not asleep – see duvet, wake up of phone for data connection etc

        7. The alarm was not on / bedroom door not locked (see forensics).

        8. OP was likely on stumps for shooting and breaking door (see forensics)

        9. As there was no “search for reeva” there likely was no 5 min gap to breaking down the door

        10. Breaking of door was 2 mins or less: see
        – Testimony mistake (confirmation) of couple of mins
        – Testimony: saw showing signs of life

        In my view, OP knew about the similar intruder shooting scenario.

        In my view he probably threatened Reeva with that.

        On any view he had time to contemplate the shooting. IMO insights to this are contained in his testimony. Possibly he first shot in a moment where he lacked control. The next 3 shots are aimed at the noise as Reeva fell on the magazine rack and probably to silence her.

        In my view she was shot because she would have reported his assault that night to police. He trapped her in the toilet – the clue to this is in his own testimony where he projects her being trapped on to himself.

        It was necessary for Reeva to be dead before medical assistance arrived. He waited to make sure this was the case.

        The call to Stander is critical to establish his version – this shows planning.

        I’d be interested in how you see it fitting together

        In my view it is highly likely Stipps heard a genuine fight sometime after 3am.

      18. hey James – i’ll post replies next week. I’m very busy with work at the mo.

        But the main argument is that the ‘screams’ would have been more like ‘cries’ and too far away to really make a meaningful difference on the language, and in fact, no different to what Mrs. Van der Merwe heard.

        It’s the houses that heard the bats that came to believe in the terrified screams. Also those which did not have prior knowledge of Oscar’s voice or were too far away to hear fragments of his words.

        So a big mistake.

        Reeva could have screamed during the first bangs and this went unheard outside the property due to people being asleep and also due to the toilet cubicle.

        The rest being Oscar in a very overworked emotional state, since he now has a fair amount of explaining to do lol and his “plans” regards renewing his Nike + Oakley contracts might not be looking so great as a result of his ill-advised decision to shoot.

        5 minutes isn’t so long: Without needing to look for Reeva, he would still need to come up with a recovery plan, right?

      19. Yes, Gerrie Nel did not go near the timeline in detail of the Stipp’s evidence because it would destroy the ‘female’ screams being that of the deceased…why did he not clearly ask Dr. Stipp , when you got thru to security at 3:15:51 for 16sec had you heard BOTH set of sounds ?? never did…because @3:17 the phone log indicated that Dr. Stipp’s phone attempted to call 10111 and that is when they both heard the 2nd set of sounds…which had to be the cricket bat.

    2. James…

      Dr. Stipp clearly got his sequence of calls wrong… they did not match the phone data records and Baba’s security records. He got thru to security on his FIRST try @3:15:51….he reported the first gunshots and the screams…then @3:17 he attempted to call 10111 that is when they heard the 2nd set of bangs which had to be the cricket bat. We cannot verify this since we dont have the phone records but the judge , roux and nel does…so we cant argue about that…I tried many times to review the Stipp’s testimony and frankly Nel failed miserably with their evidence. Typically when a witness recounts what they recall, the counsel interupts them to read the time of the phone call as per the phone log record…Roux did it iduring cross but as he got to the 3:17 call ,the video was cut off or intterupted with commercials..Roux also confused Stipp with the 3:27 call to security he made from Oscar’s house…

      Reply

      1. But we do know that op was a terrible witness, that he tailored his evidence, that he had memory loss when it suited him, and argued when his memory suddenly returned. We do know that 4 credible, unbiased witnesses woke up to a woman screaming blood curdling sscreams, Whatever the exact time was is irrelevant – who makes a ppoint of making a note about the exact time at 3 a.m when you hear the petrified screams of a women followed by gun shots. Hello??
        Suddenly the witness’s are on trial – and the actual evidence at the crime scene is irrelevant.
        Get with the program Rita. Imagine someone you were close to, or a daughter of yours, was a victim of a shooting – what matters – the time of the screams, gunshots, phone calls ……or the evidence???

  46. What Judge Masipa said is that the “ear witness” testimony was not hard evidence but rather subjective evidence. She said the distance from which the “screams” and “bangs” were heard, media influence, the natural inconsistent flawed nature of eye witnesses and earwitnesses, and the hard data evidence which was inconsistent with the earwitness testimony meant that the ear witness testimony could not legally be viewed as viable evidence.

    The prosecution’s, subjective witness testimony, must withstand a higher level of legal scrutiny than the testimony of the accused.

    Evidence in a criminal case must always be viewed in a light most favorable to the accused.

    I don’t have the specific word’s that Masipa spoke in her decision, but it is criminal law that the burden to prove that the accused is guilty sits squarely on the back of the prosecutor. It was not up to Oscar (or the defense) to prove that he was innocent. It was prudent of Oscar and his defense team to offer a reasonably possibly true lawful scenario as to why Oscar shot Reeva to death. Judge Masipa accepted that Oscar’s version was reasonably possibly true and the state did not disprove Oscar’s defense.

    Reply

    1. Hallo Sierra,
      I read some of your comments & would like to get back to this:

      ‘Subjective foresight like any other factual issue may be proved by inference to constitute proof beyond a reasonable doubt. the inference must be the only one that can be reasonably drawn,
      IT CANNOT BE SO DRAWN IF THERE IS A REASONABLE POSSIBILITY THAT SUBJECTIVELY THE ACCUSED DID NOT FORESEE EVEN IF HE OUGHT TO HAVE REASONABLY DONE SO, AND EVEN IF HE PROBABLY DID DO SO.’

      If I get it right (I hope so) –
      what the state should have done then:
      – proofing that OP knew the effects of the ammonitions he used?
      – proof that OP has an understanding of physics & geometry = room-sizes and surfaces in combination with possible trajectories?
      – basically the intelligence to take all of it in account

      So If state had proofed that OP had all the capacity to have the foresight of the effect of that 4 shots with Black Talon slugs in groupung at waist-height at a human being in a small tiled room – Masipa would have decided on Dolus eventualis?

      One question to me is – there is a known gun-enthusiast, who has a very good knowledge what his ammonition does to soft tissue (‘Zombie-stopper’) & also a paralympian wt lots of goldmedals – who would be able to handle distances & dimensions (sports needs a good feel fpr body & room) .
      DOES STATE THEN REALLY NEED TO PROOF THAT BEYOND REASONABLE DOUBT & BECAUSE STATE DIDN’T DO THAT SHE HAD TO AQUITT HIM? (emphasis, not shouting! 🙂

      And – this seems a direkt contradiction to me:

      the inference (of foresight)…. cannot be so drawn if there is a reasonable possibility … the accused did not foresee – even if he ought… and even if HE PROBABLY DID DO SO.’

      I CAN’T infer (from gun-enthisiast/zombiestopper/body-intelligence) the accused had the foresight EVEN IF HE DID?

      Is it a reasonably possibility that OP COULD NOT FORESEE what will happen???

      Sounds to me like State failed to proof the pope is catholic.

      Imho Masipa really got it wrong – we’ll never know why. As I can’t picture her as corruptible my assumption is, she was overchallenged with that case and in the try of being especially cautious (OPs status & role in SA, the publicity) she lost it.

      If she just slaps OP, there will be an appeal, without any doubt.
      And factual reason will be found in Masipas verdict.
      (not just mho)

      Greets, Alfred

      Reply

    2. SierraDrawn: especially when the judge said ” the timeline of events has tipped the scale in favor of the accused version”. Nel failed miserably to prove that the ‘female’ screams heard by so many was Reeva…I must admit that for Roux that was a ‘perry mason’ moment in the courtroom.

      Reply

  47. @J13

    In light of the judges timeline – do you have a link to good quality detailed timeline based on gunshots 2nd?

    If detailed call logs were exhibited for everyone (which we don’t have apart from oblique references to exhibit Q) – that might change things?

    Also – I am now wondering if if it possible that Stipps heard sounds at 3.02 than no one else heard?

    i.e. a third set of sounds.

    There is evidence of damage in the bathroom that doesn’t match the 3.17 bangs.

    For instance – when was the bath cover broken in?

    Reply

    2. The one thing Masipa said that I agreed with is how unlikely it would be if the Stipp’s, who are obviously responsible people, would wait 13 minutes to try and call someone after hearing a woman’s terrified, terrified screams.

      And, listening to the testimonyof them both, it does not seem like they waited that long….a few minutes at most.

      I think Mrs Stipp misread her clock when she woke up. Dr Stipp never looked at the clock at all, so no corroboration from him.

      If he heard the shots just before his call at 3.15:51, then they must have been at 3.14/15. If Mrs Stipp looked at her clock again when she heard the 2nd bangs, and read it right at 3.17 – then that also places the time of the shots at 3.14, given that the clock is always about 3mins fast.

      If Mrs/Mr N heard shots at 3.14, got up, quickly checked the house then called security at 3.16, then that fits too.

      Only the Stipp’s heard the first set of bangs – no one else. I think this was OP smashing up the bathroom with the bat. No one else heard that because it wasn’t anything like as loud as the later gunshots.

      JMO.

      Reply

      1. Perhaps A. Stipp misread her clock that read 3:12 instead of 3:02? Helen , you are mistaken, Merwe, Neghentwa and patrol guard heard the FIRST sounds according to the Judges timeline, and Berger/Johnson heard the screams and then the cricket bat, they are the only one who did not hear the first gunshots @ approx 3:12. Their evidence starts after those first shots ….It does get confusing doesnt it??

      2. Remember that the Stipp’s first have to wake up and listen in bed and look out the window and then they try two different vantage points to see what is going on and then Dr Stipp has to make the call

        There is no basis to decide that when Mrs Stipp sees 3.02 on the clock it really must have been some other time.

        The safest conclusion is that she was awake at 3.02

        personally I don’t find it odd at all that it would take 13mins to ring security.

        First they have to figure out what was going on and where the sounds are coming from.

        And as per their testimony – the sounds started to get much worse.

      3. @HelenUK says:

        The glaring problem in my view is that according to the judge Mr and Mrs N, the next door neighbours, hear the first sounds and all the screaming of Oscar, call security etc and then Oscar is still screaming.

        Johnson then hears the 3.17 cricket bats from very far away.

        According to Judge Stipp also hears this while trying to dial 10111

        So why do neither Mr and Mrs N hear the cricket bats even though they are right next door?

        Surely they are the best witnesses?

        Indeed the next best witness who is Dr Stipp actually corroborates Mr and Mrs N that there are no bangs after 3.15

        Johnson has a lot to answer for!

        But he was the furthest away.

        So why base all the timings off him?

        The fact that Mr and Mrs N do not hear the cricket bat makes a mockery of the Judges timeline.

      4. If we were to be so literal about time points then Mrs Van der Merwe and the patrol guards both said they heard rifle shots “around 3”. They didn’t say “around quarter past 3”. So if anything you would have to assume they heard the first bangs as this is far more in line with Mrs Stipp’s observation of a digital clock.

        It appals me the degree to which witness evidence must be used in an ‘ad hoc’ selective fashion in order to make things fit around a certain model of events, even when forensics indicate facts to the contrary!

        1. Fracture through D = bats after shots more probable
        2. Phone call times = Johnson awake same time as Nhlengethwas more probable
        3. Screams fading away = due to Oscar, cannot be Reeva
        4. Decibel tests = extremely remote chance it was Reeva fully locked into a cubicle

        One even has to ignore the observation that his voice ‘sounded like a woman’.

        It is a bit like building a case based on 4 out of 8 bystanders, including 2 of the most distantly located ones who according to their records arrived after the crime occurred. But we simply disregard their records, and also the other 4 witnesses who said differently, and make that the basis of the case?

        Even when no less than four solid scientific arguments is advanced to the contrary as above.

        This case deftly illustrates a logical fallacy that just because someone lies everything people would say to the contrary of them is true.

  48. Just for clarity regarding OP`s actions on the night. I put the following question to Chris Greenland and three other lawyers:-

    If OP was correct in that a burglar HAD come in and Reeva was in bed, where does the law stand on OP shooting him dead after he made a noise

    The answer was simple and unanimous, he is guilty of murder: Reason being there was no direct threat to him. He simply had no right to respond with lethal force.

    Judge Masipa, for the sake of ALL of us, cannot excuse OP for what he thought. You really need to stop and think for a minute about the implications of that and where it could and no doubt will lead.

    Add to that his proficiency test results on gun law
    A love of guns that run in the family
    his neglect on the night
    He didn’t call for help when it was ready and available
    He didn’t make sure it wasn’t Reeva
    Went towards the danger….

    I could go on but cant see how Masipa could miss how irresponsible this guy is, and give him benefit of doubt over anything.

    For all those who think the judgment is correct, name me ONE thing that OP did right before shoting

    Reply

    1. Basic things that keep rolling around in my head are:

      1. His passing his gun licensing exam, which, I believe, addressed this very situation
      2. His foreknowledge of the vicious lethality of Black Talon/Ranger ammunition
      3. His foreknowledge that any shots fired would ricochet
      4. His foreknowledge of the very small size of his toilet cubicle
      5. and, given 1 through 4, above, shot four times

      Reply

  49. It is absolutely ridiculous that Judge Masipa, a supposedly educated person with years of experience as a high court judge, was unable to give a clear reasoning to her decisions as regards Dolus Eventualis.

    It is absolutely ridiculous that everyone is wasting their time pondering and questioning exactly what her argument was, what she meant, and whether or not she is incompetent in the interpretation and application of the law.

    Reply

      1. Of course, I’m so angry about all this that I’ll probably keep trying to make sense of it, anyway.

        lol :o(

    2. Lulu, there are so many things that don’t make sense about this case, I was not expecting Judge Masipa to further muddy the waters with her own muddled judgement.

      I have a strong feeling that what we have seen with Judge Masipa is the application of an unwritten law. An unwritten law that allows white celebrity sportsmen to murder black intruders. And allowing white celebrity sportsmen to murder their girlfriends and daughters using the excuse that they thought they were only murdering some black intruder.

      Reply

  50. When dealing with dolus eventualis Judge Masipa gets it wrong as she only considers whether OP intended to kill Reeva and does not consider whether OP intended to kill the person behind the door:

    “I now deal with dolus eventualis or legal intent. The question is:
    1. Did the accused subjectively foresee that it could be the deceased behind the toilet door and 2. Notwithstanding the foresight did he then fire the shots, thereby reconciling himself to the possibility that it could be the deceased in the toilet.

    The evidence before this court does not support the state’s contention that this could be a case of dolus eventualis. On the contrary the evidence shows that from the onset the accused believed that, at the time he fired shots into the toilet door, the deceased was in the bedroom while the intruders were in the toilet. This belief was communicated to a number of people shortly after the incident. …

    … The question is: Did the accused foresee the possibility of the resultant death, yet persisted in his deed reckless whether death ensued or not? In the circumstances of this case the answer has to be no. How could the accused reasonably have foreseen that the shots he fired would kill the deceased? Clearly he did not subjectively foresee this as a possibility that he would kill the person behind the door, let alone the deceased, as he thought she was in the bedroom at the time.“

    No where in here is the question asked “did the accused subjectively foresee that he would kill the erroneous intruder behind the door”. All her focus is arguing that OP thought Reeva was in the bedroom and not behind the door. This is why experts say Judge Masipa was incompetent in dealing with this. She did not even ask the question did OP intend to dolus directus kill the “intruder” behind the door.

    Reply

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