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Oscar Pistorius shoots girlfriend - Part 2

katy_did said:
Ok, well we just disagree on the sentence I guess. It's a tough one. I'd argue that what Rudie Visagie did, for example, is worse than what Pistorius did - he was under no possible threat at the time, and mostly seem concerned with his car being stolen. The facts accepted by the court surrounding Pistorius' case (I know you don't agree with them, but they were still the basis on which he was sentenced) at least allow for the probability he felt scared and threatened himself, as most people would be if they thought a burglar was in the house.

Still, I don't know that Visagie should've been charged, given the tragedy that he lost his daughter. There could be an argument that you give people very harsh sentences for these sorts of crimes as a deterrent. Personally I think the stronger argument is for tighter gun control, as there's always a likelihood that scared, irrational people are going to do stupid things with guns.

Pistorius' sentence seems more or less in line with the sentence for similar crimes; I don't necessarily disagree with you that the sentence given for such crimes in general should be harsher (shocked but not surprised to discover that charges seem to be rarely brought for this type of crime in the States, for example).
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Fair enough. And thank you for your civil reponses to my somewhat heated posts. It's my birthday and I've just finished a bottle of very good Shiraz.
 
lionking said:
Fair enough. And thank you for your civil reponses to my somewhat heated posts. It's my birthday and I've just finished a bottle of very good Shiraz.
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No problem, and thanks to you too for the discussion.

Happy birthday!! Hope it was as good as the Shiraz. :)
 
katy_did said:
Just to add, I know you're making a strong distinction between murder and manslaughter here, but the truth is the distinction in this particular case is very fine. Even the fact Pistorius was initially found guilty of manslaughter shows that.

I don't agree that Pistorius should be given 25 years where people who've done substantially similar get suspended sentences, regardless of whether a court determined it to be murder or manslaughter. Whether people who've done what he did should in general get longer sentences is of course another question.

The judge obviously has discretion to give a lower sentence if she feels it's warranted, so saying "it's murder so he should've got a longer sentence" doesn't make sense to me.
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I wholly and vehemently disagree that there was a "very fine distinction" in this case between murder and culpable homicide. I believe Masipa erred grossly in her evaluation of the evidence and application of the law when she found erroneously for the latter manslaughter-equivalent verdict. And the SA SC was pretty emphatic in the manner in which it slapped down Masipa's incompetence in its annulment of her verdict and its substitution of a murder verdict.

As you rightly say, there is (and so there should be) a certain amount of leeway for sentencing judges to take extraordinary mitigating (or aggravating) factors into account, in order to allow for sentences lower (or higher) than the guidelines. But to suggest that a crime which carries a MINIMUM tariff of 15 years' imprisonment can be mitigated down to 6 years' imprisonment (which, even if one adds in time served, amounts to less than HALF the MINIMUM sentence) is patently and arrantly absurd.

I feel extremely confident that a) the prosecution will appeal the sentence, and b) the SC will once again reverse the incompetent (or worse perhaps? Her repeated craven bending of the law in Pistorius' favour cannot but raise questions about probity and corruption, I'm afraid....) Masipa. And as others have said, using the "mitigation" that Pistorius' life is ruined etc etc is manifestly ridiculous: most convicted murderers generally find that de facto their life as they knew it prior to the murder has been ruined. It simply cannot have any significant material impact upon any lowering of the sentence. I can see that Pistorius' physical condition might be a mitigating factor, as might the sheer scale of his fall in the public spotlight (to a very small extent of mitigation) and his statements of remorse (albeit from behind a facade of claimed innocence), but IMO there are also significant aggravating factors including his actions immediately after the murder, his proven history of rage/control/jealousy towards women, his proven criminally irresponsible misuse of very powerful firearms (for which, let's not forget, he was criminally convicted), and his hour-long TV special interview coinciding with his apparent psychological inability to appear before the court for cross examination at sentencing.

Another important factor is that you are failing to distinguish or discriminate between those found guilty of culpable homicide in SA and those found guilty of murder in SA. The judicial fact is that Pistorius stands convicted of murder, not culpable homicide. And this, all by itself, renders comparisons with the likes of your other examples entirely moot. Furthermore, it would appear that the reason why others were (correctly) convicted of manslaughter-level crimes - rather than murder - was that the courts could not be sure whether or not these people were justified in firing their guns etc. While there was reasonable cause to believe that these people genuinely could have felt themselves in imminent mortal danger, there could never be a murder conviction. But the Pistorius case is different. The court (the SC, not the incompetent Masipa) ruled correctly that even by Pistorius' own account, and with regard to the physical evidence, it's perfectly clear that Pistorius cannot and should not have considered himself or anyone else in imminent mortal danger from someone behind a locked door - someone who by definition cannot have been verbally or physically threatening to Pistorius in any way whatsoever (since in fact it was Steenkamp behind that door.....).

I'm somewhat dismayed to read the stance you've taken on this matter. I think you're massively wrong. Time will perhaps tell, I suppose..........
 
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LondonJohn said:
I wholly and vehemently disagree that there was a "very fine distinction" in this case between murder and culpable homicide. I believe Masipa erred grossly in her evaluation of the evidence and application of the law when she found erroneously for the latter manslaughter-equivalent verdict. And the SA SC was pretty emphatic in the manner in which it slapped down Masipa's incompetence in its annulment of her verdict and its substitution of a murder verdict.

As you rightly say, there is (and so there should be) a certain amount of leeway for sentencing judges to take extraordinary mitigating (or aggravating) factors into account, in order to allow for sentences lower (or higher) than the guidelines. But to suggest that a crime which carries a MINIMUM tariff of 15 years' imprisonment can be mitigated down to 6 years' imprisonment (which, even if one adds in time served, amounts to less than HALF the MINIMUM sentence) is patently and arrantly absurd.

I feel extremely confident that a) the prosecution will appeal the sentence, and b) the SC will once again reverse the incompetent (or worse perhaps? Her repeated craven bending of the law in Pistorius' favour cannot but raise questions about probity and corruption, I'm afraid....) Masipa. And as others have said, using the "mitigation" that Pistorius' life is ruined etc etc is manifestly ridiculous: most convicted murderers generally find that de facto their life as they knew it prior to the murder has been ruined. It simply cannot have any significant material impact upon any lowering of the sentence. I can see that Pistorius' physical condition might be a mitigating factor, as might the sheer scale of his fall in the public spotlight (to a very small extent of mitigation) and his statements of remorse (albeit from behind a facade of claimed innocence), but IMO there are also significant aggravating factors including his actions immediately after the murder, his proven history of rage/control/jealousy towards women, his proven criminally irresponsible misuse of very powerful firearms (for which, let's not forget, he was criminally convicted), and his hour-long TV special interview coinciding with his apparent psychological inability to appear before the court for cross examination at sentencing.

Another important factor is that you are failing to distinguish or discriminate between those found guilty of culpable homicide in SA and those found guilty of murder in SA. The judicial fact is that Pistorius stands convicted of murder, not culpable homicide. And this, all by itself, renders comparisons with the likes of your other examples entirely moot. Furthermore, it would appear that the reason why others were (correctly) convicted of manslaughter-level crimes - rather than murder - was that the courts could not be sure whether or not these people were justified in firing their guns etc. While there was reasonable cause to believe that these people genuinely could have felt themselves in imminent mortal danger, there could never be a murder conviction. But the Pistorius case is different. The court (the SC, not the incompetent Masipa) ruled correctly that even by Pistorius' own account, and with regard to the physical evidence, it's perfectly clear that Pistorius cannot and should not have considered himself or anyone else in imminent mortal danger from someone behind a locked door - someone who by definition cannot have been verbally or physically threatening to Pistorius in any way whatsoever (since in fact it was Steenkamp behind that door.....).

I'm somewhat dismayed to read the stance you've taken on this matter. I think you're massively wrong. Time will perhaps tell, I suppose..........
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Murder covers a pretty broad range of circumstances. For example, Rudi Visagie, the rugby player who killed his daughter, would pretty clearly have been found guilty of murder had he gone to court - he shot at someone he thought was stealing his car, when he was under no threat whatsoever. Yet if he had actually been found guilty of murder, I wouldn't have been at all unhappy had he received a suspended sentence, because of the magnitude of his personal loss. So the murder conviction in itself doesn't, I think, lead inevitably to a fifteen year sentence.

On your comment that "Pistorius cannot and should not have considered himself or anyone else in imminent mortal danger from someone behind a locked door", firstly, that's not very logical given that Reeva was the other side of the door and clearly in imminent mortal danger from him. But that aside, how fearful he felt is a matter of degree; there's no suggestion that he wasn't fearful at all, as anyone would be in the situation the court accepted he found himself. His genuine belief that he thought there was an intruder in the house and that he was under threat from that intruder, albeit not imminent threat, is clearly a very significant mitigating factor.

Only two of the cases I mentioned resulted in manslaughter convictions, incidentally; charges were dropped against the other two, presumably on compassionate grounds. However it's hard to see how a court could've been unsure about whether Tony Martin was justified in shooting, given that he shot the burglar in the back as he was running away.

Anyway, overall I think fifteen years would've been too harsh, given that this is someone who genuinely believed that there was an intruder in his house, as the court found. I think you have to set aside your own belief that this isn't true, and really put yourself in Pistorius' position that night to look at this with objectivity. That means considering his disability and the additional vulnerability he faces as a result, as well as the defences he's developed to cope with that. It means imagining how it would have felt to stand outside that door in the dark, believing there was an armed intruder inside, and knowing you can't even quickly run downstairs. It means imagining the shock and grief at discovering the person you shot wasn't a burglar at all, but your girlfriend.

What you can't do is look at this with the belief that Pistorius meant to kill Reeva but got away with it, and let your opinion on his sentence be swayed by that.

Don't know about an appeal. I suspect there won't be one, but as this case is seemingly never ending who can really say?
 
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lionking said:
There will be an appeal.

And London John is 100% correct in his analysis.
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Only thing I've found so far is that the prosecution said before the sentence that they'd appeal if he got less than eight years (slightly surprising in that it suggests they'd have been relatively satisfied with eight). I dare say we'll hear soon enough, anyway.
 
A question was posed to me. Why , if feeling threatened during an argument, did Reeva not run downstairs and out of the house? The issue is relevant, because a bathroom is no solution in this case.
On the other hand a bathroom is exactly the place to urinate, as Reeva had done within the very recent past.
 
Samson said:
A question was posed to me. Why , if feeling threatened during an argument, did Reeva not run downstairs and out of the house? The issue is relevant, because a bathroom is no solution in this case.
On the other hand a bathroom is exactly the place to urinate, as Reeva had done within the very recent past.
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With lockable doors they can also provide for easy refuge.
 
Matthew Best said:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-36855498

South African prosecutors say they will take court action in order to secure a longer prison sentence for Olympic athlete Oscar Pistorius.
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As I understand it, the threshold of prosecution grounds for appeal on sentence are if the sentence is "shockingly lenient". Some SA defence lawyers and academics have, IIRC, argued that Masipa's sentence, incredibly low (in comparison with the regular sentencing guidelines for murder) as it is, still might not qualify as "shockingly lenient". On that basis, they were suggesting that prosecutors might not even apply for leave to appeal.

It seems that the prosecution authorities themselves think otherwise - that this ought to be considered as a case of "shockingly lenient" sentencing. Obviously not knowing SA law or precedent fully, I have little idea as to the possibility of success of their appeal, but intuitively a 6 year sentence for murder - in comparison with a regular MINIMUM of 15 years, and only 1 year more than Pistorius originally received for culpable homicide - seems to amply meet the criteria.

I wonder if one element of the prosecution appeal will be to question Masipa's judgement in specific respect of her comparative sentences for Pistorius - comparing the 5-year sentence she gave him for culpable homicide with the 6-year sentence she gave him for murder. Surely, the argument would go, all the alleged mitigating factors upon which Masipa based her culpable homicide sentence were the same or extremely similar to those upon which she based her murder sentence. In that context, the side-by-side comparison of 5 years for CH and 6 years for murder looks egregiously wrong. If there were sufficient mitigating factors to lower his murder sentence so hugely, then why did Masipa not apply the same reasoning to set his original CH sentence at something like 6 months to a year? Or, conversely, if Masipa applied a certain level of mitigation in reaching a CH sentence of 5 years, then logic suggests that, applying the same level of mitigation (and there's no reason to believe that mitigating factors changed at all) she should have arrived at a murder sentence of an awful lot longer than 6 years.
 
What's the process for sacking judges in SA? Masipa has proven to be hopelessly incompetent.
 
Samson said:
I am satisfied that Reeva had a snack after midnight. This is an irrefutable fact from stomach contents. In the context of the whole evening and testimony, what does this mean? I don't see the answer as obvious, but certainly helpful to figure accident or malice.
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Nothing. The odds that the only other occupant of your home happens to be using the bathroom vs a criminal deciding to commit a bathroom invasion are astronomical. The celebrity might as well shot the victim several times in bed under the blanket because he knew she was in the bathroom at the time, and thought a random violent predator had decided to take a nap.

It was murder.
 
Scordatura said:
Here's the sentencing appeal document:

https://shakedowntitle.files.wordpress.com/2016/07/npa-sentencing-appeal-documents-july-21-2016.pdf

It claims the court (Masipa) gave too much weight to mitigating factors and failed to take into account several more aggravating factors. It also addresses each point where the court "misdirected itself." It's a compelling argument.
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I read an article that Mapisa has to agree to the appeal proceeding. Surely this isn't correct.
 
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