As always I respectfully disagree.
However, minds are seldom changed in these discussions, but I am sure that he thought he was shooting at an intruder, and whatever term you choose, murder, homicide, self defence is up to the individual.
Well no - "whatever term you choose" is up to legislation and to the way that legislation is enforced. Otherwise it would be a mad free-for-all, where anything could be categorisable as "self-defence" or even "accident".
And I'm not sure you understand the conviction either. In fact, the conviction is agnostic on who Pistorius thought he was shooting at. The murder conviction comes because regardless of who Pistorius genuinely did think he was shooting at, he a) was not acting in self-defence as the law defines it, b) deliberately aimed and fired the shots through the closed door, knowing there to be a human on the other side of the door, and c) had to have known that his deliberate act was likely to have caused the death or very serious injury of whoever was behind that door.
It's on that last point that Masipa made such a dreadful error in law in her original erroneous verdict - one which the SC (and now the CC) corrected. And Masipa is bound by law to apply the appropriate sentence for a murder conviction of this nature - so I think you're also wrong to imply that she might somehow impose a lenient sentence.
Personally, I think (and I believe the SC and CC probably think) that the only rational narrative that fits all the available evidence (and lack of evidence) is that Pistorius knowingly fired at Steenkamp that night - and that the "intruder" story is a) incompatible with the totality of the evidence, and b) a hasty concoction by Pistorius to try to justify his actions. But it's critical to understand that this case was NEVER about determining whether or not Pistorius knew it was Steenkamp behind the door - and thus the state never even needed to set out to prove that in any way. The point is that Pistorius knew - by his own admission - that there was a human behind that door, in a very small toilet room whose layout and dimensions Pistorius knew very well. Pistorius therefore had to have known that when he raised, aimed and fired his powerful handgun through the door, the military ammunition (which he knew the gun was loaded with) would almost certainly hit whoever was behind the door, with a high possibility of a fatal outcome. And regardless of whether Pistorius truly believed it was Steenkamp or an intruder behind that door, Pistorius cannot have been in imminent mortal danger at that point. He himself admitted that the door never opened - that he reacted simply to "a noise" from within the toilet. And by definition (since in fact it was Steenkamp behind the door), Pistorius cannot have heard any vocal threats from a mythical intruder, nor can he even have had any reason to believe that the person behind the door was armed.
So I very very strongly believe that the murder conviction against Pistorius was justified and appropriate. I hope that he will serve his punishment quietly and diligently, and that he'll make efforts to rehabilitate himself and reform himself. In this instance, I also happen to think that there's a strong "public protection" element to his inevitable long incarceration - I think he genuinely would pose a significant threat were he to remain within the community without any punishment, reform or rehabilitation.
All very sad. And all very disquieting, by the way, to read the "sceptics" here making rabid comments along the lines of "I hope he rots" and so on. Shame.
