Are you a member over on DS. And if so, did you contribute to our Pistorius trial threads over there? @Nazzie
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You are not an employment lawyer. No lawyer of any stripe would be making the mistakes in analysis that you are. Don’t embarrass yourself.
I don’t care whether you believe in a different scenario - it is simply neither here nor there.
By his own admission, Pistorius believed that there was a human being in his tiny toilet cubicle and he fired four times straight at them. He offered absolutely no credible justification for doing so & continually lied on the witness stand (which even St. Masipa acknowledged). The appeal court found that he possessed the legal intention of killing that person & they even alluded to the possibility that they considered him to have a direct intent - that he specifically wanted whoever the person in the toilet was, or whoever he believed them to be, dead.
This is murder. End of story.
Asking whether the verdict would have been different if there actually had been an intruder is extremely stupid & pointless. There wasn’t. But you should be aware that shooting an unseen, unheard person who had done and said absolutely nothing to threaten you, who was hiding behind a locked door & wasn’t even given the chance to surrender is murder. Certainly the public would have been more understanding & certainly his version would not have been tainted with the absurd implausibilities and downright lies that it actually was so yes, the outcome may have been different. But justice would have failed had he not been convicted of murder because that is what he did, no matter who the actual deceased person was.
So what if you lock the bathroom door? Do you think that’s significant? If Reeva did lock it, it wasn’t until after her armed, screaming boyfriend started heading down the passage towards her. I’d lock it too, under those circumstances. Clearly, if she’d gone in for a piss the she hadn’t initially locked it, had she. So who cares what you’d do?
More pertinently, if you heard a noise in the night would you head off to confront an “armed, drugged, possibly previous offender” without saying a word to the awake person in the bed next to you but screaming so loudly people in the next block could hear? Because that’s what scared people do - they make so much noise that they make it impossible to hear what the object of their fear is doing and where he/she is. They are also dead keen to let the “intruder” know exactly where they themselves are so that anyone who fancies shooting them knows precisely where to aim the gun.
Do you realise fhat if there actually had been an armed intruder in that toilet, Pistorius would have been murdered? It would have been suicidal to do what he claimed to have done...neither he nor Reeva would have survived. No one would do that. No one.
It’s also worth noting that in the moments before a woman was murdered, four neighbours all heard a terrified woman screaming. Think about that. A woman was heard “out of her mind with terror” moments before a woman was murdered.
And you believe that what they actually heard was her male murderer managing to sound exactly like she would have done had she been locked in a toilet about to be shot...which, actually, she was.
You find this plausible - and expect me to think you‘re a lawyer? Please.
Her parents have remained so dignified in public over it all. I’m not sure I could to be honest
her parents are incredible, and it’s testament to them that Reeva was so well thought of and by all accounts was a lovely person.
They got payments from Pistorius which they accepted
www.theguardian.com
Reeva Steenkamp’s parents received payments from Pistorius, court told
Steenkamps have promised to return ‘every cent’ of money sent by the man who killed their daughter, prosecutor Gerrie Nel says
www.theguardian.com
and your point...?They got payments from Pistorius which they accepted
Reeva Steenkamp’s parents received payments from Pistorius, court told
Steenkamps have promised to return ‘every cent’ of money sent by the man who killed their daughter, prosecutor Gerrie Nel says
Classic narcissist behaviour... Of course it has to be about him.
I really don't want to argue with you, but part of this isn't correct - the screaming heard by the neighbours was proven to have been after the gunshots, so it is likely to have been Pistorius screaming, not Reeva.
Also, we have know way of knowing that "if Reeva did lock [the toilet door], it wasn't until after her armed, screaming boyfriend started heading down the passage towards her." Unless you were there, you have no possible way to know when or why the door was locked. Yes, if she was scared of him and running to hide, your scenario makes perfect sense and of course I am not saying you are wrong, BUT, some people just routinely lock the door when peeing/pooping. Some people routinely take their phones in to the room with them for a poop. Nothing to do with fear, just habit. IMO, You can't make the locking of the door into evidence that she was scared of Pistorius at that point.
Clearly he intentionally killed whoever was behind that door. What I don't think we can say for 100% certain is whether or not he knew Reeva was the person behind the door, all you can say is that you believe it to be the case. Either way, I think justice was eventually served in that he got the right conviction and a lengthy sentence.
Also I'm a bit scared of some of the aggression in this thread so please be gentle with me when disagreeing!
I think I know what kind of degree I have and what it says on my business card.
By the way: there is also a thread about the JD libel case. Libel is when makes false statements about someone else.
Why do you ask “who locks the bathroom door“ when then it then “doesn’t matter”?
You also got more facts wrong:
- He always said he shouted in the bedroom, not the bathroom to not give his position away.
- Some witnesses described the screaming as coming from a man, after the gun shots. The evidence is inconsistent
- You contradict yourself by saying the gunshots would always be deadly and then stating Oscar would have been killed himself
I no longer want to engage with you - I find this tone to be too aggressive, too, and I have complaint about it.
You are completely right about some people routinely locking the door and taking phones. Proves nothing.I really don't want to argue with you, but part of this isn't correct - the screaming heard by the neighbours was proven to have been after the gunshots, so it is likely to have been Pistorius screaming, not Reeva.
Also, we have know way of knowing that "if Reeva did lock [the toilet door], it wasn't until after her armed, screaming boyfriend started heading down the passage towards her." Unless you were there, you have no possible way to know when or why the door was locked. Yes, if she was scared of him and running to hide, your scenario makes perfect sense and of course I am not saying you are wrong, BUT, some people just routinely lock the door when peeing/pooping. Some people routinely take their phones in to the room with them for a poop. Nothing to do with fear, just habit. IMO, You can't make the locking of the door into evidence that she was scared of Pistorius at that point.
Clearly he intentionally killed whoever was behind that door. What I don't think we can say for 100% certain is whether or not he knew Reeva was the person behind the door, all you can say is that you believe it to be the case. Either way, I think justice was eventually served in that he got the right conviction and a lengthy sentence.
Also I'm a bit scared of some of the aggression in this thread so please be gentle with me when disagreeing!
I also agree that nobody can say for certain what he believed or what was on his mind when he shot. Not even the two courts could do that.
I still believe he wouldn’t have got this sentence if it would have been an intrude. In SA people are not being treated equally.
I dont understand why some people want so badly that everyone believes that they had an argument and she hid from him and he shot. Can they not see the different perspectives?
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So... What are his chances of running for President when his time is up like ?
I agree with all this and what I was saying too not all of it was implausibleI really don't want to argue with you, but part of this isn't correct - the screaming heard by the neighbours was proven to have been after the gunshots, so it is likely to have been Pistorius screaming, not Reeva.
Also, we have know way of knowing that "if Reeva did lock [the toilet door], it wasn't until after her armed, screaming boyfriend started heading down the passage towards her." Unless you were there, you have no possible way to know when or why the door was locked. Yes, if she was scared of him and running to hide, your scenario makes perfect sense and of course I am not saying you are wrong, BUT, some people just routinely lock the door when peeing/pooping. Some people routinely take their phones in to the room with them for a poop. Nothing to do with fear, just habit. IMO, You can't make the locking of the door into evidence that she was scared of Pistorius at that point.
Clearly he intentionally killed whoever was behind that door. What I don't think we can say for 100% certain is whether or not he knew Reeva was the person behind the door, all you can say is that you believe it to be the case. Either way, I think justice was eventually served in that he got the right conviction and a lengthy sentence.
Also I'm a bit scared of some of the aggression in this thread so please be gentle with me when disagreeing!
The way I interpreted his defence was that he heard 2 noises - window opening and a door closing/being locked
For me, his version of events does not make sense. It doesn’t hold up to logic. The main reasons why are:
- he was clearly an abuser, their previous text exchanges had showed that
- he slept with the door open, he can’t be that scared of intruders
- who doesn’t check where their partner is to make sure they’re safe if they think an intruder is
- when he was shouting at her to call the police why didn’t she say she was in the bathroom?
- she was stood in front of the door, facing the door - likely they were having a conversation
- he shot 4 times, in exact places to do the most damage and was an excellent shot
- why would you shoot someone who is no immediate threat to you? The person was in the bathroom regardless, behind a locked door.
He hasn’t offered up another solution so the only logical one IMO is that they were arguing and he wanted to hurt her.
I can see why people want to consider it from all angles, it’s an interesting case. But I don’t see why people want to so believe he didn’t do it - he’s clearly an arrogant, narcissistic individual and that can be seen from things long before this occurred.
Yes, I think it made sense what you said also.
I really don’t want to re-iterate this, all of this has now been debated at length.
I especially don’t see any point in responding to questions that begin with “who does / doesn’t”
People are allowed to have different views.
Without coming across as defending him or thinking he didn’t do it (he did do it, he murdered her), his defence (not mine) was:
- Text exchanges also showed loving messages I think out of 1700, 4 were an argument. They didn’t show OP’s responses to Reeva’s messages. (I agree it did not seem to be a good sign of his character and potentially emotionally abusive. He did not like being alone and overlapped his relationships. Neither of his exes had any stories of physical abuse towards them. He was a prolific cheat and he was critical of his GF’s. He also did not like being rejected and used a lot of emotional manipulation. It is plausible in both directions that he escalated his abuse suddenly to physical violence. That the exes didn’t tell the truth about him. Or that he was afraid, hyper vigilant and fatally violent towards an ‘intruder’. He had been in altercations with other men. Weirdly, Sam Taylor came to court with a bunch of grim thugs (with their own bunch of horrible convictions) who OP said had made death threats to him, and also his sister in court.)
- he fell asleep with the door open but had asked Reeva to close it before she fell asleep and said that she didn’t, he woke up and panicked and got up to close it
- he said he didn’t check as she had spoken to him before he got up and moved the fans, so thought she was in bed. He said she got out of bed when he was head height to the fans which were turned on so he never turned back to the bed on her side or heard her leave and also that wasn’t the side she usually sleeps due to his shoulder injury
- this is confusing about the bathroom. Either he chased her into there or there was a miscommunication. She could hear OP shouting and hid, locking the door afraid to call out and give her location away
- he was standing across the room in the doorway to the large bathroom I believe, not up against the door or near to the door
- he shot 4 times from his height with no prothesis on I believe he said. He was accomplished at handling a gun but they were halfway down the door, not at head height iyswim
- he said, as did others in SA that often it’s kill first or be killed in home burglaries. He didn’t have any proof or evidence it was an intruder though, hence why he was convicted of murder
Yes, some of his responses to the text messages were shown and read out. He was apologetic and said he overreacted but explained how he felt in each situation
Oscar Pistorius fans/friends/family still defending him or looking to his excuse his conviction. Whilst everyone else is condemning his behaviour - cue the ‘I’m an impartial contributor’ responses.
Those in the later catergory need to abandon the thread so the ‘free OP love in’ can continue....it will look completely absurd then. Glad I stopped engaging with these people.
Those in the later catergory need to abandon the thread so the ‘free OP love in’ can continue....it will look completely absurd then. Glad I stopped engaging with these people.
You keep repeating this but then fail to acknowledge anyone else’s view but your own as plausible.
That is standard abuser behaviour. Apologise and say you won’t do it again.
I completely appreciate you can see a different point of view but you seem determined to defend him, even going as far earlier up to insinuate Reeva’s family have acted wrongly by accepting the money he gave them.
Can you provide evidence for your statements
- I fail to accept anyone else‘s view?
I don‘t accept that it has been proven that there was an argument, he chased her and shot her - because this was not prove. I accept it as a possibility, but not as a truth.
Likewise, I stated it was „possible“ that he made a mistake or was panicked. I never said that This was the absolute truth.
If someone says „I think it is more likely“: fine
If Someone says: „Your suggestion is absurd and you are stupid and defending DV“: not fine. And this is what I stand up again as everyone‘s view should be respected
- I insinuated that the parent‘s acted wrongly in accepting money from Oscar? I merely shared a link and didn‘t even comment. How can you draw this conclusion?
- Of course the text exchange also showed loving messages. That’s a typical abusive relationship, it’s not all bad. But 4 times in 4 months is quite a lot. They were in the honeymoon period, if he was starting controlling behaviour already that shows a lot IMO.
- I guess we only have his word for that, and it would be arguable either way.
- I don’t know the layout of his bedroom but logic dictates that if you turned away from the bed to move the fans you’d have to turn back to face the bed to leave the room. It would be impossible his bed was that big he couldn’t see the full bed.
- She had her phone with her, so if he was shouting and she hid why was there no evidence of her attempting to call the police?
- Where she was indicates they were having a conversation. If you were hiding from an intruder human nature dictates you wouldn’t be stood against the door, you would hide further back.
- The expert in court said the injuries to Reeva showed after the first shot she started to fall down and the other shots hit her as she was falling. Therefore they could tell there was a delay between the first shot at the rest. So she would have cried out, you don’t get your hip blasted off and remain silent. So he had to know it was her, the continued to shoot.
It’s an interesting one isn’t it. Good to see the different views and potential ways people would’ve acted on the night.