Oscar Pistorius : Not Guilty

[TreVader]

http://www.latimes.com/world/africa...rder-trial-verdict-20140910-story.html#page=1



Discuss


My opinion, based on some article I read on the case in a magazine at my doctors office about 3 months ago, is that he is guilty.

 

[UglyCasanova]

I've not followed this trial at all but I've prejudicially already decided that he is guilty.

 

[Fern]

I think he's clearly guilty of 2nd degree murder (as we call it in the US).

He still has a few other charges, including culpable killing (or whatever they call it) that could give him prison time.

IDK their laws, but I was also surprised at some of the evidence the judge threw out.

Fern

 

[TreVader]

All right I guess he's guilty. I think we gave him a fair shot.


I almost looked it up on Wikipedia but I got distracted by memes of Kim Jon Un.

 

[MongGrel]

I think the judge all ready foreshadowed he'll get hit with the second charge and 15 years perhaps.

But of course the thing unexpectedly stops after lunch, so who knows what might have happened in the interim.

 

[TreVader]

How didn't he do it? What evidence was shown to change the jurors minds? SA is so backward we will prob never know.

 

[Meghan54]

How didn't he do it? What evidence was shown to change the jurors minds? SA is so backward we will prob never know.

First, there was no jury, the judge was the "jury".

Second, today he was found guilty of culpable homicide. The sentence for a culpable homicide conviction is at the judge's discretion, and it can range from a suspended sentence and a fine to up to 15 years in prison.

 

[TreVader]

First, there was no jury, the judge was the "jury".

Second, today he was found guilty of culpable homicide. The sentence for a culpable homicide conviction is at the judge's discretion, and it can range from a suspended sentence and a fine to up to 15 years in prison.

So the judge is the jury.

I hope South Africa isn't considered part of the "western" world. Even Italians use jury trials.

 

[Londo_Jowo]

First, there was no jury, the judge was the "jury".

Second, today he was found guilty of culpable homicide. The sentence for a culpable homicide conviction is at the judge's discretion, and it can range from a suspended sentence and a fine to up to 15 years in prison.

I always felt the court would find him guilty of manslaughter as I never saw that the prosecution had the evidence that would prove 1st degree murder.

 

[Cozarkian]

So the judge is the jury.

I hope South Africa isn't considered part of the "western" world. Even Italians use jury trials.

The judge can be the jury in the "western" world, too. In the U.S., it requires the criminal defendant to voluntarily waive his right to a jury. I don't know how South Africa works.

 

[Fern]

I always felt the court would find him guilty of manslaughter as I never saw that the prosecution had the evidence that would prove 1st degree murder.

Yeah, I never thought 1st degree was in play.

But I think 2nd degree should have been found. I'm not buying the 'burglar' in the bathroom story. How did he not shoot her (or some other girlfriend) before? Getting up to use the restroom in the middle of the night isn't exactly rare.

And his townhouse is not on the ground floor. He claims he feared the burglar came up a ladder? Really? Plus his place has security gates and private guards.

Other than Texas, what would happen in the US if we shot an unarmed burglar through a door? I don't see self-defense, what was the threat?

In any case, I think the prosecution is going to appeal.

Fern

 

[Tango]

The judge can be the jury in the "western" world, too. In the U.S., it requires the criminal defendant to voluntarily waive his right to a jury. I don't know how South Africa works.

Actually, the jury is composed mostly of professionals in a wide majority of western world's judicial systems.

 

[MongGrel]

Looks like it was done right to me actually.

He is guilty of the other, she more or less foreshadowed that before the not guilty.

All I have to say.

 

[umbrella39]

Update to this story:

Oscar Pistorius Sentenced to 6 Years in Reeva Steenkamp Murder

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/07/world/africa/oscar-pistorius-sentence.html?_r=0

Judge Thokozile Matilda Masipa of the High Court in Pretoria cited “mitigating” factors in handing out a sentence that was significantly shorter than the 15-year minimum requested by prosecutors.

Mr. Pistorius, the judge said, had shown genuine remorse in trying, repeatedly and unsuccessfully, to apologize in person to the victim’s parents.

Sounds like he is getting off easy. Never believed his contrived explanation...

 

[woolfe9998]

He's a liar and murderer, quite obviously. On the evidence you'd have to be brain dead to conclude otherwise.

 

[werepossum]

Hell, I thought fifteen years was unforgivably light. At least six years is an improvement on the original sentence.