[Magdalen] Pistorius Trial.

[Allan Carr]

One story in the Telegraph
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/oscar-pistorius/11091309/Oscar-Pistorius-ex-girlfriend-It-could-have-been-me.html
and another in the Guardian
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/sep/12/oscar-pistorius-reeva-steenkamp-murder-normal-relationship
discuss Pritorius's relationships with his ex-girlfriend and with Reeva.
Another article in Time discussed the culture of violence in South Africa
in which he lived
http://time.com/3318830/pistorius/

He was paranoid, volatile, and violent. He instantly totally lost it and he
instantly totally regretted it.

On Sat, Sep 13, 2014 at 4:02 PM, Marion Thompson <marionwhitevale at gmail.com>
wrote:

> Logic lacks heart.  Frankly, in the considerable heat of the moment and
> being  conditioned by life at some level of society in S.A., I really don't
> know what any of us would do.  So easy to judge objectively away from that
> whole circumstance.
>
> Marion, a pilgrim   ... today my sail I lift ....
>
> On 9/13/2014 6:18 PM, Roger Stokes wrote:
>
>> On 13/09/2014 16:31, Marion Thompson wrote:
>>
>>> Here we have manslaughter.  I think this is what the South African judge
>>> will be sentencing on Oct. 13.
>>>
>>
>> This side of the pond the verdict has been described as equivalent to our
>> offence of manslaughter.  There is no doubt that the victim died as a
>> result of what he did.  Equally there is no doubt that his own life was not
>> at immediate threat so self-defence cannot be argued.  Likewise he was not
>> defending another person, so that cannot be argued as justification for his
>> actions.  Logically that means there has been a homicide and he was
>> culpable for it.
>>
>> It seems to me the question then becomes what precise offence did he
>> commit in South African law.
>>
>> Had he hatched a plan to kill Reeva and to do so in a way that he could
>> explain away?  If so then that would be premeditated murder. That is
>> possible but there is little evidence to prove this beyond reasonable doubt.
>>
>> Did he fir through the door with the intent of killing or causing
>> grievous injury to the person in the bathroom, not necessarily knowing who
>> that was?  If there were an intruder hiding there then surely a single shot
>> would have served as warning to the intruder to surrender.  I do not know
>> South African law but the dismissal of that scenario is the one that
>> troubles me.
>>
>> Of course the other issue is that I assume Oscar and Reeva slept together
>> so he should have been aware that she was not in bed when he got out of
>> bed. Logically it would be more probable that she was in the bathroom than
>> that an intruder was.
>>
>> Roger
>>
>>
>


-- 
Allan Carr