Oscar Pistorius trial: Murder verdicts ruled out.
 

My lad received a visit from a shipmate (an Afrikaan) earlier this year and during a visit to my home I asked him what he thought the Pistorius trial outcome would be regarding the murder element of the charges....he replied "Not guilty" and went on to make reference to historical allegations regarding politics and corruption.

He certainly wasn't wrong about the trial verdict.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-29143540

Keep up old man: http://subsim.com/radioroom/showpost...2&postcount=16 :O:

Just read a summary of the judge's explanations so far. Some things she said already made me scratch my head in disbelief of her - as I would describe them - self-contradictions. I do not know what happened and I did not care for the whole court trial show - but her explanations now in parts do not convince me. I would even describe some of it as negligent (=nachlässig).

Has there been political pressure on the trial in South Africa, anyone knowing the conditions down there?

Well that is what my sons mate was alluding to in #1

Argh just noticed...merge or what?

Bet that judge and her two helpers have now got very nice Swiss bank accounts.............

He's not entirely off the hook yet...still awaiting a judgement on the lesser charge of culpable homicide.

Personally can't see him escaping that. If he does it will be interesting to see the reaction in Pretoria.

The South African justice system really is something else.

I wouldn't be surprised if Reeva Steenkamp's parents end up having to pay for a new bathroom door.

The judge gave him a 5 year sentence for the CP, and a 3 year suspended sentence for the firing of a firearm. He could be out after 10 months but ONLY if the Correctional Services Department allows that. Good behaviour would be one of their considerations.

My take, he got off very lightly. The State may, and can appeal the judgement and sentence within 14 days - and might very well do so as they are not happy bunnies at the moment.

I fully accept that mercy, retribution, justice, case law, wants of society etc must play a part in sentencing.

My concern here is. What message ARE you sending to society regarding "you did the crime now pay the time".

Think about this scary scenario. Joe Bloggs wants to divorce his wife of say 20 or 30 years. BUT. It will cost him half his assets through a divorce court. (Our courts tend to split the total assets in half irrespective of who earned or contributed the money).

What does our Joe Bloggs now do. Instead of paying an enormous amount of money to a divorce lawyer - and even been granted a divorce - still has to give his wife half their estate in settlement, he rather waits till she gets the urge to go to the toilet in the middle of the night.

Oops, sorry judge, I thought she was an intruder.:nope:

5 years for a taken life, and after earlier repeated display of inappropriate gun use. The judge must have lost her marbles.

And then: suspended penalties, 3 years prison for the earlier inappropriate use of a gun, turned into a 5 years suspended penalty. Of the other 5 years for the killing, he probably will serve a more or less significant amount of time outside the prison.

As a former psychologist I can only laugh about the concept of suspended penalties. Imagined implementation of stimuli is not the stimuli implemented in reality, regarding learning processes and neurla encoding, it is not just miles apart - it is two totally different things. Learning theorists and behaviorists know what I mean. Jurists simply do not know what they are talking about when defending suspended penalties, they just do an exercise in unworldly, abstract bean-counting that mistakes what reality is with one's own theory about what it is.

A suspended penalty is no penalty at all. Not even partially. Not by one bit. Only jurists rating bureaucratic formalities as more meaningful than reality and the way human mind, psyche and cognitions work, can argue with that. From a psychologist's POV, it is drivel.If you want to send a warning message to the subject, reduce the penalty accordingly, make it short. But NEVER suspend it. Regarding learning, it sends completely the opposite of the intended message. Heck, that is even hardwired in our brain's neural network- offenders do not learn from suspended penalties to take them as a warning: they must instead actively learn NOT to understand a suspended penalty as "no penalty". Which completely turns it ad absurdum.

I do not know what would anger me more here: the light amount of penalty, or the way the judge explained her reasons. Pistorius did not suffer a tragic accident, imo. And he was taken note of for his inappropriate gun usage before. I also have an issue with the court dismissing several indications that imo must be considered, but were not considered by the court.

If one does not see it as murder, i would have given him 8-10 years - and no early suspension or prison time cut short. A human life is a human life. The woman will not be given early release from her death. Her killing is not suspended at all.

However, it can be argued that it was murder. Murder by passion, maybe not planned by a long time in advance, but still: murder by passion, by hot-cooking temper - or ice-cold intention to give the impression of that hot emotional arousal, to get away with it. Pistorius seems to be a great stage talent, he showed it repeatedly.

To me, I think it was kind of a mix of both.

Any and All of what anyone says could very well be true. He could spend 10 months...he could spend 2 years etc.

If I was a betting man however, given Oskar's attitude of entitlement he is going to piss the guards off big time during the course of his stay and kiss the possibility of 10 months goodbye.

"Excuse me Warden, this brown bread with rancid butter - does it not come with lobster, creme fraiche with chives?

He'd better not! They'll take one (or both) of his legs away!:D

6 months and he'll develop a 'mental sickness', and with appropriately paid correction officials help, he'll be happily living under 'house arrest'.
Jim... your son's friend is correct about the corruption, etc..

Watch this space..
Oscar HAS got away with murder !!
:down: