Pistorius Verdict - What Will It Be?

'I just want to love and be loved'

This time I’m going to start with Reeva Steenkamp, an innocent girl, who was killed by her boyfriend, who only wanted to love and be loved. I hate the way in the trial, they’re only allowed to refer to her as ‘the deceased’. This seems pretty callous and also sounds strange when they say things like ‘the deceased was sitting up in bed’. Reeva existed; she has a name; she has an identity; she’s not just the person Oscar Pistorius killed.

Gerrie Nel/Barry Roux

Again, I’m extremely disappointed by both lawyers’ lack of clarity and their failure to summarise their main arguments or present any kind of cogent, credible narrative of what they believe happened. It’s like they’re intent on incoherence. I can only hope that a better mind than mine (the judge’s I hope though so far she hasn’t shown much sign that she’s listening and I’m not sure I blame her) can see some method in their madness. Perhaps she’s hoping that the written heads of argument will make more sense.

I want Gerrie Nel to be resolute, sure, convincing. He has a good case. He only needs to state it. We need him to speak for Reeva Steenkamp because she cannot speak for herself. Instead, he rambles on his peripatetic and seemingly aimless course. I don’t need to worry about him losing momentum or focus because he never shows any. Luckily for him, Barry Roux is just as prone to an excess of the type of verbiage that actually obfuscates meaning. Oh no, I’m doing it myself now!

Reeva's parents just want the truth

First of all, why does Nel even engage with any of the nonsense brought up by Roux – whether someone moved the gun a couple of inches or not? It doesn’t matter because no one is claiming that Oscar did not use the gun to kill Reeva. His job is not to prove that the police are beyond reproach. His job is to prove that Oscar is guilty. He gives Roux’s reasoning validity by responding to it.

What he should be doing now is not nit-picking but establishing what is salient, what he wants the judge to consider. I’m not clear why Milady isn’t asking any questions. Is she even listening?

Second, he needs to leave the metaphors at home. They’re neither clever nor beneficial to his case. In fact, they’re the opposite.

To call each piece of circumstantial evidence a feather implies that individually, even collectively, they carry little weight when in fact they do; they have enormous substance.

The dropping the baton analogy concentrates on Oscar’s evidence instead of his actions on the night/morning in question and I find it somewhat insensitive considering that Reeva died so horribly. But I would argue that, if Nel considers this the baton of truth, in giving evidence, Oscar never even picked it up. Unfortunately, in Nel’s final statement, it’s he who continually drops the baton, losing his place, leaving the book he needs at home, etc. Justice is at stake here. Get it together.

As for a snowball of lies – that implies that they’re gaining power and weight. They’re not.

‘In his attempt to prevent a domino effect on the mosaic pieces’. Let’s not go there. If you need to use an analogy, stick to one, easily relatable image not three or four. Shakespeare, he ain't.

Nel’s statement: ‘He has disqualified himself from his version being accepted by the court’ is a weak one. He killed her. Nel needs to emphasise this.

Third, the baker’s dozen. I’m at a loss as to why he settles on this particular set of points to highlight although it’s not a bad policy to point out a few flaws in the defence case (there are so many to choose from), such as the pledge that a witness would testify that Oscar screams like a woman so neighbours could have mistaken his screams for those of Reeva Steenkamp. The defence called a witness (note that it was a female not a male witness) to record an imitation of the scream they had heard but never played the recording in court. Nel is right to conclude that the only explanation must be that ‘it doesn't advance their case’. Roux still contends, somewhat pointlessly, that: ‘It’s not a female screaming. It’s a male in a high-pitched voice’. Even Oscar can't replicate it. Give it up now, Barry.

Oscar Pistorius

But Nel makes his point or rather fails to make it because he’s completely unable to express himself clearly. He says of the screams:‘He had to stop because she was dead’ and could no longer scream. But he’s implied here that Oscar ‘was’ screaming. He wasn’t and Nel doesn’t think he was but the fault is in how he’s put it. It was always Reeva and it was her who stopped when she was no longer able to.

Don’t forget this either: ‘The deceased was fully clothed when she was shot’. How did she manage to get dressed without Oscar noticing? And why did she get dressed and take her phone to the toilet?

Nel: ‘Equally devastating is the vagueness of his version as to how and when the police would have tampered with the scene.’ But who cares at this stage? It wasn’t relevant in the first place.

He does make this point though. In the unlikely event that your partner believes you are an intruder and he pursues you to the toilet with a gun, first shouting then silent, is it likely that you will stay completely quiet and not ask him not to shoot you? Why wouldn't Reeva have called out?

But at least the judge will be able to read through the whole thing at her leisure and see that there is a case there.

As for Roux, here’s his attempt to describe what happened. Apologies for the poor grammar – they’re his words, not mine.

‘Now you standing at the door. You vulnerable. You have the effect of the slow-burn over many years. You’re anxious. You’re trained as an athlete to react to sound.’

Sister: To run.

Me: Yeah – not to shoot and kill.

Trained to react to sound - to run not shoot

It is worth considering why everybody else in the same situation, including Oscar himself, would ask their partner whether they had heard anything. Sam Taylor confirmed that Oscar ‘went as far as waking her up on more than one occasion to ask her if she had heard something’. Why didn’t he do this with Reeva?

I don’t buy the ‘slow-burn’ theory or the domestic abuse line. I don't think the judge does either. Victims of long-term abuse sometimes do snap and attack someone but usually their abuser, not their innocent girlfriend. Of course Roux wants us to believe that Oscar thought there was an intruder, a threat although we know that there was no real break-in, no actual danger.

Layout of the upstairs

Again, I have to ask if Oscar would really feel that threatened by an intruder who broke in and then locked themselves in the toilet while he was standing outside the door holding a gun loaded with Black Talon ammunition. Come on.

Oscar: 'I felt trapped, as my bedroom door was locked and I have limited mobility on my stumps.' Who locked the bedroom door? Him. Who had the key to the door? Him. How exactly is he trapped?

Roux asks: ‘Why would he call for help for her if he’d just tried to kill her?’

Oh Barry, don’t be so disingenuous. What else could he do? If he didn’t call for help, how would this fit with his ‘story’ that it was an ‘accident’? Of course he had to call for help. But notice that he didn’t do this earlier when, by his own admission: ‘She was struggling to breathe’ and ‘I sat over Reeva and I cried’/'I don't know how long I was there for’ (as I said in my previous blog – presumably until she was no longer breathing and couldn’t implicate him). He only called for help after he was absolutely certain that she was dead. She was his girlfriend so he has to act upset. But it might not even have been acting. He could easily have experienced immediate remorse for his reckless actions. It doesn’t mean that he didn’t deliberately kill her.

But even when he finally decided to call for help …

Mr Pieter Baba

Stop a minute here and reflect that this was after Mr Baba (presumably not a friend of Oscar’s) had seen there were lights on and rung to ask if everything was ok and he had answered (having shot Reeva or the imagined intruder) ‘Alles ist ok’.

Why? He’d just shot someone. How could it all be ok?

Why would he need to delay calling for help – if it really had been a terrible accident? He would only do this to stage a scene or cover up a crime.

Then the crucial question is: Who did he eventually decide to call? Emergency services? No – he called his friend, the estate manager, Johan Stander. Why did he call his friend and not emergency services? And why isn't this in Nel's baker's dozen?

Then, from my previous blog: Why didn’t Stander call emergency services as soon as he learned Reeva had been shot?

Because Oscar and he must have decided they needed to initiate damage control. I like to think that by this stage Reeva was dead rather than lying there dying as they pondered what to do to save Oscar’s neck.

 

But why oh why did no one ask Stander why he chose not to call for help?

These can only be a series of stalling tactics to ensure that there was no possibility of Reeva being revived and to remove any evidence that could damn Oscar. Phones were taken and messages wiped.

It's a hard rain's a gonna fall

Roux asks why Nel didn’t chase up Oscar’s father to question him on the ammunition in the safe. But Nel could have easily asked Roux the same thing. Pistorius senior could have corroborated Oscar’s story but he wasn’t asked so didn’t. And why weren’t the policemen from the altercation in the car or Martyn Rooney from the incident in the restaurant called?

Roux makes a big deal about a tiny point, again supremely poorly expressed:

‘After the lunch adjournment, he was then in a position to increase the emotion.'
What he means is that the witness in question altered the emphasis of his testimony a little. The fact that he’s harping on about these tiny details shows that his case is weak. Unlike Nel though, he doesn’t have much choice.

Roux states that Nel’s case is based on the couple going down to eat together later. That isn’t so. Nel has only said that Reeva ate later; no one has said they delayed eating their meal. Roux’s point: ‘It does not explain common sense’.

Again, he fails to express himself. He means he doesn’t think this is common sense. We don’t need to explain common sense.

Roux mentions: ‘an adjustment disorder that developed after the alleged incident’.

It’s not an alleged incident. No one can dispute that there was an actual incident. Does he mean an alleged adjustment disorder?

On the bedside table

Roux: ‘Led to an exaggerated fight response … he decided to fire indiscriminately’.

Interesting how he gets this in and the judge doesn’t call him on it. Is she in a coma? When did the shot grouping become ‘indiscriminate’? Evidence proved exactly the opposite.

Roux says Oscar ‘felt very much on the backfoot, relying on his disability’. Since when was he relying on his disability? Is this a Freudian slip perhaps? Does Roux mean that the defence case is now dependent on Oscar’s disability?

Roux: ‘Did he foresee the possibility that the deceased was in the toilet?’

No – he always knew she was in the toilet.

 

'The question is whether the accused foresaw that Reeva Steenkamp was in the lavatory when he shot, and whether he had reconciled himself with that before shooting (i.e. if he did foresee it as possibly the case, did he simply not care and shoot anyway?).' That’s only the question if you believe the whole intruder line. He's trying to lead the judge here. Away from the truth.

Toilet door

‘Would it be wrong to arm himself?’ 

If you’re credulous enough to believe Oscar was defending himself against an intruder, you might think it was justifiable that he armed himself BUT then to shoot them four times through a locked door, was that justifiable?

'The striking of the door by a cricket bat would not be as loud’

But that’s exactly what Roux tried to prove. That the witnesses who thought they heard shots had heard the cricket bat instead.

It appears that Oscar is going to change his plea on the other charges. Roux states that Oscar admitted in testimony that he was partly culpable. He didn’t. He said sorry to the restaurant owners, offered to pay for the damage but he said that his only error was to take the gun believing that Darren Fresco had made it safe, i.e. It was Darren’s fault but Oscar was man enough to offer reparation.

Also seems as if they've given up on the GAD angle.

Then he keeps talking about objective facts. What’s an objective fact? Facts don't have opinions. Does he mean undisputed fact?

Alex Crawford: objectivity out the window

Next a brief word on Alex Crawford who once again seems somewhat biased in her reporting, rather pro-Oscar. Of Oscar’s yawning throughout, she lets us know that people (those experts she relies on, i.e. the general public) have Tweeted her to say that yawning is sometimes a reaction to stress. This is what she chooses to convey. It’s also a sign of lack of interest or tiredness but as always Crawford wants Oscar to have the benefit of the doubt. Then she mentions that Arnold Pistorius (no relation – oh hang on, yes he is a relation, Oscar’s uncle) has said to the reporters he’s so friendly with that Nel can't have it both ways with his defence. Hmm. He’s totally objective of course. She comments that Roux is ‘in fine form’ and describes his summation as ‘a weighty tomb’. She meant ‘tome’. Conveys that her mate, Uncle Arnold says of Roux, that ‘he’s done more than enough’.

Here’s a Tweet from her: 'Roux disproving fairly convincingly some of the neighbours recollection of emerg calls, timings and who spoke when …'.

Again, this is her opinion, almost always pro-defence. I don't think Roux did anything convincingly.

What does the judge make of all this? She has to show impartiality of course during the course of the trial and can't display emotion. But which way is she leaning?

Judge Masipa - late for lunch?

'Judge Masipa has shown she is determined to complete the closing arguments by the end of today, telling Gerrie Nel to hasten his case yesterday, calling for a limited lunch break and ordering the court to stay later into the afternoon than at any other point during the trial.' 

Judge Masipa: ‘Unless, of course, you want to work on a Saturday and perhaps Sunday after church’.

Personally, I don’t care. It’ll take as long as it takes. Hmm. Her main worry now seems to be getting things done quickly rather than asking questions or making sure of facts. I don't think this case should be rushed. I don’t understand why they had to put a time limit on it at all. Her life has been lost and his future is at stake. It’s important. I wish that this wasn’t her primary concern, that she had shown as much interest in the arguments and the evidence.

Barry Roux says if Judge Masipa believes Oscar Pistorius meant to kill Reeva Steenkamp then she 'can take a red pen' and draw a line through his entire argument. Someone make sure she has a red pen.

Let’s not lose sight of this. One fact is not in dispute. Oscar Pistorius shot and killed Reeva Steenkamp. The only thing at issue is whether he knew it was her he was shooting at. Whatever, he deliberately shot and killed someone, someone so dangerous that they had locked themselves in the toilet.

We don't know whether the shots were fired rapidly or not. Either way, Oscar is in trouble. If he shot quickfire, he meant to kill whoever was behind the door. If there was a break between shots, he would have heard Reeva’s screaming and therefore known it was her before he went on to fire more shots. Each scenario indicates an intent to kill.

The commentators are saying that the judge only has to believe that one factor in the police investigation was flawed for this to cast a reasonable doubt over Oscar’s guilt but as I stated in another blog, this is not relevant to whether or not he shot and killed Reeva (we know he did this even if he is reluctant to admit culpability; he is not attempting to deny this) and has no bearing on his intent.

The judge is due to deliver her verdict on 11 September 2014. It has to be one of these three. Let's hope that she gets to the right one.

'Only God will judge me' (Reeva Steenkamp)

Oscar Pistorius Has GAD - GUILT Anxiety Disorder

Guilt and anxiety

(My first blog is ‘Who Put the Story in Pistorius?’; the second is ‘I Don’t Remember What I’ve Forgotten’).

So, for anyone out of the loop, who’s wondering whatever happened to the Pistorius trial, here’s an update.

The psychiatrist Dr/Ms Meryl Vorster (apologies if I have her name/title wrong – an internet search showed different spellings and a different title) testified for the defence that Pistorius has an anxiety disorder called GAD. Anyone heard of this before? Nope. It stands for Generalised Anxiety Disorder. Heard of it now? No. Hmm. My sister says ‘Guilt Anxiety Disorder more like’ (he’s guilty – he knows it, we know it, he knows we know it and now he’s a bit worried about it) and people on Twitter are saying it stands for ‘Get Another Defence’. Vorster claims he’s probably had it for years, that it might have stemmed from the amputation of his legs when he was so young, pre-language. Isn't it lucky that she’s been able to diagnose him with this just as he’s about to go down for murder? Anyway, it does exist (GAD is a long-term condition that causes you to feel anxious about a wide range of situations and issues, rather than one specific event – I’d call that long-term condition LIFE.) She didn’t even interview Pistorius until after he had been cross-examined and it was evident that nothing else the defence had tried had worked. She arrived at this conclusion by interviewing Pistorius and his family and friends. Great – they’re bound to be completely objective! They’re more likely to ask ‘So what can we do to get him out of this mess?’

As a toddler

Vorster doesn’t sound very credible to me. Asked to define ‘hyper-vigilant’ (I’m not sure why – isn’t it pretty obvious what it means?), she describes it as being over-vigilant (what a brilliant definition – that’s made it so much clearer – no, that’s not what hyper-vigilant means actually – it doesn’t mean that you’re more vigilant than the situation demands; it just means that you’re extra vigilant and it’s not necessarily a bad thing).

She’s asked about Oscar’s demeanour when she spoke to him and emphasises that he was crying and retching and that she believed his distress was genuine. I think Nel tried to get this dismissed as irrelevant – it is – and what’s more – it’s only her opinion. His distress might very well have been genuine – I just don’t think it has any bearing on his guilt. Anyone would be distressed after shooting in cold blood somebody they once professed to care about. You might assume that his distress was proof of his guilt.

She says that with a GAD sufferer, ‘if one is placed into an environment where one’s safety is at risk, levels of anxiety would increase’. Ok but wouldn’t that be true of anyone whether they had GAD or not? That’s not a symptom of a disorder; that’s a normal reaction to a situation, surely? I’m not convinced by her testimony simply because she comes out with nonsense like this.

Briefly happy

She says when facing danger, ‘we can either fight or flight’. ‘Flight’ isn’t a verb, love. It’s a noun. You mean ‘flee’. But I still don’t think that someone who was truly anxious would race towards the perceived danger but again this all presupposes a fact that hasn’t been established, that there was any danger at all to be anxious about. I hope that the judge does not lose sight of this. If you believe, like me, that Oscar heard nothing unusual, just chased his girlfriend into the bathroom to kill her, then whether he has GAD or not, is neither here nor there. We do not need then to question why, feeling anxious, he would go to confront the intruder because he knew all the time that there was no intruder. Let me stress again, for those of you who haven’t read my first two blogs, we only have Oscar’s word for it that he heard anything and that this led to him going for his gun. Given that there was no intruder, couldn’t we assume that he didn’t hear anything, that instead he cornered his girlfriend in the toilet in a moment of absolute fury?

I’m entertained once more by Sky’s reporting. Besides the use of words that don’t exist – my favourite is ‘negativate’ instead of ‘negate’ (yes, Llewellyn Curlewis, that was you) – now they say ‘Dr Meryl Vorster choosing to remain anonymous’. You just said her name – she’s not anonymous. She simply chose not to be shown on TV. What do they think it means?

Judge Masipa

Anyway, the doctor testifies that she’s seen Oscar’s anxiety increase over time – she’s only known him days so it must have been as his case disintegrated around him. Quite understandable. Vorster claims Pistorius’s ‘disorder’ does not constitute a mental illness that would require the judge to order a psychiatric examination so I’m at a loss as to why Nel would step in to insist that Oscar be referred for psychiatric assessment (particularly as his case is that Oscar murdered his girlfriend, not that he suffered from an illness that caused him to shoot an imaginary intruder; his case is that Oscar didn’t for a moment believe that there was an intruder); it seems to play right into Roux’s hands. And then I’m equally bemused as to why Roux would object, bleating that nothing in Vorster’s report suggested that Pistorius was ‘incapable of appreciating wrongfulness’. As usual, I completely disagreed with Sky’s experts who all maintained that this referral wasn’t Roux’s intention and that it was highly unlikely the judge would agree to it. I’m sure (and am right) that she will. And I’m pretty sure this was Roux’s intention. Then they said that this assessment would help the prosecution not the defence. I don’t get it. If it is proven that Oscar has any kind of mental health issue, he could get away with having killed Reeva. It could pave the way for an ‘insanity’ defence. He could be deemed ‘not criminally responsible’. (From judge’s decision: ‘The accused may not have raised the issue that he was not criminally responsible, but the issue raised on his behalf cannot be ignored’. Who raised it on his behalf? Nel.) People have said that Nel did this to avoid it being grounds for appeal later but I’m starting to believe my South African friend, starting to wonder if the whole trial is a farce, with a foregone conclusion, that there will be no justice for Reeva. He has said it’s simply a question of keeping the trial going so that everyone gets more money.

Roux and Nel truly adversaries?

As it stands, this is the equivalent of a ‘Get Out of Jail Free’ card for Oscar and a get-out clause for the rest of the court. It’s a win-win for the judge as it gets her out of her awkward position, between a rock and a hard place. Now she can pass the buck.

Nel is meanwhile becoming less and less articulate, saying things like ‘Oscar should not have been a firearm’ and ‘the psychiatric factors which is a mental illness’. Huh? And why is it that neither he nor the judge can pronounce psychiatric? In her decision, Masipa states ‘It is clear that Mr Pistorius has a psychiatric illness’ but this is almost the opposite of what Vorster said earlier (see above) unless we’re making some kind of esoteric distinction between mental and psychiatric. We only have a defence witness’s word for this. It isn’t clear at all. Doesn’t it seem incredibly convenient to her that this ‘illness’ should suddenly be diagnosed at this crucial point in his life and never really have been noticed before. And how many people with GAD have killed someone as a result of their illness?

Unsurprisingly, Oscar’s family is ‘comforted’ that the judge is being so ‘thorough’ and accepting as gospel the words of one psychiatrist. You betcha they’re comforted. I really feel for Reeva’s family; they must be despairing and starting to believe that justice will never be done with everyone abdicating their responsibility at the first opportunity. I pray that common sense and logic will prevail, that the lawyer with the best hand will win but it's starting to seem as if the cards have been marked, and that no one is acting as an advocate for Reeva.

Reeva Steenkamp deserves better