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)

Who Put the ‘Story’ in Pistorius? – My Thoughts on the Oscar Pistorius Trial

Reeva and Oscar in happier times

My secong blog on this is here.

Trial by TV

The initial coverage of the Oscar Pistorius trial has left me rather frustrated. The BBC promised to show live coverage and I assumed this would be available on the Red Button whenever the trial was in progress. As it is, they covered a bit of day one then did a few brief reports before abandoning it altogether in the second week.

Sky News has shown a little more willing and at least supplies a summary programme each day and a catch-up at weekends. Now that Pistorius is on the stand, we’re getting full live coverage at last. However, there’s nothing like objective reporting and this is nothing like objective reporting. In my opinion, it’s been biased in favour of Pistorius, in particular the commentary and conclusions of Alex Crawford, the Special Correspondent.

Crawford admits that the Pistorius family has been very friendly to the press, offering them water and so forth and she happily relates statistics told her by Pistorius’s uncle. This doesn’t bode well for honest or impartial observation. She talks about the ‘terrible tragedy’ that has kept these two families (the Pistoriuses and the Steenkamps) apart as if it were an act of God, a tsunami, not an action by a member of one of the families. We can draw the conclusion that Reeva’s mother, June, has not been as chatty to the press but has instead remained detached and dignified. For this show of strength, she’s been described in the media as ‘unmoved’ – I’ve seen her cry but she’s bowed her head and tried to hide it. Even when Crawford calls her ‘stoic’, it’s in a tone of slight disapproval. She seems to expect Mrs Steenkamp to feel pity for Oscar. Why would a mother waste tears on the person who she believes killed her daughter in cold blood?

Alex Crawford, Sky News

Crawford is very anxious about how much more Oscar can take, and obviously feels a lot of sympathy for him, constantly stressing how traumatic hearing the details of what he’s done is, how he’s ‘very pale, very white, ashen’ and how it must be terrible for his family to see him so upset. How does she think Reeva Steenkamp’s family feels? They’re only ever mentioned as an afterthought, if at all. At no point does she consider that Oscar’s tears and the retching might be put on or that if real they might be as much for himself as they are for Reeva. This can't be countenanced.

Instead Crawford inserts facts learnt from the family into the news feed, such as, the uncle’s opinion that Pistorius will never get over this. Neither will Reeva. She says, of Oscar, ‘he and his sister have been reading books … they’ve been very religious books’, that they’ve been having ‘Bible readings at their house’. This is all designed to sway the viewer into thinking that the family is a religious one (not relevant to the case), along with the aforementioned statistic, delivered to her by Uncle Arnold, that the prosecution has only used 0.7% of the text messages to build its case. I’m not saying that this is untrue. I’m sure it probably is but shouldn’t a journalist consider the reliability of the source? I wish that she would spend just 0.7% of the time she spends angsting over Oscar's suffering, reflecting on Reeva's.

Not content with seeing things only from the defence point of view, Crawford also brings to the fore opinions she’s had Tweeted to her about prosecution witnesses – someone Tweeted her to say they thought the state’s ballistics expert was arrogant. First of all, we don't know who this person was and theirs is just a random opinion so why should it be presented on air as an addendum to the expert panel section? Then, if you saw this witness, he was clear, sure and articulate, and at no time appeared arrogant. He didn’t break down under cross – is that arrogance?

After all, one fact is not in dispute. Oscar Pistorius shot and killed Reeva Steenkamp. The only things at issue are whether it was deliberate or not, whether he knew it was her he was shooting at. Even if he really believed that a dangerous intruder would break in and lock himself in the toilet, is he within his rights to shoot and kill said intruder?

Barry Roux

The Defence – Barry Roux

Much is made of Barry Roux’s ‘grandstanding’ (Sky’s term not mine) as if it were effective; of him ‘practising his art’. Alex Crawford relays to viewers that he’s ‘shredded the prosecution’s case’ when all he’s done all day is split hairs and introduce red herrings, raise points that are immaterial to the matter at hand. But no one ever questions relevance or redirects. His objective seems to be to confuse the issue, cast doubt over minor details when it really doesn’t matter whether Pistorius’s ex-girlfriend thought he took his phone to bed with him often or every night. And Sky seems to be complicit in this, Alex Crawford often refusing to recognise the crucial evidence of the day and cutting off the ‘experts’ when they start to make a good point.

Roux badgers witnesses (which I’m sure wouldn't be allowed in an English court) and the press seem to then think that he’s broken them down when time after time, their testimony has proved consistent under cross-examination. If they’ve faltered, it’s only out of frustration and boredom as they have to repeat what they’ve said yet again because it still doesn’t match Oscar’s version.

It’s Roux’s cross that has proven inconsistent, for instance, when he purports that a neighbour would not have been able to hear shots from Pistorius’s house and then suggests to the woman’s husband that some of the sounds he heard were Pistorius trying to break the toilet door down with a cricket bat. I’m sorry – if he contends that she couldn’t hear gunfire, how does he think that her husband could have heard a cricket bat hitting a door? The reporters still insist that he’s destroyed the prosecution’s case.

Often, Roux has called upon opinions from witnesses, along the lines of ‘what did they think Pistorius was feeling’, etc.? In a British court, I’d like to think these would be rejected as conjecture, that the state would raise an objection but this never happens. He even asks the same ex-girlfriend to tell him which side of the bed Oscar would have been on when he was with Reeva. How would she know? She can only speculate.

Gerrie Nel

The Prosecution – Gerrie Nel

As far as I can tell, the prosecutor, Gerrie Nel, hasn’t prepared a proper case, constructed a narrative of events or even a proper opening statement. Instead, his witnesses and questions have hopped back and forth between the different charges. I'm not sure why he's even added these - they show Pistorius's propensity for recklessness but here they simply divert attention from the killing of Reeva. At no point has he put the case as he sees it.

Now it’s moved to the defence and the cross-examination of Oscar Pistorius, it seems that the prosecutor is simply raising minor discrepancies rather than making a point, and badgering the witness, just like Roux before him. The real questions are not being asked by either attorney and the question I want to ask is why.

e.g. Why is Nel concentrating on whether Pistorius went onto the balcony or not when he has said he spoke to Reeva before he moved the fan? If he talked to her at this stage, why didn’t he address her when, in the next instant, he claims he heard a noise? Why didn’t he say ‘Did you hear that?’ In fact, a day or so later, he does finally ask this question although by then the impetus and import are lost.

Nel keeps saying that Oscar is ‘tailoring’ his evidence. What he means is that he’s embellishing it (furnishing extra details) as the case progresses. On the bail application, he heard a noise from the bathroom, by the time of the plea statement this has become the sound of a window closing and by the time he gives evidence it’s a window sliding and hitting the frame.

This seems to be a mere muddying of the waters but while he’s doing this, the case is merely treading water and not going anywhere. If we assume that he is going to come to a point somewhere down the line, the problem might be that the judge will have completely forgotten it all by then as she already seems to have trouble keeping track of who they’re talking about.

Oscar Pistorius

The Accused – Oscar Pistorius

Pistorius continually refers to ‘the accident’ that ‘happened’, or calls the killing of Reeva a ‘mistake’. A ‘mistake’ would be putting too much salt on his food; killing someone is more than a mistake. Talk about a gift for understatement. Gerrie Nel at least is rightly calling him on this, asking whether the gun went off accidentally. There’s another incident later when Oscar is asked which Valentine’s Day Reeva’s card was for and he says ‘the day when the accident happened’. He could at least acknowledge that he killed her.

But Nel hasn’t pulled him up on these two contradictory statements:1 ‘I had many thoughts’ and 2 ‘I didn’t have time to think’.

Which is it? Or these two: 1 ‘She wasn’t breathing’ as he found Reeva in the toilet and 2 ‘She was struggling to breathe’. So this means she was still alive so why didn’t he try to get help at this point? Did he wait for her to die?

Oscar has also said ‘I kneeled down’ when he was shooting. Is this a good idea when he’s on his stumps? Can he balance? I think Nel should have followed this up.

Oscar says things like ‘That’s where the firearm was pointed’ as if he had no agency in this, as if it did this by itself. Or ‘I was responsible for the firearm when the round went off’ but claims that although no one else touched it, he didn’t pull the trigger. He continually distances himself from his own actions.

What is being painted, in a pointillist style, bit by bit, piecemeal, is a portrait of a man who likes to control things, who does not relinquish control easily but still refuses to take responsibility for his actions. He won't avoid a confrontation, is not the sort to go ‘cowering and running away’. It seems impossible that he really wants to somehow come out of this a hero. However, Nel’s constant darting about between dates and incidents is as confusing for the viewer (and maybe the judge) as it is for Oscar. One minute, we’re talking about the alarm system in the house, the next about an incident in which Pistorius claims he was shot at while he was driving. I don't think this approach is helpful to anyone and may even elicit more sympathy for the accused.

The Texts

What the texts tend to illustrate is that Reeva was often unhappy with their relationship, that she might raise this but was usually conciliatory, constantly reassuring Oscar, expressing her love for him, apologising to him, defending herself, sometimes pre-emptively. His responses (he didn’t always respond) might offer an apology but inevitably follow this with an explanation that blamed her for his action in some way. It’s a type of semi-abusive behaviour that I’ve observed in my own family. Oscar has said Reeva was a strong person who would stick up for herself but his actions (criticising her in public) and the texts that resulted were a means of subtly undermining her confidence, of making her feel that she was in the wrong. I don't think that Oscar is even aware that he does this. And the sad thing is that I believe he really loved her and that’s partly why he’s emotional now. He’s crying because he feels guilty.

Thokozile Masipa

The Judge – Thokozile Masipa

The judge is pretty laidback, usually only rousing herself to check what the time is before an adjournment. You’d think they could put a clock in the courtroom. She’s been a little more proactive of late, telling someone off for not turning off their phone – cue some silly sniggering from people who should know better. But recently, she’s reprimanded Nel for calling Oscar a liar although his whole case is predicated on that fact. Unfortunately, Nel has yet to make his case, which we presume involves the couple arguing, Oscar losing his rag and eventually gunning his girlfriend down. In English courts, the attorney can and often does say ‘I put it to you that you’re lying’, etc. But what worried me is that the judge might believe that no one lies on the witness stand. If so, we’re in trouble.

The Victim – Reeva Steenkamp 

It seems that no one is speaking for Reeva. It’s impossible to imagine how terrified she must have been, how much she suffered, how she was gunned down and how savage and brutal her death was. Whenever I even try to contemplate it, I start to cry. When I hear Oscar say he was not the type to cower or run away, he knows that this is what he made her do. She was trusting, straightforward and good-natured and she tried to find the good in him. She had so much to live for. Rest in Peace, Reeva.

Reeva Steenkamp, RIP