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PostPosted: Tue Oct 21, 2014 8:18 am 
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According to his uncle they accept the sentence so probably no appeal but, let's see if the prosecutor appeals since they wanted him to get at least 10 years.


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PostPosted: Tue Oct 21, 2014 10:27 am 
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There's no way around it: it's all been a very sad sharp turn in an otherwise notable life. I think the sentence is fair. I do hope he is able use the time to improve himself and deepen and strengthen his character in a way that makes the experience worth something. He will likely have a harder time in jail than most.

I can't imagine his athletic life as he knew it is not over. Competition at that level comes down to fractions of a second and he will have little meaningful control over the conditioning of his body while he is incarcerated relating to either food or exercise. He will probably never make up the physical, emotional and psychological ground. Perhaps the ending of that aspect of his life fitting given what Reeva lost. If he is a man of decent character, and if the crazy vigilante mobs will let him, he'll have to find a new place in the world on his release.

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PostPosted: Tue Oct 21, 2014 10:38 am 
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These people are disappointing:

http://www.enca.com/media/video/oscar-t ... aylist=107

Ugh. There is enough real domestic violence in South Africa to pay attention to. Comment after comment after comment on story after story everywhere in the world brims with vengeance and a belief that Oscar 'got away with murder'. It is so upsetting to me.

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PostPosted: Tue Oct 21, 2014 10:43 am 
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packy wrote:
According to his uncle they accept the sentence so probably no appeal but, let's see if the prosecutor appeals since they wanted him to get at least 10 years.


I think they may appeal the verdict. They have to feel emboldened with the rampaging public and Masipa's acceptance that the crime bordered on Dolus Eventualis. I feel so strongly that it should just be let go. The right verdict was delivered and Oscar will never have the life he would have had and always be internally and externally shaped by these events. That should be enough for any decent person. Ugh. I hate bullies, the ignorant and the self righteous.

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PostPosted: Tue Oct 21, 2014 11:52 am 
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So if I understand the sentence Judge Masipa gave Oscar 5 years for the CH verdict and 3 years for the Tasha incident. The sentences are to be served concurrently although the 3 year sentence is already suspended, continued suspension is dependent on Oscar not breaking any firearms laws.

Oscar will be eligible for parole after serving 10 months.

I wonder when they will announce that Oscar is on a suicide watch.

God’s peace to all involved.

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PostPosted: Tue Oct 21, 2014 2:05 pm 
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Ha. I'm on TO at the asylum.

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PostPosted: Tue Oct 21, 2014 2:32 pm 
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No surprise there. I don't know if their ignorance or arrogance is greater.

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PostPosted: Tue Oct 21, 2014 3:53 pm 
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It looks like the judge took the negative untrue media accounts as a mitigating factor so the pitchfork holders helped to reduce Oscar’s sentence, how’s that for irony? 36:18

And quoted from the good judge 37:21 The interests of society demand that those who commit crimes be punished and in deserving cases that they be punished severely as council for the defense correctly submitted, we ought to differentiate between what is in the public interest and what society wants Society cannot always get what they want as courts do not exists to win popularity contests but exist solely to dispense justice. What may appear to be justice to the uniformed general public however may not necessarily be justice. The general public may not even know the distinction between punishment and vengeance. A distinction that is very important when a court is exercising it’s sentencing.

Kudos to Judge Masipa.

BBL :)

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PostPosted: Tue Oct 21, 2014 4:46 pm 
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PostPosted: Tue Oct 21, 2014 4:48 pm 
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My understanding is that OP has to earn a request to be released to home arrest after 10 months , it is by no means automatic that he is released after 10 months, but if he's kept his nose clean and is a "good" inmate, then he can apply for release. If that happens, then he will serve the rest of his sentence from home, but there are very strict rules about this, and its not a cushy scenario.

I wonder what his first night in prison is like!

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PostPosted: Tue Oct 21, 2014 4:54 pm 
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Thinking positively....

OP could be hugely relieved.... the worry and agonizing over what MIGHT happen to him is over.

He is a nice guy it seems, I am sure he can behave and get on friendly terms with prison and hospital staff, and some inmates. He is still an icon to many, and so many will be honored to meet him and interact.
10 months is not a long time, and Oscar has endured shit-head Nel for 7 months. Prison has got to be better than that?

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PostPosted: Tue Oct 21, 2014 5:27 pm 
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I agree that the outcome is no longer hanging over him, so hopefully he'll just get on with it.

You're right some inmates will want to be around him, but just let's hope there are none who want to score points, because he is who he is.

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PostPosted: Tue Oct 21, 2014 6:11 pm 
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Yes wroughead your reading seems to be correct.

And "Oscar has endured shit-head Nel for 7 months." is spot on. I doubt anyone, day in and day out will be saying you killed Reeva, you meant to kill Reeva, here is a picture of what you have done! Oscar is very aware of what he has done and very remorseful.

I read somewhere that there are 8 other prisoners in the hospital wing, 2 blind, a few in wheelchairs (and the article did mention another disability but I can't remember what it was at the moment).

Oscar seems very empathetic, I think that is part of his remorse is that he can never make amends to the Steemkamps, their loss is too great.

Perhaps Oscar will heal during this time and use his goodwill to help out his prisoners to endure whatever horror their lives may be.

Being a conservative my whole life and very skeptical of defense attorneys this case has caused me to pause and look at the "given facts" . It is the first case that I have pretty closely followed and I have to say I am appalled at the pitchfork crowd who has put their skew on things in spite of the facts and the judgement.

The Pistorius money well runs very deep, I hope that they go after some of the biggest promoters of "hatred posted as fact," media in all it's forms.

Finding of fact the ear witnesses were not reliable. There was no fight. Oscar was not a serial abuser.

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PostPosted: Tue Oct 21, 2014 6:18 pm 
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I draw your attention back to my post of October 17th.

I said if Oscar serves any time for a custodial sentence, it will be because of the APPALLING cross examination of the prison commissioner. And that was exactly what Masipa used as her basis for disregarding a community service recommendation.

She had nothing to hang her hat on that was reason enough to believe that Oscar could neither receive the protection he would need with being a double amputee, nor that his mental state would not worsen and be only further enhanced by the lack of medical concerns in the prison facility.

Roux was woefully unprepared for the cross examination. Instead of destroying him as a prosecution hack with zero credibility and a smart alec, Roux left the impression that Masipa should just ignore his "absurd" comments and did absolutely nothing to eviscerate his testimony. I said at the time, that this is the witness that has to be shown to be on another planet and detached from reality of what it is really like in the African prisons. He had to be shown as a scripted Nel plant that Nel was using as his last hope to salvage anything of the trumped up case against Oscar. And Roux blew it.

Had he been given a scathing cross examination and left with the same credibility of a Botha, Masipa would have had no choice but to revert back to a non custodial sentence due to the prison officials lies and exposed bias.

Oscar was already threatened and he wasn't even in the damn prison yet. There will be prisoners that have life sentences who have nothing to lose to enhance their reputation that they are a bad ass that took out a world famous figure. They can give him a bench for the shower? And this was allowed to be left without outrage that this was sufficient? What is he going to do when prisoners take his legs and start beating him with them?

Roux totally lost the mitigation phase and I also said it was because he has no capacity to get out of his gentleman of the courtroom phase and turn into a F. Lee Bailey. Parliament was so incensed at the conditions of the prison that they were already having HEARINGS about it. How much more custom made could it have been to convince Masipa that it was an insult to hear him say they could accommodate Oscar?

Masipa went by the evidence presented in the courtroom, which she is obliged to do. And that's why Oscar is now not at home under house arrest with his uncle. Roux is at best a C+ lawyer.


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PostPosted: Wed Oct 22, 2014 1:37 am 
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Oscars Uncle(family) showing some class.

I assume the Steenkamps will now be doing whatever it was that lawyer described as "deals" Perhaps interviews?

I guess that will not be defined as "blood money" stemming from the case and Reeva's death? Not sure how that logic works.

They will also get their "Pound of Flesh" from Oscar courtesy of Shylock Nel.

I think Oscar should accept the return of the money he already gave them. It was big of Roux to say OP did not want it back, and it could go to charity.. but time to get REAL. It did not look like the Steenkamp's nor the court appreciated Roux's (Oscar's) offer. I think that monthly payment money plus lump sum money that OP offered and was rejected by Steenkamps, Oscar could make good use of, his own money.

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PostPosted: Fri Oct 24, 2014 2:17 pm 
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aavi wrote:

Roux was woefully unprepared for the cross examination. Instead of destroying him as a prosecution hack with zero credibility and a smart alec, Roux left the impression that Masipa should just ignore his "absurd" comments and did absolutely nothing to eviscerate his testimony. I said at the time, that this is the witness that has to be shown to be on another planet and detached from reality of what it is really like in the African prisons. He had to be shown as a scripted Nel plant that Nel was using as his last hope to salvage anything of the trumped up case against Oscar. And Roux blew it.

Had he been given a scathing cross examination and left with the same credibility of a Botha, Masipa would have had no choice but to revert back to a non custodial sentence due to the prison officials lies and exposed bias.



I agree with this. The guy wasn't even aware of how many inmates the prison housed and seemed very much 'out of the loop' in understanding the needs of inmates and the conditions inside. Due to the level of importance Nel attached to this witness it was important for Roux to get stuck in and expose this guys lack of knowledge, but he never really got going. I suspect time was becoming an issue which was playing into Nels hands at this stage, however Roux should have taken as long as he needed to cross-x.


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PostPosted: Sun Oct 26, 2014 10:21 am 
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Though I agree with both Steve :77 and Aavi, I also believe that Roux was in a losing situation. Masipa, Nel, Roux all the people involved know what a mess the SA prisons are but to admit that in a public trial and then ask for "special" handling of Oscar would have set the SA activist on fire with demands that if the prison was not good enough for a privileged white man then it was not good enough for anyone. All kinds of lawsuits would have slung up. I think Roux should have emphasized the state of Oscar's mind during the incident rather than talked about all that Oscar had lost. Oscar killed Reeva trying to protect her that should have been the emphasis, Oscars remorse should have been second, Oscar's PTSD caused by his absolute horror at what he had done should have been emphasized and the tangibles Oscar lost barely mentioned.

So what if Oscar lost everything, Reeva lost her life, and Oscar has to live with that guilt the rest of his life, I'm sure he would trade all the tangibles to give Reeva breath again.

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PostPosted: Mon Oct 27, 2014 4:22 pm 
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Well, the avaricious prosecutor slug just can't have even the slightest shred of integrity and let it go. Despite, getting a sentence that was generous in every respect to the prosecution--and highly unlikely altogether--had the prosecution's scripted prison commissioner witness been demolished on the stand as he should have been, they are going to keep this shameful circus going and appeal.

The appeal will prove to be only another embarrassment because verdicts can only be overturned on errors of matters of law. Judge Masipa erred in the early part of her reading of the verdict in saying that Oscar could not have known that he would kill Reeva, which would have been a wrong reading of the Dolus Eventualis. But she corrected it in her more elaborative restatement later in the verdict reading by adding that he could not have known he would kill Reeva or any other person by firing into the door. This comports with exactly what the statute requires to be found not guilty on the charge of Dolus Eventualis.

I cannot recall a more revulsing vengeful vulture posing as a supposed truth-seeking prosecutor than this one. It casts a black shadow over the entire court system of Pretoria.

I hope the next development we hear with Oscar is that the appeals court affirms the judgement as being on sound legal grounds as delivered and that he will shortly have his sentence commuted to home arrest and community service where his mental health can be productively resuscitated, instead of reading a headline that Oscar found a way to join Reeva.


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PostPosted: Mon Oct 27, 2014 6:13 pm 
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I was unawre of the appeal. I kinda let the case go, but....



Oscar Pistorius prosecutors to appeal against verdict
Spokesman for South Africa’s national prosecuting authority says it will appeal culpable homicide ruling and five-year jail term
David Smith in Johannesburg
The Guardian, Monday 27 October 2014 13.29 GMT

Prosecutors will appeal the verdict and sentencing of Oscar Pistorius, officials have said, raising the prospect that his conviction for culpable homicide could yet be upgraded to murder.

Nathi Mncube, a spokesman for South Africa’s national prosecuting authority, wrote on Twitter: “Oscar Pistorius judgment, NPA will be appealing both the conviction and sentence.”

Mncube said the next step is to file papers in court, adding: “The appeal on conviction is based on the question of law.”

There was a public outcry when Judge Thokozile Masipa found Pistorius guilty of culpable homicide – the South African equivalent of manslaughter – for killing his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp on Valentine’s day last year.

She said there was no reason to doubt the Paralympian’s claim that he mistook Steenkamp for an intruder and did not intend to kill anyone when he shot four times through a locked toilet door. Anger intensified last week, including among campaigners against gender violence, when Masipa sentenced Pistorius to five years in prison, especially because he could be eligible to switch from jail to house arrest after just 10 months.

...more at link
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/o ... rosecutors

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PostPosted: Mon Oct 27, 2014 6:16 pm 
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I dont see an appeal of the conviction succeeding? But who knows, I give up on SA.

However, the sentence seemed to me to be HARSH based on precedents and Oscars particular vulnerability at time of the shooting, and certainly as a candidate for for SA prison.

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