FACTS, AND WHY THEY ARE STUBBORN THINGS
IF YOU FIND YOURSELF USING THESE QUALIFIERS, THEY ARE NOT GOOD ENOUGH AND NOT PROOF He must have
He could have
He should have
What if
Possibly
I think
Perhaps
It is my belief
I assume
I suggest
Doesn't make sense that
Maybe
Seems to me
It stands to reason that
It's likely that
It's not likely that
Why couldn't he have
Not logical that
It's only logical that
Inconsistent with
It bothers me that
My guess is
He may have
Then why didn't he
In my opinion
In my understanding
Most people would have
I certainly would have
A normal person would have
Story improbable
Emotional because of what he's facing
It is the State's theory
Don't tell me that
I can't believe that
There's no excuse that
Doesn't seem reasonable that
I would speculate that
Certainly he would have
The only other way that
How could he
Why didn't he
And the qualifier above all THAT MUST BE REJECTED at all cost instantly if you have to resort to using it to support your theoryIFOscar Pistorius has been charged with committing the most heinous possible capital crime--willfully, knowingly, and with malice aforethought taking the life of another human being, with that individual being his intended victim. Oscar did not bring the charge against himself. The State prosecution authority of Pretoria, South Africa has accused him of committing this most grievous offense and elected before trial to raise the charge of the offense to a Class Six felony, which is a premeditated murder. Well they now have the burden of
proving that level of accusation.
Pistorius comes into the courtroom with an unassailable right to the presumption of innocence. It is not subjective. It is not subject to interpretation. It is absolute. Everything that is presented in evidence must counter--to the exclusion of ALL other possibilities--that a reasonable and prudent person could infer from that same evidence, as being an alternative. If one factor points to guilt but an opposing factor of that same evidence points to innocence or doubt, it is incumbent upon that jury or judge to give the presumption of innocence.
All of the idioms in the list above by their very nature of our use of them in our English vernacular are speculative. They are nebulous and leave open the interpretation to other views. They are conclusive of nothing. If a prosecutor has to resort to them, or
you have to resort to them in your posts to support your theory, it is not the language that meets the standard in a criminal court. There is no DNA in this case. There are no eye witnesses other than the accused. There is no confession.
It's not Pistorius's burden to prove that the prosecutor's allegations are false. It is the burden of the prosecution to prove all elements of their charges. Pistorius merely has to raise doubt and show that his account of the events is not impossible. This case reeks with doubt. If I was Roux when Oscar was being cross examined, I would have been standing up nearly every other question and saying 'asked and answered' m'lady. I would have done it so much, Nel would have been foaming at the mouth. He asked the same question 3-4-5 times and then would mangle the answer to fit his agenda.
If you had taken out his triple trips to the back door, the near prosecutor malfeasance and badgering of Pistorius, it would have been a 2 day cross examination. NOTHING was elicited that made Pistorius version of events that night impossible--absolutely nothing. The most trivial thing could have tripped up Pistorius in his testimony if he had been lying; something as simple as turning left instead of turning right. And it would have been clear to the world that his story could not be. But it never happened. As much as anyone might like to twist themselves into a tizzy and imagine Nel scored that breach, the actions that night of Pistorius held up under withering scrutiny. And as long as you have to use the verbal idioms in my itemized list to fantasize that he did, you only prove my point.
You can't take a photo of jeans on the ground and just morph it into a prosecution's theory that it had something to do with Reeva's murder. There isn't even proof they were her jeans. It is a fact that there was no intruder. It's also a fact that nothing has proven that Oscar didn't think there was. You can't take a neighbor hearing "loud talking" and turn that conveniently into an argument that caused a premeditated murder. You can't take a photo of a damaged door, an air rifle and a baseball bat and morph that into a violent attempt to get at Reeva that night. There isn't testimony that the damage to the bedroom door happened that night or that it was even
recent.
There have been no excited utterances heard by anybody alluding to instances showing Oscar had violent tendencies toward Reeva or ever threatened her with bodily harm. It's non existent in the trial. You may not like it and it may not be that you want Oscar to benefit by the legal system for a death of a perfectly innocent woman gunned down in the prime of her life. But when you pass through those hallowed doors of a superior criminal courtroom all speculation and postulation heard at the water cooler stops and the rules of evidence take over. It is not the standard determinate of a civil court, where it's only necessary to show a preponderance of being 1% more likely than not that a defendant is guilty as charged. It is such a high standard that it must leave
NO reasonable doubt. This case is so lacking from reaching that burden that it almost makes a mockery of the court's time.
Notwithstanding how weak the proof of premeditation was already, Nel has now blown off the doors with the mental referral application and leaves the very real possibility that this faux paux creates another defense for Oscar and for the virtual torpedoing of the prosecution case. It may almost be assured.
There is a term that is codified and sacrosanct in our system of juris prudence in nations throughout the free world. It states that the trier of fact shall determine the innocence or guilt of an accused. It does not say the trier of assumptions, the trier of conjecture, the trier of likely possibilities. It says the trier of
FACT.
The evidence put forth in this case alleging the standard required to prove premeditated murder committed by Oscar Pistorius is less than an empty shell. It is a castle built of sand. It is replete with salacious innuendo and compound questions with twisted interpretations. It is based on witnesses who contradict each other. And it is based on idioms that must be employed in my enumerated list in order to contort the facts if you somehow envision a contrivance of guilt.
The veritable reality is that this trial is based on an account of a person who was there that night and has given testimony that has not been impeached one iota to the extent that his relating of events could not have taken place as he stated. In fact, I believe they were
EXTREMELY possible.
It may be that Nel is so convinced that his case was faltering to such a degree that he filed the application in the hopes that Oscar would have to be housed in a mental facility for a period of maybe two years or longer until a psychiatric team could be become available; that being the only incarceration that he could hope to get. If that is true, that would be the ultimate slime tactic. I have to say I think that's very possible.
I hope the judge sees all the prestidigitation and sludge thrown against the wall by this prosecution team in a futile effort to patch together a predicate for murder as contemptible.
I wish her omniscience and insight into making the decision I believe has been supported by tenets of the law and the evidence I have viewed as an accidental shooting which will haunt Oscar Pistorius for the rest of his life. I don't think jail would be worse than his own memories and the reliving of his actions that night.