You took the words out of my mouth so far.

It is accepted that witnesses are coached and 'put at ease' when they appear in court, as otherwise it may be daunting for them - remember too that Burger said she only met the other witness (another neighbour) on the morning that she came to the court before the trial began, to get the feel for the court, she said this on her first day's testimony, so this is obvious that they've wanted certain witnesses to see what the court looks like prior to them giving evidence and in an effort to relax these witnesses, coaching is also in play.

Normally, for example here in the UK witnesses would only be taken to the court for familiarization or relaxing purposes when they are young or in other ways immature. It's not something that's done for every witness, I find in the case of Mrs. Burger and others who are grown up adults, to be a bit OTT letting them see the court before they go to give their evidence at trial - but perhaps this is how it's done in SA in every case - who knows.

I agree that OP reliability and honesty is or was a factor upon which his entire defense is based i.e. that it was a burglar he was trying to stop, when you hear the other evidence from his so-called friends, it calls his honesty into question on the face of it. When you look at this evidence again, it becomes obvious it is coached, therefore where my opinion of OP is concerned I'm still 50/50 too. Looking at it another way, if he did not believe it was a burglar, why would he have had to wait until Reeva went to the toilet to shoot her - when he had the minutes leading up to her going there, unless she had taken flight for fear of her safety and thought she would be safe in the toilet with her door closed and locked - let's wait and see what else comes up.

These are the reasons I'm looking forward to the Defense's case and witnesses, to see what difference this makes to my overall opinion. We can clearly see that OP didn't want bad publicity from the gun firing incident in the restaurant, it could follow that he didn't want the same publicity from the shooting of Reeva, perhaps that's why he said at the very outset he thought an intruder was in the house. Moreover, he could have said he thought there was an intruder in the house, because in fact that was at the time what he honestly thought. It was simply that in the intervening moments between his going to the balcony and hearing the noises from the toilet, that Reeva had decided to go to the toilet at the same time, she would not have thought (nor would I) of letting him know she was going to the toilet - you see there are different ways one could look at this.

_________________
Since we are destined to live out our lives in the prison of our minds, our one duty is to furnish it well~Peter Ustinov

I don't know about anyone else, but I was a bit surprised at the long pauses from the Prosecutor in asking Darren Fresco questions, and I think it's significant that here we seem to have a 'friend' of the accused giving his evidence for the prosecution, I wonder how many of his friends will do the same for his defense. The undernoted link pretty much says what I'm thinking too with regard to DF.

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news ... ve-3230015

_________________
Since we are destined to live out our lives in the prison of our minds, our one duty is to furnish it well~Peter Ustinov

Thanks Wroughead... Daily Mirror and other UK "papers" are where I get a lot of the updates etc. They are doing a great job in that respect... ( I don't always agree with their take on things)
Worth noting the main headings from your link....

Five things we learned from Day Seven of Oscar Pistorius' murder trial

1. Who needs friends with enemies like these
Called by the state, Darren Fresco was considered a friend by Oscar Pistorius. That may have changed after today.

2. Or was Fresco trying to save his own skin?
When Fresco took to the stand, he was given assurances that he was immune from possible prosecution for anything he admitted in court in return for his "honest testimony".

3. (The Mirror missed out No. 3)
I'll insert an important point of my own.
We learned that in SA witnesses are coached and rehearsed in testimony. It explains WHY they will not answer simple questions (usually). They have to "think back" to rehearsals and recite a large chunk of the "Script" they have learned before coming to court.

4. Blame game
Turning to the shooting at Tasha's restaurant

5. Professor Gert Saayman
The only damaging testimony of the day for Pistorius came from pathologist Gert Saayman.
He maintained that Reeva Steenkamp must have eaten a meal two hours before she died.

_________________
Do not go gentle into that good night.
___________ Rage, rage against the dying of the light

Pathologist Gert Saayman is wrong in his testimony that "a meal eaten four hours before death would have been flushed out." I know from personal experience that is not necessarily true. From brushing my teeth and tongue (and gagging from the tongue brushing), I've upchucked stomach contents that was eaten the day before, over 12 hours before! I've always been aware of the slowness of my food digestion compared to others, but it does show that it IS possible, therefore the pathologist is wrong to paint everyone with the same wide brush.

Thanks seeing_eye.

TMI on the personal up-chucking?
I guess you know how OP feels?

Reading around.... this topic is open to varying opinions... Roux set things up for his own expert to refute Saayman.

Lets hope the Defence expert is not as "precious" as Saayman, and we dont have the same farce when he(she) is giving testimony

_________________
Do not go gentle into that good night.
___________ Rage, rage against the dying of the light

Another TalkLeft blog... I am glad that Jeralyn Merritt is following this case. Her take and legal opinions were great for the GZ case.
( Nice to have some access to a verified Lawyer)


Oscar Pistorius Trial: The Medical Testimony
By Jeralyn, Section Crime in the News
Posted on Tue Mar 11, 2014 at 08:00:00 AM EST

Last week, Oscar Pistorius' defense team spent a lot of time trying to get witnesses to acknowledge that they might have confused the sound of gunshots with the sound of Oscar bashing in the door to to the toilet with a cricket bat. Here's an interesting You Tube video of an experiment comparing the two sounds. Conclusion: If you weren't able to listen to both sounds for comparison purposes, you could easily mistake the sound of the cricket bat for the sound of a gunshot.

Here's a recap of yesterday's testimony. In a nutshell, Reeva was shot three times, in the hip, the arm and the head. She would have died within a few breaths of the gunshot to the head.

...more at link
http://www.talkleft.com/story/2014/3/11 ... estimony#9

_________________
Do not go gentle into that good night.
___________ Rage, rage against the dying of the light

And from the Comments at TalkLeft

_________________
Do not go gentle into that good night.
___________ Rage, rage against the dying of the light

Article mentioned in the TalkLeft piece....

Reeva's final breaths
2014-03-10 19:29

Pretoria - Model Reeva Steenkamp drew a few breaths after she was shot in the head by her boyfriend Oscar Pistorius, the North Gauteng High Court in Pretoria heard on Monday.

Pathologist Gert Saayman told the court that Steenkamp did not take more than a few breaths after suffering her head wound.

He was testifying in the murder trial of Pistorius who shot dead Steenkamp in his Pretoria home in Pretoria on 14 February last year.

Pistorius submitted that he thought she was an intruder.

Saayman described the wound to her head as an incapacitating wound, and said there was physical damage to the brain because of a substantial fracture to the base of the skull.

However, both the injuries to her arm and her right groin or hip area could have been fatal as well, he said.

Her right hip bone was shattered and this was likely to cause immediate instability, he explained.

As Saayman spoke of the "painful wound", Pistorius bowed his head and retched.

...more at link
http://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/Oscar ... s-20140310

_________________
Do not go gentle into that good night.
___________ Rage, rage against the dying of the light

I have been discussing the case at TalkLeft and.....

H/T "gbrbsb"

I am now prepared to at least consider as a possibility that the cricket bat bangs came FIRST.

That the door was damaged, but all panels still in place when OP fired. After firing, the two bullets through one panel perhaps made it easier to finally knock out.

A couple of my posts at TalkLeft... after my epiphany

_________________
Do not go gentle into that good night.
___________ Rage, rage against the dying of the light

I'm sorry, but I'm not being convinced in any way, shape or form by the prosecution's case with regard to the bat.

To begin with this "expert witness" seems edgy and nervous to me, and not even convinced by his own testimony, one would think he will be more than used to appearances in court to give evidence, yet he is coming across to me as completely the opposite.

When I tried to look closely at those gun shot holes, my first reaction on first seeing the toilet door was that they seemed low down, indicating that OP was on his stumps, you can roughly compare his height to that of the 'expert' to see what I mean, equally to my eyes, it could be said that the cricket bat gouge on the door, could have been made with or without prosthesis, OP has always maintained that he went back to the bedroom to put these on, when he returned to that door.

In essence, what I'm saying here is that I'm not convinced by the evidence, certainly beyond a reasonable doubt, that OP was or was not doing all of this on his stumps, or with his prosthesis - neither scenario to me has been proved as evidential.

_________________
Since we are destined to live out our lives in the prison of our minds, our one duty is to furnish it well~Peter Ustinov

Hi wrouhead

"Sama sama" as they say in Singapore
("same same" - I agree)


BTW "flogging a dead horse" is standard smiley. It's even on the posting page if you use "full editor"

But you can use your own if you prefer

_________________
Do not go gentle into that good night.
___________ Rage, rage against the dying of the light

Once again I am unimpressed and disappointed with very sloppy police work...Basics like maintain crime scene, evidence gathering, chain of custody etc. In happens in USA as well and no doubt in UK. Don't these people watch their own "propaganda"... they do a much more precise job in cop shows

Its laughable really that the door has been shunted around who knows where... bits missing, new marks and scratches etc.

I hope they at least took a LOT of photos at the crime scene.

As far as this witness finding a NEW red mark on the bat just today... give me a break!!!! WHY did he miss it before.... on a critical piece of evidence in a murder trial that is probably (arguably)the most high profile case in SA ever? Who is to say that he did not cause the mark himself while shagging about with bat and door? Who is to say somebody did not PLANT it as evidence? SSince chain of custody is so slack?

_________________
Do not go gentle into that good night.
___________ Rage, rage against the dying of the light

LoL I must have missed the wee horsey on the posting smileys - will look for him next time.

I agree about the police work - mind you, I've seen documentaries in the past year - nothing to do with this case, and the police seem to do things differently than any police force I've heard of. But, don't want to be seen to pull down another country, as it seems to work for the South Africans, but I agree about what I can only describe as amateur police work, that's just how I see it in comparison to what I've seen before.

I think this case is tougher because of various lacks that I perceive, than we at first considered.




My points too - absolutely, you'd think every effort would have been made (if it was capable of being made) in the lead up to this most famous of trials, he comes to court oh and by the by I just noticed something I should like to point out to the Defense - or words to that effect - seriously.

I'm getting a bit more impressed with Mr. Roux, however, let's be fair, he's not having a particularly tough case with some of the witnesses thus far. He is apparently one of South Africa's best.

_________________
Since we are destined to live out our lives in the prison of our minds, our one duty is to furnish it well~Peter Ustinov

As I have said of Roux before... he frustrates the hell out of me at times.. so slow and repetitive... but at the same time I am impressed with the guy. He picks up on phrases or single words even and gets witness to explain... reveal perhaps something they did not mean to reveal. I would not be surprised if Roux had some training as a psychologist/psychiatrist... or maybe he is just a natural.. he would be good at that too.
I also see Roux turning witnesses to at least soften their testimony.. and as I have said, I see him locking people in to things that he can later refute.

_________________
Do not go gentle into that good night.
___________ Rage, rage against the dying of the light

He may well have studied psychology. I'm having trouble hearing what's being said so trying to get a better link to trial.

good article - and more or less says what I did about the police officer - still trying to get sound here it's frustrating.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldne ... -Roux.html

_________________
Since we are destined to live out our lives in the prison of our minds, our one duty is to furnish it well~Peter Ustinov

http://www.channel4.com/news/pistorius- ... live-video

good link for me now.

_________________
Since we are destined to live out our lives in the prison of our minds, our one duty is to furnish it well~Peter Ustinov

I favour this link

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tXoq6o_tH_8


Same link becomes an archive YT vid after it ends

_________________
Do not go gentle into that good night.
___________ Rage, rage against the dying of the light

I'll check it out.

_________________
Since we are destined to live out our lives in the prison of our minds, our one duty is to furnish it well~Peter Ustinov

Something is occurring to me today. If at the end of the trial, the Judge determines that OP is innocent. Too many people think he's guilty, therefore, I think regardless of a not guilty decision, this is going to follow him throughout the rest of his life - just like OJS, interesting docu a couple of weeks back over here, pointing the finger at OJ's son for those famous murders - he was never questioned.

Makes ya think though!

I digress - this is good cross by Mr. Roux.

_________________
Since we are destined to live out our lives in the prison of our minds, our one duty is to furnish it well~Peter Ustinov

Yes good cross... but like shooting fish in a barrel.... what a fiasco as far as maintaining evidence

_________________
Do not go gentle into that good night.
___________ Rage, rage against the dying of the light