Pistorius trial: 21 questions to be answered
Marida Fitzpatrick, Beeld 2014-02-24

Pretoria - Oscar Pistorius's murder trial starts in the North Gauteng High Court on Monday 3 March 2014. He stands accused of the murder of his girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp, in his Pretoria home on Valentine's Day last year.

Here are the 21 questions that need to be answered during the trial.

1. Why did Steenkamp decide that evening not to go out with her friends?

2. What did Steenkamp give Pistorius for Valentine’s Day?

3. What were the death threats that, according to Pistorius's statement, he received?

4. What violence and break-ins had he been a victim of and why did he not, according to the State, report these incidents?

5. Why did Pistorius not realise Steenkamp was not next to him in bed? He slept next to her and walked past the bed again to get his handgun.

6. Had it never happened before that he woke in the middle of the night with Steenkamp or one of his former girlfriends using the bathroom?

7. If he believed that he and Steenkamp were in grave danger with at least one robber in the toilet, why did he not tell her to flee or go downstairs before he confronted the danger?

8. If Pistorius was as scared of intruders as he said in his statement, why did he confront them instead of fleeing?

9. After he had fired the shots and saw Steenkamp was not in the bed, he bashed open the door with a cricket bat. Why did he suddenly know Steenkamp was behind the door, while a minute earlier he was convinced it was at least one robber? Why did he not look to see if she was somewhere else in the house before he broke down the door, behind which there could still have been robbers, according to his version of the events?

10. Why did he at no stage call the police or the estate’s security services?

11. The estate’s security guards called him after the shooting to ask if all was in order. Why did he tell them, according to the State, that everything was “fine”?

12. What is Pistorius's relationship with Johan Stander, the man he called first?

13. Why did Pistorius take the time to go downstairs and open the front door while Steenkamp was dying upstairs?

14. If he was convinced that there were intruders behind the toilet door, why did he drop his handgun? The State says it was found on the floor near the shower.

15. Why did Steenkamp take her cellphone to the bathroom? Why was the cellphone outside the toilet and she inside?

16. Why was the toilet door locked?

17. Why did Steenkamp, according to the State, stand fully clad behind the locked bathroom door?

18. If Pistorius’s version is true, why did Steenkamp not answer when he yelled at her to call the police? Why did she not scream after the first shot?

19. The State referred in court papers to Pistorius's internet activities on the night of 13 February and said these conflicted with the idea of a couple who spent the night together. What did Pistorius do on the internet? The Sunday Times reported he visited several pornographic websites on his phone while Steenkamp was with him.

20. If Pistorius's version is true, what were the screaming and sounds of fighting that the neighbours reported hearing?

21. What had happened in Pistorius and Samantha Taylor’s relationship? They went out for a year and six months, and Taylor had plans to tell Rapport what Pistorius had subjected her to, but she then decided against this. What will she testify about Pistorius?

http://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/ ... d-20140224

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

I have made this case a sub-forum rather that a single thread.

There is a separate TRIAL thread and some other threads

PISTORIUS TRIAL - Streaming Links and Updates
viewtopic.php?f=105&t=1210

PISTORIUS REFERENCE - Documents, Photos etc (NO DISCUSSION)
viewtopic.php?f=105&t=1211

PISTORIUS TRIAL - VIDEO REPLAYS (NO DISCUSSION)
viewtopic.php?f=105&t=1212

The way these trials work best is (IMO) to have a trial thread to update and comment on actual events in Court during the time the trial is live. I'll mark the start of each day and post a copy of Streaming and Twitter links that work.

Outside that.... more general discussion about the case, predictions about what might happen etc.. is best done back here in the General Case Discussion thread. That way the Trial events, day to day, form a separate reference to refer back to.
I might LOCK the trial thread once Court ends for the day.. but please continue discussion here

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

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

The way some of the questions are formed up thread in that article is interesting. They want an answer to why he didn't look around for her before breaking into the bathroom, but how do they know he didn't look first.

Still catching up and thanks, Rumpole, for all the updates.

I wonder if he really had received threats before this happened.

Is there anyway to get around the fact that it is considered murder in SA when you shoot through a closed door?

I did not know that shooting through a door meant murder?

I would HOPE that circumstances would overrule a rule like that?

Imagine if there was an intruder... guy on stumps in fear of his and his GF's life? A real BAD ASS about to come through a door...... I think shooting would be a great idea... and I guess that is the point the defence have to make.

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

Sorry, but the more I hear the more is seems like they got into a fight and he shot her through the door because she wouldn't open it. One has to ask themselves, why would anyone break into your house and lock themselves in the bathroom? Thief had to take a dump in the middle of his home invasion? Really? I can not think of any time where my wife has been in the bathroom in the middle of the night and I thought someone had broken in the house, walked past our bed and went into the bathroom and locked the door.

If OP really believes that is what happened that night, he belongs in a mental institution, because he has a mental disorder.

Mung.

Bear in mind that this is South Africa.... where home invasion and lawlessness generally has been very common. Murder, rape, kidnappings all common. People do live in "fear" in gated communities... lots of alarms etc People DO own/carry guns and use them for protection/self defence

Also a double amputee... vulnerable...paranoid much perhaps.... and rightly so.. an easy target if unarmed.

Woken in the night, to answer phone or whatever I have experienced being "half asleep"... a bit confused to say the least. And I don't have a problem with imagining a situation where you assume your wife is in the bed next to you (where she always is)... but finding she has gotten up unbeknownst to you.

So overall I do not have a problem with the Defence hypothesis.

However, I have not heard much of the evidence at all. I fail to se how you can draw any conclusions based on just one ear witness?

She has to be evaluated not only on what she says... but her general presentation. Personally I take what she said with a huge grain of salt. Even intelligent people can get fixed notions... which they stick to. In fact with a very intelligent person they have more ability to think of ways to "explain away" what seems to contradict... more ability to reconcile any "Cognitive Dissonance"
I am prejudiced... I have known several people... intelligent, but stubborn... will argue for ever and never concede they are wrong in the smallest detail. That is how I felt listening to Burger.
And..... All that CRAP about needing to speak in Afrikaans... then disagreeing with interpreter... only to then speak PERFECT English. I know people who speak two or more languages, fluently and they all confirm that confusion arises when trying to multi-task and speak in and out of one language. It screws up the brain to be talking in one language and thinking in the other. The people I know are perfectly "happy" speaking and thinking English, even though it is a "second" language. I have discussed this very point with several people. A conversation in either language is OK, but some confusion when there is an injection of a side conversation in the other language. I think the messing about in court with with interpreter and then interpreting herself made her evidence more complicated than it needed to be. IIt was certainly made impeachment hard since she was explaining discrepancies as nuances of interpretation. As we saw, she was more than fluent in English. But if Afrikaans was her choice... so be it... but not chopping and changing back and forth.

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

I am more concerned with her having the cell phone in the bathroom and being fully clothed, as well as the door being locked. Seems like she was not using the toilet at the time, which you then have to say what was she doing? Another question is what woke him up? And again, who breaks into a house and locks themselves in a bathroom?

I don’t KNOW about that yet. It has not been presented as evidence?

You are being silly on the "who breaks in and locks themselves in a toilet.." The claim is that the bathroom window was where OP thought a bad guy got in. Woken by noise from the bathroom I guess. Quite likely (according to his version) he did not know that the door was locked?? But again... I do not know that it was yet. Was it locked? I assume it was since I have heard he took to it with a cricket bat.

I can not explain the details you are raising, because I have not heard what the details are yet?

I am assuming that OP is innocent. I await evidence that convinces me he is not.

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

I will say I am finding it hard to remain open about this case because I see the same "Lynch Mob" types posting about this case as I saw with GZ and Dunn case. The same people at the same "True Gossip Forums"

They see OP as guilty from the outset. They "hate" the defence lawyer and "love" the prosecutor. They claim the judge should be stopping the defence attorney from "badgering" this marvellous witness. They think her testimony is gospel and it should not be permitted to question it

It is tending to make me think the opposite. They have been WRONG about other recent cases.. so I am leaning slightly to OP's side. And as I say the Judicial System we all cherish places him in the position of being INNOCENT at the moment... awaiting evidence that proves his guilt.

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

During the delay before trial... we were "entertained" by by Annamarie.. first time I have heard about her... she seems to be nuts. Perhaps a member of one of the "True Gossip Forums"?

Here is an article about her, from an earlier appearance a year ago.........

‘Oscar’s dead mom asked me to help him’
February 22 2013 at 08:00am
By ZELDA VENTER


A woman, only known as Annamarie, leaves the
high court after a failed attempt to have Oscar
Pistorius committed for mental observation.
Photo: Oupa Mokoena

Pretoria - Oscar Pistorius’s dead biological mother came to her in a dream and asked her to help her son.

This is what a woman who claims to have known Pistorius since he was a toddler is saying.

While Pistorius’s legal team was battling it out in the magistrate’s court to obtain bail for him, the woman approached a Pretoria High Court judge and demanded that he “immediately” put a stop to the bail proceedings, until Pistorius has been referred for mental observation.

The application was brought on Thursday by a woman calling herself “Annamarie”.

She said her last name was uncertain as she was previously Riethmiller and also previously Versfeld – “ex-wife of Oscar’s orthopaedic surgeon, Dr Gerald Versfeld.”

She cited Pistorius as the respondent in the matter.

Annamarie told Judge Joseph Raulinga that Pistorius immediately had to be referred for 60 days of observation by a panel of independent psychiatrists. This, she said, was “to determine his sanity at the time of causing the death of Reeva Steenkamp”.

.....more at link
http://www.iol.co.za/news/crime-courts/ ... xTZ8M4xjB1

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

Pistorius trial sees dramatic testimony
Monday 3 March 2014 16:21

Dramatic testimony about a woman's terrified screams marked the first day of the murder trial of paralympian Oscar Pistorius on Monday. A witness told the High Court in Pretoria four shots followed the woman's cries the night Pistorius's girlfriend was shot dead in his Pretoria home.

The testimony by Michelle Burger, an economics lecturer at the University of Pretoria, made for a gripping start to the paralympian's high-profile trial a year after the shooting.

Burger was the first witness called by prosecutor Gerrie Nel, and appeared to contradict Pistorius's denial of the State's claim that the couple had a row just before Steenkamp died.

Earlier, a sombre, soft-spoken Pistorius told Judge Thokozile Masipa "not guilty, My Lady", when he was asked to plead to the murder charge and a range of other, lesser charges relating to alleged contraventions of the firearms act.

The State said since there were no eye witnesses to the event, it would therefore rely on circumstantial and forensic evidence to convict the 27-year-old athlete nicknamed "Blade Runner".

"There were only two people in the house, there were no eye witnesses," Nel said.

"The State's case is based on circumstantial evidence... and on what the neighbours heard...and lead ballistic and forensic evidence."

.... more at link
http://www.sabc.co.za/news/a/65eb370043 ... y-20140303

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

Let me clarify my position.

I am not rejecting the State hypothesis... I can see it as very plausible that there was an argument.. Reeva locked herself in toilet and OP shot through door.. in a bit of a rage..... easy peasy to accept that is a plausible narrative.

But... I can also accept OP's version as plausible. Maybe a little paranoid (in a normal day to day sense)... hears a noise... is convinced it is some bad dude and that his and Reeva's life is in danger.

I am "playing dumb"... sort of "Devils advocate" in discussion because I really DO consider that "the Golden thread" is critical in our system of Justice.

Innocent until PROVEN guilty beyond reasonable doubt.

The burden being on The State to present and prove a case against an accused.

The system is intentionally weighted towards NOT convicting people where there is doubt. To letting some guilty people walk rather than risk convicting and innocent person.

I certainly would NOT convict him based on one "ear witness"... even several ear witnesses... eye (and ear) witnesses are notoriously wrong in the detail they report.... even though convinced in their own mind (not lying).

In a sense... even if OP "did it".... he gets away with it unless THE STATE can convince the judge(s) that he did.

If they can convince Rumpole... they are in with a good chance

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

Yes, and let me clarify, that my thoughts are about what I think happened, not what they might be able to prove.

It's all good Mung....

You post for the Prosecution... and I'll post for the Defence.... My Namesake Rumpole of the Bailey would be pleased to see it.

Never plead Guilty was his motto


Rumpole - The Golden Thread

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

Pistorius trial: A look at main issues on 1st day
By Associated Press, Updated: Tuesday, March 4, 6:40 AM



PRETORIA, South Africa — Oscar Pistorius pleaded not guilty to four charges, including murder for girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp’s shooting death, on the first day of his trial at a court in the South African capital, Pretoria. Here is a look at the main issues Monday in the murder trial of the double-amputee Olympic athlete that has raised international interest and was carried, in part, on live television.
[....]
PISTORIUS IN COURT
Pistorius carried a notepad and pen into court and later brought in what appeared to be a laptop bag. Facing a possible life sentence if found guilty of premeditated murder in Steenkamp’s shooting death, Pistorius sometimes made notes during the day’s proceedings and passed some of them to his legal team in front of the wooden bench the athlete was sitting in.

The Olympian wore a dark gray suit and black tie and appeared relaxed, smiling at one point. He spoke little to the court. He only confirmed to the judge that he understood the charges against him and then said “not guilty” to each one of them.

Members of his family, including his uncle Arnold, sister Aimee and brother Carl sat directly behind him in Courtroom GD.

KEY ARGUMENTS
The opening day focused on the sequence of events in the pre-dawn hours of Feb. 14, when Pistorius concedes shooting four times through a door in his bathroom, hitting girlfriend Steenkamp three times and killing her. He says he thought she was a dangerous intruder.

The first witness to testify, Michelle Burger, lives near Pistorius’ house. She said she heard a woman’s “blood-curdling” screams and a man shouting for “help” before the sounds of the gunshots. The testimony backs the prosecution’s assertion that there was a loud fight before the shooting.

Cross-examining her, Pistorius lawyer Barry Roux argued she could have been mistaken in two ways: The shots she thought she heard could have been Pistorius hitting the toilet door with a cricket bat to get to his girlfriend out after the accidental shooting. Also, the screams were actually Pistorius and not a woman, Roux suggested, because the athlete had a high-pitched voice when he was anxious.


...more at link
http://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/pi ... story.html

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

Not sure I am ready for another trial.. let's see how complex this gets.

H/T "minor4th"
(Verified Attorney)

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

Well hello everyone, I'm slightly better from my flu, gets better every day. Thankfully, I've had a live trial to take up my time.

I think it is too early for conjecture on our part, but I would remind everyone watching as Rumpole has pointed out, it would be a very natural thing in your house in the wee small hours if you lived in South Africa, hearing noises during the night to firstly assume your house has burglars in it - much more so than possibly any other country in the world. My cousin lived in South Africa for many years, so i know a little bit about how that country works.

I think what the defense has been continuously doing with the first Witness. almost to the point of being way over the top when he asks her about the shots and the screams, is that I think we will discover as the trial progresses that if one of the bullets hit her brain, she would not have been able to scream after [as the witness stated] that last shot. The witness seems adamant about what she heard, and she may well be right, she's in my opinion, certainly not making things up, her reactions to me, seems quite natural at the time the events took place, particularly in South Africa where it is estimated that 45 murders take place daily - that's quite a figure.

I've tried to put myself there in my mind, is it possible that Pistorius genuinely thought Reeva was still in bed when he got up to go to the balcony - if so, then he would not have expected it to be her making the noises in the bathroom, also it is just as believable that when he got out of bed to go to the balcony, unknown to him, Reeva then went to the bathroom which was why he heard the noises.

In my country if I was in bed and got up to go to the bathroom, my partner going to another part of the room, or the balcony, whilst I slipped into the bathroom at 2 or 3am making a slight noise or noises as I did so, would not have raised an eyebrow, my partner would simply have jumped to the conclusion that it was me in the bathroom, since only he and I were in the house at the time. Our first instincts would not have been a house breaking or worse.

I'm going to hold my counsel on this case meantime, because I think things will be much clearer [we hope] as the trial proceeds which I think will be a month at least.

We still have the forensic evidence to get through, which I think will be fascinating, as well as the height he said he was at. I think in his circumstances, if there was no argument between the two, and in that country a man in the early hours of the morning, without his prosthesis would indeed, have felt very insecure.

Open mind me - at the moment.

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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 Wroughead

TRYING to keep an open mind... but the prosecution witnesses are so obviously "pushing a narrative" that I am already leaning towards DIS-believing them.
Burger was awful in the end. She painted herself into a corner and could not (would not) concede even a logical impossibility. Which to me puts her entire testimony in doubt. Her husband is on now ... and it is so obvious that they have aligned their versions. Same words and same conclusions using the same phrases. I dont doubt that they heard what they say (although they have added bits learned from news since).. but the conclusions they have drawn are at best only one of several interpretations... they have "imprinted themselves" with a scenario and are not prepared to consider alternatives. And it is NOT their job to be deciding what their evidence means. They should present the evidence of what they heard and not what they think it means.

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