April 7, 2014

"I was simply trying to protect Reeva. I can promise that when she went to bed that night she felt loved."

Oscar Pistorius takes the witness stand and weeps for the woman he killed and for himself. He told of his own suffering in life, as a child born with defective legs and as the sometime victim of crime. And:
"When I met Reeva, I think it was just a blessing. I've always wanted to have a partner that was a Christian. She was a very strong Christian."

He then became emotional again as he said "my God's a God of refuge" and his counsel, Barry Roux, asked for an adjournment.

11 comments:

Saint Croix said...

"Under South African law there is no jury system."

Wow.

There are cases where a defendant would not want a jury, but other cases where I would think a defendant would be desperate for a jury.

I would not expect such an emotional appeal to work at all on a judge.

Anonymous said...

I think his story is bull....

madAsHell said...

I think she made the mistake of saying "I'm leaving you" in person. It's much safer to write a letter.

Richard Dolan said...

I don't know what defenses in mitigation are allowed under South African law, or whether this testimony is being admitted only to allow the court to say that it gave the defendant a full opportunity to explain his actions and state of mind. If so, it would hardly be unprecedented. In the US, for example, the same kind of thing plays out when a woman kills her husband/lover and then offers a story in mitigation about how he was a monster throughout the relationship (even though, when she killed him, he was asleep).

As the song says, there are 50 ways to leave your lover, and one way is to kill him/her. But it's hard to see this case ending in anything other than a conviction on the top charge.

madAsHell said...

I wonder what happened to our South African friend with the beautiful butterfly avatar. His insight was very interesting.

avwh said...

Your keywords included "crying", which I first read as "lying".

I think "lying" actually fits this case better.

Mark O said...

His behavior is irrational and illogical. I believe the evidence shows he intentionally killed her, but that doesn't mean a famous athlete will be convicted of a crime, now does it?

Cedarford said...

Stumpy's going down. A dumb jury might have bought his BS- but 3 judges??

Charlotte C said...

I wonder what happened to our South African friend with the beautiful butterfly avatar. His insight was very interesting.

madAsHel, Thanks for the kind words. She is rather in need of her beauty sleep, and vowed that tonight would not be spent trawling the web. And yet, here I am at 1:55 am.

Saint Croix said..."Under South African law there is no jury system."

Indeed, we moved to the present system of a judge and two assessors in 1969, due to the racial bias of jury decisions.

Joe said...

I don't know if his actions were premeditated or not. However, it's really clear that the man is extremely narcissistic.

NotWhoIUsedtoBe said...

I wonder if she felt loved as she was bleeding to death on the floor.