Pistorius shot and killed his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp on Valentine’s Day 2013.
Advertisement
The athlete is now under house arrest at his uncle’s luxurious home in Pretoria after serving less than a year for killing his girlfriend on Valentine’s Day 2013.
Steenkamp’s family members were present, keeping a stony-faced throughout the court proceeding, but hugged after hearing the verdict.
The judge called the circumstances surrounding Steenkamp’s death “a human tragedy of Shakespearean proportions”.
At the original trial previous year, Judge Thokozile Masipa ruled that the state had failed to prove intent or “dolus eventualis”, a legal concept that centres on a person being held responsible for the foreseeable consequences of their actions.
But the prosecution appealed, arguing that even if it was true that Pistorius believed the person was an intruder, he was still guilty of murder on the basis that he must have foreseen that shooting four times into the small cubicle would likely kill any person inside.
“One does not really know what his explanation was for having fired the shots”, Leach said.
Last year a judge gave Pistorius a five-year jail sentence for “culpable homicide” but prosecutors on appeal argued that he should be convicted of murder. It was unknown if Pistorius was watching the TV broadcast or monitoring the initial news reports online that suggested he would serve no more prison time.
Leach said dolus eventualis effectively meant gambling with the life of a victim.
CNN legal analyst Kelly Phelps said that double jeopardy – a defense that prevents a criminal defendant from being retried on the same charges following a verdict – did not technically apply in the Pistorius case for two reasons.
HollywoodLifers, do you agree that Oscar’s culpable homicide conviction should’ve been overturned? “In the interests of justice the conviction and the sentence imposed in respect thereof must be set aside and the conviction substituted with a conviction of the correct offence”.
Phelps said Pistorius had one final avenue of appeal remaining – to take the case to the country’s Constitutional Court. “The legal team will study the finding and we will be guided by them in terms of options going forward”.
There was initial confusion in the court when the judge preceded his reading of the Pistorius ruling by saying an appeal had been dismissed.
Advertisement
“I don’t think this is the end of the road”, Du Toit said by phone. A 15-year prison sentence is the minimum punishment for murder in South Africa. The 29-year-old will now have to return to court to be re-sentenced for murder.
