I thought the case against Pistorius was strong until:

Pisto wrote:

The prosecutor said, "This in itself also constitutes premeditated murder of a 'defenseless burglar'."

i think an issue might be that we dont even know the tone of the prosecutors voice. these words may have come out of his mouth, but was he being sarcastic in refering to the victim as a "burglar?"

i get quoted in the paper with some regularity and i have leared a couple things about that: 1) the reporter often misquotes and 2) reporters often dont get sarcasm. that is, he may report the words correctly, but still does not give the real meaning.

another issue is that legal words often have very specific meanings. sometimes those meanings are NOT what one would commonly expect or think.

for an example of confusing terms, in my state a shotgun is NOT a "weapon," it IS a "dangerous weapon" and is a firearm. on the surface it makes no sense that a shotgun can be a dangerous weapon, but not an actual weapon.

one must always be very careful with legal words. that said, i have no idea how RSA defines "premeditated."

Like I said, the final ruling in the Martin case was manslaughter, not murder.

Obviously you don't understand what "diminished responsibility" means; what's sad is that you'd rather try to win this argument through obtuseness than to educate yourself.

English law (actually the principle holds good throughout the Common Law) says that a person who is not "compos mentis" cannot be held responsible for their actions (this is a defect in the defendant and doesn't change the facts of the case). If you read the appeal, the Law Lords did not dispute the jury finding (murder).

Now you can continue with your idiotic insistence on a claim that is false, but you are only making yourself look stupid, and undermining your own argument.

Obviously you don't know what an appeal is:

"The farmer, jailed for life 18 months ago, had his murder conviction reduced to manslaughter by the Court of Appeal and his sentence cut to five years."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1361028/Martin-is-cleared-on-murder-count.html

You are the one making yourself look stupid by presenting a solitary case to refute my statement, that no one has ever been convicted of murder for killing a burglar in their home, with a case that actually ended up with a manslaughter conviction.

"Martin was therefore entitled to have the murder verdict quashed and replaced with a conviction of manslaughter on the ground of diminished responsibility, the judges ruled."

"Murder verdict quashed and REPLACED WITH A CONVICTION OF MANSLAUGHTER"

Pisto wrote:

Why are you still trying to make excuses for being unable to refute the fact that no one has EVER, in a country practicing English law, been convicted of murder for killing a burglar in their home?

But plenty of men have been convicted of murdering their wife/girlfriend. In the end that is who was killed. This case is about a dead girlfriend not a dead burglar.

Pisto wrote:

The prosecutor said, "This in itself also constitutes premeditated murder of a 'defenseless burglar'."

Well, one thing that is clear is that their justice system differs from ours in a number of way. Off the bat, they don't have juries and what they consider premeditated actions (walking 7 meters on his stubs and fired his gun through a closed door at an intruder while screaming at the top of his lungs) seems more akin to what the American system would consider "heat of the moment" actions (or roid rage).

So yes, I agree, by American standards the prosecutor's case does not seem nearly as air-tight as they made it sound.

The rule in the US is that protecting oneself or others from the threat of deadly harm is a defense against murder. If someone breaks into your house, you are likely to assume a threat of desdly harm if you are present. However,If the burglar is demonstrably no longer a threat to you (ie.g.incapacitated) you lose the argument that you were protecting life and, therefore, lose that defense to the murder charge. Basically, if the threat is gone, you can't just take vengeance no matter how pissed off you are - your supposed to call the cops.

I am not sure what the prosecutor said in the OP case,but it seems like he is trying to establish the elements of premedtitated murder and then eliminate the defense of protecting life. By OPs account he thought about his actions deliberatley as he approached the door. That is the premeditated part. Elements of the crime are are satisfied. Now the prosecutor must address the protecting life defense that prohibits conviction. To do that, he could be arguing that the burglar was confined to a space and was not a threat when OP came across the room and pulled the trigger. It may not work but its not a totally crazy argument. If I were OP I would counterargue that I thought the other guy would blast through the door first.

Florida's laws seem unnecessary.

"Martin was therefore entitled to have the murder verdict quashed and replaced with a conviction of manslaughter on the ground of diminished responsibility, the judges ruled."

"Murder verdict quashed and replaced with a conviction of manslaughter ON THE GROUND OF DIMINISHED RESPONSIBILITY"

Until you get hold of the notion that a finding of diminished responsibility is a defect in the defendant, and not in the case (which was proven to be murder), then there really is nothing more to say.

Perhaps another example might help: Warren Hill killed Joseph Handspike, that fact is not in dispute, but whether or not Hill is criminally liable and can be punished by the death penalty relies on Hill's mental fitness, not the facts of the case surrounding Handspike's death.

One way to look at it would be that if we were to substitute a mentally normal person's name into the case, they would be guilty of murder.

It's worth your time reading the Martin appeal, which brought no new evidence regarding the death of the Traveller, but only evidence regarding Martin's state of mind.

Of course, you could just keep quoting from The Telegraph, a ring-wing rag with a particular political agenda and an interest in keeping its readership on side? Why not quote from the appeal document instead? Is that because you know it won't back up your interpretation of the case?

He shot his girlfriend, not a burglar. Pisto drop it, no judge nor jury would ever buy his flimsy lie, err statement as seriously creating any belief that he would believe its a burglar. No one on this thread has mentioned that since the info came out today on just how small this bathroom is that NO ONE would EVER lock the door to such a small space unless under threat.

If he had gone with the defense of "we had an argument and she said things that caused me to lose my mind emotionally and I shot her" then it wouldn't be premeditaed and he would be better off than his current defense path.

There is evidence to support she was wearing the clothes she came over in despite "going to bed" and doing "yoga"

Oscar needs to man up and do his victim's family and her soul right and admit what he did and take a plea bargain. He is arrogant and selfish and won't do this and I have had the opportunity to spend many hours in his company and while I never saw this coming, I am not the least bit surprised due to the temperment and character I have witnessed.

Boy the lengths Nike will go to to get everyone on this message board to quit talking about Rupp and the NOP thyroid and other possible PED drug use allegations.

You are the one making yourself look stupid by presenting a solitary case to refute my statement, that no one has ever been convicted of murder for killing a burglar in their home, with a case that actually ended up with a manslaughter conviction.

You only asked for one case (or have you forgotten your original question?).

Calling his girlfriend a burglar does not help his case one bit. Whoever the person was, be it a girlfriend or a burglar, they were in a different room with the door closed at the time the shots were fired. Oscar's life was not in immediate danger as he had a clear escape route out through the main bedroom door to remove himself from the danger. So a self defence argument will not wash. He had the choice to leave, or the choice to walk to the other closed door and fire shots through that door. He had that choice. He chose to fire in the direction of an unknown person with the express intention of inflicting harm. At the time he fired the shots, his safety was not being threatened.

The way it's quoted as "defenseless burglar" makes me wonder if it should have been written as "defenseless 'burglar'" (meaning that "burglar" should be in quotation marks separately, to imply it's not really a "burglar" and that they are being sarcastic about the "burglar" claim). Hence the premeditated murder accusation. That is to say, premeditated murder of the "burglar" (i.e., the girlfriend).

Now if they are just straight-up quoting "defenseless burglar" with no sarcasm intended, that doesn't make sense to call it premeditated, does it? I mean if it all happens in just a matter of seconds, is it really "premeditated"?

I think it's just a simple case of them using "burglar" like we might do in saying O.J Simpson will look for "the real killer" of the victims.

Slammie wrote:

Yep. He's gonna walk.

The only thing certain about this case is this statement is most definitely not true...

The government does NOT want a national hero imprisoned. They deliberately assigned Hilton Botha to the prosecution in an attempt to sabotage the case, piece by piece. And it's working.

The only thing certain, whether he killed her intentionally or accidentally, is that he is one dumb SOB.

Totally agree - dumb, dumb, dumb. Maybe he won't be convicted of anything, but I would think her family is going to file some sort of lawsuit against him. Either way, his life as he knew it is over.With that said.... any indication as to what state her clothes were in, specifically her bottoms and underwear? If she was using the toilet, wouldn't those be off or at least around her ankles? If hiding, still around her waist?O

hypo wrote:

The only thing certain, whether he killed her intentionally or accidentally, is that he is one dumb SOB.

white genocide wrote:

60,000 whites murdered by blacks since 1994 in SA. Zero media coverage.

OJ is the real killer?

Re. Martin case:

The end result is the end result.

Ben Johnson is not an Olympic 100m champion.

Rashid Ramzi is not an Olympic 1500m champion.

Martin was not convicted of murder.

You are quibbling over the how and why. What matters is the end result. The final conviction for Martin was manslaughter, not murder.

The fact remains: No one has had a murder conviction upheld for killing a burglar in his/her home.