The fall of a hero continued in South Africa today. Oscar Pistorius, the double-amputee Olympic track star known as Blade Runner or the fastest man with no legs, has been unanimously convicted of murder by an appeals court of South Africa. The ruling by the supreme court overruled a court decision full of legal errors by a lower court ruling. Pistorius was convicted for shooting and killing his girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp, in a bathroom in 2013.
The next step for Pistorius is to receive a sentence, which will come from a trial court in South Africa. There is no timeline for how quickly that sentence will be handed out. For now, Pistorius will serve under house arrest at his uncle’s mansion in Pretoria, according to the Associated Press. He faces up to 15 years in jail according to South African law.
The appeals decision was made as a result of “errors in law” on key points of the trial. According to the appeals court, Pistorius should have “foreseen the death of whoever was behind the bathroom door, even if he didn’t know it was his girlfriend.” Pistorius was ripped by the appeals court for his testimony during the trial, in which he contradicted himself on multiple occasions. His failure to clarify why he fired four shots without giving warning perplexed the appeals court as well. The appeal court ruling also put the lower court’s judge on full blast as well. From The Globe and Mail;
The Pistorius case is “a human tragedy of Shakespearean proportions,” said Judge Eric Leach, reading the unanimous verdict by the appeal court as cameras broadcast the ruling on live television across South Africa.
He criticized the lower court judge, Thokozile Masipa, for failing to take into account the crucial evidence of a police ballistics expert who testified about the bullet holes and the wounds on Ms. Steenkamp’s body. The expert said the trajectory of the bullets showed an intention to kill.
There is actually one last card Pistorius can play if he so chooses. Pistorius can appeal this latest ruling to the Constitutional Court in South Africa by arguing the trial itself was unfair. The Constitutional Court in South Africa is the highest-ranking court in the nation, but it is unknown if Pistorius will continue the fight any further than this.
