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Pistorius to Face Psychiatric Assessment Pistorius to Face Psychiatric Assessment
(about 5 hours later)
Oscar Pistorius, the South African double-amputee track star, was ordered at his murder trial on Tuesday to undergo psychiatric tests as an outpatient to determine his mental state when he shot and killed his girlfriend in the early hours of Valentine’s Day, 2013. In more than just miles, it is a long way from Olympic Stadium in London to the Weskoppies Psychiatric Hospital in Pretoria, South Africa, but that is the journey that Oscar Pistorius is about to complete.
The instruction, expected since an initial ruling last week by Judge Thokozile Matilda Masipa, shifted the nine-week-old trial into new territory, introducing mental health questions that, under South African law, could derail Mr. Pistorius’s insistence that he acted in “putative self-defense.” Less than two years after he was celebrated at the 2012 Olympic Games as the first disabled athlete to compete against able-bodied runners, Mr. Pistorius on Tuesday was ordered by the judge presiding over his murder trial in Pretoria to present himself as an outpatient at the Weskoppies hospital for up to 30 days of psychiatric assessment.
Mr. Pistorius says he opened fire on a locked bathroom door at his home in Pretoria, fearing at least one intruder was about to attack him. Only when he battered down the door with a cricket bat did he discover that he had shot Reeva Steenkamp, 29, a model and law graduate. Starting on Monday, a panel of mental health experts will seek to determine whether Mr. Pistorius, in the words of Judge Thokozile Matilda Masipa, was “capable of appreciating the wrongfulness of his act or acting in accordance with appreciation of the wrongfulness of his act” when he opened fire on a locked bathroom door at his home in the early hours of Valentine’s Day last year.
Mr. Pistorius, 27, has denied the prosecution’s argument that the couple had argued and that he shot Ms. Steenkamp deliberately in a jealous rage. The trial, broadcast live, has reached a global audience. Mr. Pistorius says he feared that an intruder hiding in the bathroom was about to attack and fired in what his defense lawyers call “putative self-defense.” It was only after he broke through the door with a cricket bat that he realized that his girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp, 29, a model and law school graduate, was on the other side, he has said. The prosecution says he killed her in a jealous rage after an argument.
Two South African lawyers not connected with the case said the country’s Criminal Procedure Act stipulated that defendants found to be suffering from a mental disorder or defect that rendered them unable to distinguish between right and wrong at the time of an offense must be committed indefinitely to a mental hospital. It was not immediately clear if that fate was under consideration for Mr. Pistorius. The lawyers were speaking in return for anonymity because the trial is continuing. Since the trial opened on March 3, those two narratives have formed the core of the legal battle. The introduction of a new element — Mr. Pistorius’s mental health, and with it, the question of criminal responsibility — has shifted the case into a new, high-stakes phase that could sway the course of the trial.
Judge Masipa said on Tuesday that Mr. Pistorius would be examined as an outpatient by a panel of mental health specialists at the Weskoppies Psychiatric Hospital in Pretoria, the South African capital, where the trial is being held in the North Gauteng High Court. The judge said that Mr. Pistorius’s examination would begin on May 26 and last no more than 30 days. He would be required to spend seven hours a day — from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. — at the hospital, unless excused earlier. By some accounts, the examinations at Weskoppies — built in 1892 in what was then the Republic of Transvaal, and known initially as the Pretoria Lunatic Asylum — could even determine whether the hearings proceed at all.
The hospital, mainly comprising a series of low, brick buildings dating to 1892, lies on a wooded, 200-acre site in western Pretoria and houses some 1,400 patients. Tyrone Maseko, a criminal lawyer, said on the television station eNCA in South Africa that the question the psychiatric panel would seek to answer from Mr. Pistorius was “do you have the ability to appreciate the difference between wrong and right?”
The judge said that the aim of the scrutiny would be to determine whether Mr. Pistorius “was capable of appreciating the wrongfulness of his act or acting in accordance with appreciation of the wrongfulness of his act” and whether, under criminal law, he was responsible for his actions when he shot Ms. Steenkamp. The case was adjourned until June 30. If Mr. Pistorius passes the first part of the test, Mr. Maseko said, the panel’s next move will be to evaluate whether, “at the time of the commission of the offense, he had the ability to act in accordance with that appreciation.”
Last week, Mr. Pistorius’s defense called a forensic psychiatrist, Merryll Vorster, who testified that the athlete, born without fibula bones, suffered from a generalized anxiety disorder dating to a double amputation below the knee at the age of 11 months followed by a difficult childhood. “If he fails that second part,” he added, “we say he has diminished capacity.”
His father was described as irresponsible and frequently absent while his mother was so jittery about possible intruders that she slept with a firearm under her pillow. Two South African lawyers not connected with the case said the country’s Criminal Procedure Act stipulated that defendants found to be suffering from a mental disorder or defect that rendered them unable to distinguish between right and wrong at the time of an offense must be committed indefinitely to a mental hospital.
Dr. Vorster said that the disorder did not mean Mr. Pistorius could not distinguish between right and wrong, but that the condition would have affected his behavior on the night of the shooting. The athlete’s defense lawyer, Barry Roux, had apparently intended the evidence to bolster the argument that Mr. Pistorius was more than usually susceptible to fears about intruders, particularly in light of a sense of vulnerability related to his disability. On Tuesday, the 33rd day of the trial, Judge Masipa adjourned the oft-delayed case until June 30 to allow time for the psychiatric evaluation.
But the prosecutor, Gerrie Nel, seized on Dr. Vorster’s testimony to argue that, if there was a question of mental health, Judge Masipa had no option but to order a psychiatric assessment. The debate about Mr. Pistorius’s mental health erupted last week, when a forensic psychiatrist, Dr. Merryll Vorster, testified for the defense that the athlete, born without fibula bones, suffered from a generalized anxiety disorder dating to a double amputation below the knee at the age of 11 months that was followed by a difficult childhood.
The judge said last Wednesday that while it might not have been the defense’s intention, Dr. Vorster’s diagnosis raised a question of “criminal incapacity.” The judge quoted the doctor as saying that even though Mr. Pistorius appreciated the difference between right and wrong, “his ability to act in accordance with this” may have been affected by his disorder. Dr. Vorster said that the disorder did not mean Mr. Pistorius could not distinguish between right and wrong, but that the condition would have affected his behavior on the night of the shooting. Mr. Pistorius’s defense lawyer, Barry Roux, apparently intended the evidence to bolster the argument that the athlete was unusually susceptible to fears about intruders, particularly in light of a sense of vulnerability related to his disability.
The panel’s findings are likely to have a key bearing on the remainder of the trial, South African legal analysts said. The prosecutor, Gerrie Nel, said the mere suggestion of a mental disorder demanded a full psychiatric report, and the judge agreed.
At present, Mr. Pistorius faces a minimum 25-year jail term if convicted of premeditated murder. Mr. Pistorius faces a mandatory 25-year minimum jail term if convicted of premeditated murder.
If the experts confirm the diagnosis of a generalized anxiety disorder, that could help the defense in its portrayal of a man more than normally vigilant about his personal security and more likely to resort to “fight” rather than “flight” — in Dr. Vorster’s words — when confronted with perceived threats because of the nature of his disability. Such considerations seem remote from the heady days of August 2012, when Mr. Pistorius was lauded by his peers as an inspiration, even though he came in last in the Olympic 400-meter semifinals. “Oscar is someone special, especially in our event,” Kirani James of Grenada, who won the race, said after waiting to hug Mr. Pistorius at the finish line. “It’s a memorable moment for me to be out here performing with him.”
But if the psychiatric examination concludes that he does not suffer from an anxiety disorder, that could undermine the arguments put forward by his defense team and could weaken a case for a lighter sentence if he is found guilty.