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Defense Rests Case in Oscar Pistorius Murder Trial Defense Rests Case in Oscar Pistorius Murder Trial
(about 2 hours later)
LONDON — More than four months after the double-amputee athlete Oscar Pistorius rose in court at the start of his murder trial in South Africa, defense lawyers concluded their case on Tuesday, depicting him as torn between supreme achievement on the track and a profound sense of private vulnerability away from it. LONDON — He has sobbed, retched and wailed. His testimony has been punctuated by cries of grief and met with accusations of mendacity. Before the High Court in Pretoria, the South African capital, the athlete Oscar Pistorius has been depicted variously as anguished and remorseful, egotistic, enamored of guns and filled with rage that propelled him to kill his girlfriend last year.
In a brief session on its 39th day of hearings, the oft-delayed trial — which has been televised around the world and is one of the highest-profile cases in South African judicial history — adjourned to permit both sides to prepare their written arguments. The defense and the prosecution will return to court on Aug. 7 to make their final oral arguments before Judge Thokozile Matilda Masipa. But on Tuesday, his stop-start murder trial — televised around the world and one of the most sensational since the O.J. Simpson hearings — took a decisive step closer to the moment when Judge Thokozile Matilda Masipa will offer her judgment on which portrayal of the double-amputee track star she believes is real.
There are no jury trials in South Africa, and it will be up to the judge, with the help of two assessors, to determine Mr. Pistorius’s fate. On the 39th day of hearings since the trial, which was supposed to last only three weeks, opened in March, defense lawyers rested their case and the hearings adjourned to permit both sides to prepare their written arguments before they return to court on Aug. 7 and 8 to make their final oral arguments. A verdict could be in before the end of August, according to reporters in the courtroom who have tweeted every minute detail of the case.
The hearing on Tuesday at the North Gauteng High Court in Pretoria, the South African capital, followed testimony by the final defense witness, a sports physician named Wayne Derman, over several fraught days that focused as much on Professor Derman’s credibility as on his arguments. But even as the trial nudged toward its closing stages after testimony from almost 40 witnesses, Mr. Pistorius, 27, was again depicted as a man of contradictions, torn between supreme achievement on the track and a profound sense of private vulnerability away from it.
“Although he loathes to be pitied in any way,” Professor Derman said of Mr. Pistorius, “the hard truth is that he does not have lower legs.” Professor Derman, who worked with the runner for several years, including at the 2012 Paralympic Games in London, said, “You’ve got a paradox — of an individual who is supremely able and an individual who is significantly disabled.” “Although he loathes to be pitied in any way,” Professor Wayne Derman, a leading South African sports physician, said of Mr. Pistorius, “the hard truth is that he does not have lower legs.” Professor Derman, who worked with the runner for several years, including at the 2012 Paralympic Games in London, said, “You’ve got a paradox — of an individual who is supremely able and an individual who is significantly disabled.”
The defense argues that Mr. Pistorius’s condition left him with a sense of vulnerability — a factor in his behavior in the early hours of Feb. 14, 2013, when he has admitted shooting to death his girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp, a 29-year-old model and law school graduate. The prosecution says he killed her in a jealous rage, but Mr. Pistorius, 27, says he shot her by mistake in the belief that an intruder had entered his home. The defense argues that Mr. Pistorius’s condition left him hyper-alert to any perceived threat — a factor, his lawyers argue, in his behavior in the early hours of Feb. 14, 2013, when he has admitted shooting to death Reeva Steenkamp, a 29-year-old model and law school graduate. The prosecution says he killed her in a jealous rage, but Mr. Pistorius says he shot her by mistake in the belief that an intruder had entered his home.
During Professor Derman’s testimony, the lead prosecutor, Gerrie Nel, told him: “You are not objective in your evidence before court. You do not want to give an answer that will not benefit the accused.” Professor Derman responded, “I do not believe that I am biased.” “This is the night I lost the person I most cared about,” he said, sobbing, in one exchange when he took the stand for five days of grueling cross-examination in April. “I don’t know how people don’t understand that.”
The final days of the defense case were overshadowed on some social media sites by leaked images, shown on Australian television, of Mr. Pistorius re-enacting his movements between his bedroom and a locked toilet cubicle on the night of the killing. But the lead prosecutor, Gerrie Nel, known as the Pit Bull for his pugnacious manner, was not moved by such protestations. He called Mr. Pistorius a liar, saying at one point that his version of events was “so improbable that it cannot possibly be true.” At another moment in cross-examination, Mr. Nel accused Mr. Pistorius of manufacturing his distress, saying he was “trying to get emotional again.”
The video showed him, unusually, walking on the flimsy-looking stumps below his knee where both of his legs were amputated at the age of 11 months because he was born without fibula bones. The image, shown on YouTube, was in marked contrast to the triumphant photographs of Mr. Pistorius on the scythe-like running prosthetics that inspired his nickname, Blade Runner, when he competed in both the Olympic and Paralympic Games in 2012. As the defense began closing its case, Mr. Nel returned to the attack, assailing the credibility of Professor Derman’s testimony and telling him: “You are not objective in your evidence before court. You do not want to give an answer that will not benefit the accused.”
The trial, which opened March 3, was set to last three weeks, but has been held up by several postponements, including a six-week break while Mr. Pistorius underwent a psychiatric assessment. He was deemed mentally fit to stand trial. Professor Derman responded, “I do not believe that I am biased.”
According to a schedule agreed on Tuesday, the prosecution is to hand in its written argument on July 30 and the defense on Aug. 4. Judge Masipa ordered that both documents be kept under wraps until the lawyers meet on Aug. 7 and 8 to argue their case in court. The final days of the defense case were overshadowed on some social media sites by leaked images, shown on Australian television, of Mr. Pistorius re-enacting his movements between his bedroom and a locked toilet cubicle on the night of the killing. The video was filmed for the defense as part of preparations for the trial and was never meant to be broadcast, and apparently was obtained illegally — a charge the Australian broadcaster denied.
Judge Masipa will then consider her judgment, possibly over several weeks. Some South African reporters who have covered the case intensively since the killing last year said that, while the verdict might not be known until the end of August, the defense seemed on Tuesday to be laying the groundwork for an appeal if Mr. Pistorius is convicted. The video shows him, unusually, walking uncertainly on the flimsy-looking stumps below his knee where both of his legs were amputated at the age of 11 months because he was born without fibula bones. The image, posted on YouTube, was in marked contrast to the triumphant photographs of Mr. Pistorius on the scythe-like running prosthetics that inspired his nickname, Blade Runner, when he competed in both the Olympic and Paralympic Games in 2012.
The charge of premeditated murder carries a mandatory minimum term of 25 years. The main defense lawyer, Barry Roux, said at the brief hearing on Tuesday that several potential witnesses for the defense had not been willing to testify because they “did not want their voices heard around the world.” Since there is no jury trial in South Africa, Judge Masipa will consider her judgment with the help of two assessors. The charge of premeditated murder carries a mandatory minimum term of 25 years. The defense seemed on Tuesday to be laying the groundwork for a possible appeal if Mr. Pistorius is convicted.
Reporters in the courtroom said they had taken that as a possible precursor to an appeal on the grounds that television coverage — highly unusual in South African courts — had jeopardized the fairness of the trial. The main defense lawyer, Barry Roux, said several potential witnesses for the defense had not been willing to testify because they “did not want their voices heard around the world.”
Reporters in the courtroom said that was possibly a precursor to an appeal on the grounds that television coverage — highly unusual in South African courts — had jeopardized the fairness of the trial by deterring witnesses. While witnesses were allowed to request that they not be shown on television while testifying, audio transmission has continued throughout the hearings.