Oscar Pistorius The Verdict

By Siegfried Walther

The Verdict was written and published by trial Advocate Siegfried Walther prior to the actual Trial Court Verdict. Compare it with the Judgment actually handed down on 11 September 2014.

The final portion of this updated version deals with the State's Appeal and the Judgment of the Supreme Court of Appeal. At the end the writer poses this question. Did the Appeal Court find Oscar guilty of murdering his girlfriend? Or did they accept his version and to all intents and purposes find him guilty of murdering someone he genuinely believed was an intruder? If the conviction is murder either way, does the answer really matter? And if so, why?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Siegfried Walther
• Release date: Aug 16, 2014
• ISBN: 9781311165008

Siegfried Walther

Born in Cape Town, South Africa.Practising Advocate of the High Court of South Africa specialising in civil litigation. (1999-to date)Former Attorney of the High Court. (1993-1999)Former Law Officer in the South African Defence Force during National Service. (1990)Writer, Aviation Analyst, DJ, Flight Simulator Pilot,

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Oscar Pistorius The Verdict

By Siegfried Walther

Published by Siegfried Walther at Smashwords

Text copyright © 2014 Judge Knott

All Rights Reserved

This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. It may not be sold

or given away. It may not be reproduced copied or distributed for commercial or

non-commercial purposes.

Smashwords Edition

Foreword

The Foreword below is as it appeared on 16 August 2015 when it was published save that it has been slightly amended to reflect that the actual author, Advocate Siegfried Walther, has now revealed himself as the author in place of Judge Knott (his pen-name.)

The writer is a professional member of a branch of the legal profession in South Africa which does not permit its members to comment in the media on cases in which they are involved or which are pending before the Courts.

There are good reasons for this, although some have probably fallen away in the modern media age where legal experts are now seen and heard to provide running commentary on Court proceedings as they happen. That said, my branch of the profession is not included amongst the latter.

One reason for this prohibition on commenting upon current cases in the media is that we regularly work in close proximity with the Judiciary and it is deemed undesirable for a member of the profession not involved in a case to be seen to be second guessing, criticising or to be attempting to influence the Judge or the Judicial process on a public platform before the case has run its course.

It is for this reason that I wrote this article, which follows the form one would expect of a judgment, under the pen name, as a legal writer, and not in any professional capacity.

I utilised the name of Judge Knott. The name signified firstly, that I might not be a Judge, although I have often acted as an Arbitrator, albeit in civil not criminal cases.

I had no qualms about commenting on this case in a publication which is publicly available prior to the conclusion of the matter, albeit under a pen name, since the case itself has been the subject of worldwide media coverage and scrutiny.

Members of the legal profession, both locally and internationally, have had a field day expressing informed, and, I daresay, even highly uninformed, views in writing and on television in regard to all aspects of the matter. The honourable Judge and learned Assessors, I am certain, will ignore or pay no heed to any of these views and I do not imagine that my two cents worth, added under a pen name, will be received or treated any differently.

If other branches of the legal profession, journalists and the public are permitted to express their views on the case, which is of course, their democratic right to do, then surely, I am likewise entitled to do so provided I do not do so in my professional capacity.

I now turn to the reason why I have decided to express any view at all on this matter and why I have chosen to do so in the form of a Verdict, as opposed to simply expressing such views in an article.

Many of the online views expressed by some of the public and assorted journalists in regard to pertinent aspects of the case are not indicative of a rational, reasoned, or informed approach to assessing the evidence which was led at the trial.

On the contrary, certain of the expressed opinions lead one to wonder whether it is the case, in long trials, that most people simply employ a filtering process in regard to evidence led, a process which is perhaps informed or governed by an overall view of the case arrived at far earlier in the proceedings.

Alternatively stated, it is probable that most lay people do form an early view of the guilt or otherwise of the accused and that once such view has crystallised, their individual bias for or against the accused serves to filter the way in which the evidence in the remainder of the case is assimilated, processed or understood.

On the other hand, it could simply be that the lay public do not fully appreciate the logical, but nonetheless demanding process required to assess and to evaluate a mountain of evidence; and this is all the more so where a lot of contradictory evidence was led during the course of a lengthy trial.

When the historic decision to broadcast this trial on television was made, the result was not only that foreign viewers, many of whom are familiar only with jury trials, were introduced to the South African criminal justice system, but it also introduced the general South African public to that system.

South African lay persons and even certain journalists found themselves exposed, for the first time, to a live demonstration of how a High Court Criminal trial is conducted. In this regard, it bears mentioning that many South Africans were amazed to learn that South Africa abandoned the use of juries in the late 1960’s. The not uncommon assumption that juries still operate in South Africa is largely attributable to the fact that most movie and television

Reviews for Oscar Pistorius The Verdict

[Siegfried Walther · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Should give many pause for thought!