Bloemfontein - The Directorate of Public Prosecutions on Monday filed its heads of argument as well as a record of the Oscar Pistorius trial at the Supreme Court of Appeal in Bloemfontein.
The papers were filed in preparation of the State’s appeal against the paralympian’s culpable homicide conviction that is due to be heard in November. The state is asking that Pistorius’s conviction be set aside and that he be found guilty of the more serious charge of murder, which could see his sentence upgraded to a minimum of 15 years in prison.
Pistorius is currently serving a five-year prison sentence for killing his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp on Valentine’s Day in 2013.
The High Court in Pretoria had reserved the following questions of law for the consideration of the Supreme Court of Appeal:
* Whether the principles of dolus eventualis were correctly applied to the accepted facts and the conduct of the accused;
* Whether the Court correctly conceived and applied the legal principles pertaining to circumstantial evidence and/or pertaining to multiple defences by an accused; and
* Whether the Court was correct in its construction and reliance on an alternative version of the accused and that this alternative version was reasonably possibly true.
In its heads of argument, the State claims that the trial court incorrectly applied the principles of dolus eventualis. At the heart of the matter is the question whether Pistorius could foresee that Steenkamp would be killed, but continued shooting, regardless.
“Should it be found that the Court incorrectly applied the principles of dolus eventualis, then a conclusion that the respondent [Pistorius] should have been convicted of murder is, with respect, inescapable”, the State claims in its submission.
“We argue that the only conceivable finding based on the (abovementioned) facts could at a minimum be that, in arming himself, walking to the bathroom with the intention to shoot, whilst knowing that there is a person behind a closed door of a small cubicle and intentionally firing four shots, should be that he intended to kill the person in the cubicle.”
The State goes on to argue that, if the court applied the legal principles pertaining to multiple defences by an accused wrongly, then a finding that the accused’s version was reasonably possibly true would be impossible.
“It is respectfully submitted that an accused’s version must be regarded as ‘inherently improbably’ if ‘he [or she] presents conflicting versions to the court’, so much so that it cannot be reasonably possibly true.”
As for the question of dealing with circumstantial evidence, the State further argues that “not only did the Court a quo exclude relevant evidence, but exhibited a fragmented approach in evaluating the circumstantial evidence.”
Judge Thokozile Masipa had found Pistorius guilty of culpable homicide, not murder, on September 12, 2014. Pistorius had claimed he fired four shots through the locked door of a toilet in his Pretoria home, under the mistaken impression that an intruder was hiding inside. He was also sentenced to three years imprisonment for discharging a firearm in a restaurant. This sentence was suspended for five years, which meant it would only kick in should Pistorius be found guilty of the same or a similar offence within the next five years.
Masipa granted the State leave to appeal last year based on her interpretation of the law, not the facts of the matter.
The filing of the of the heads of argument comes just days before Pistorius is expected to be released on parole. After spending only 10 months behind bars at the Kgosi Mampuru II prison in Pretoria, his parole could see him serving the rest of his sentence under some form of house arrest, which will probably be at his uncle’s luxury home in Waterkloof, Pretoria.
ANA