Oscar Pistorius's lawyers to return to court to fight appeal ruling, Paralympian’s legal team to cast doubt on judge’s reason for allowing appeal that could upgrade runner’s sentence to murder Lawyers for Oscar Pistorius will return to court next month to challenge prosecutors’ arguments that he should be convicted of murder and sentenced to a minimum of 15 years in jail.
The disgraced Paralympian is currently serving a five-year jail sentence for shooting dead his girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp, but could be moved to house arrest in August.
Judge Thokozile Masipa ruled in December that state prosecutors could go to the supreme court of appeal over her verdict of culpable homicide – the South African equivalent of manslaughter – and seek to have it upgraded to murder.
An appeal can only be granted on a question of law, not on a judge’s factual findings. Masipa agreed with the prosecutors’ contention that the verdict was based on her interpretation of law, but the defence will seek to cast doubt on this at the South Gauteng high court in Johannesburg on 13 March.
“We will argue that these are matters of fact, rather than matters of law,” Pistorius’s lawyer Brian Webber said on Tuesday.
By lodging the application now, Pistorius’s defence team hope that Masipa will concede that another court could find the verdict was based on fact rather than law. This may prove a crucial legal weapon for them and deprive the state of momentum when the case is heard at the supreme court later this year.
Pistorius, a double amputee known as the Blade Runner, killed Steenkamp by shooting four times through a locked toilet door at his luxury home in Pretoria two years ago. He told the court that he mistook her for a burglar, while prosecutors argued that he shot her after an argument.Read More
The disgraced Paralympian is currently serving a five-year jail sentence for shooting dead his girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp, but could be moved to house arrest in August.Judge Thokozile Masipa ruled in December that state prosecutors could go to the supreme court of appeal over her verdict of culpable homicide – the South African equivalent of manslaughter – and seek to have it upgraded to murder.
An appeal can only be granted on a question of law, not on a judge’s factual findings. Masipa agreed with the prosecutors’ contention that the verdict was based on her interpretation of law, but the defence will seek to cast doubt on this at the South Gauteng high court in Johannesburg on 13 March.
“We will argue that these are matters of fact, rather than matters of law,” Pistorius’s lawyer Brian Webber said on Tuesday.
By lodging the application now, Pistorius’s defence team hope that Masipa will concede that another court could find the verdict was based on fact rather than law. This may prove a crucial legal weapon for them and deprive the state of momentum when the case is heard at the supreme court later this year.
Pistorius, a double amputee known as the Blade Runner, killed Steenkamp by shooting four times through a locked toilet door at his luxury home in Pretoria two years ago. He told the court that he mistook her for a burglar, while prosecutors argued that he shot her after an argument.Read More
