Oscar Pistorius in 2014. CreditMike Hutchings/Reuters
JOHANNESBURG —
South Africa’s top appeals court ruled on Thursday that
Oscar Pistorius, the Olympic star known as the Blade Runner, was guilty of murder in the 2013 killing of his girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp, overturning a
lower court’s conviction on the lesser charge of manslaughter.
Mr. Pistorius has already served about a year in prison and is now
under house arrest for the previous conviction; a murder conviction carries a minimum sentence of 15 years in prison.
The appeals court sided with state prosecutors on central points, saying that the manslaughter conviction, technically called culpable homicide, had been based on a misinterpretation of laws and an erroneous dismissal of circumstantial evidence.
JOHANNESBURG —
South Africa’s top appeals court ruled on Thursday that
Oscar Pistorius, the Olympic star known as the Blade Runner, was guilty of murder in the 2013 killing of his girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp, overturning a
lower court’s conviction on the lesser charge of manslaughter.
Mr. Pistorius has already served about a year in prison and is now
under house arrest for the previous conviction; a murder conviction carries a minimum sentence of 15 years in prison.
The appeals court sided with state prosecutors on central points, saying that the manslaughter conviction, technically called culpable homicide, had been based on a misinterpretation of laws and an erroneous dismissal of circumstantial evidence.
Mr. Pistorius, 29, who has been under house arrest since October, is expected to remain at home pending a new sentence.
He was not present when five judges of the Supreme Court of Appeal in Bloemfontein delivered their verdict. Ms. Steenkamp’s relatives, who were in the courtroom, embraced upon hearing the ruling.
“As a result of the error of laws referred to and on a proper appraisal of the facts, he ought to have been convicted not of culpable homicide on that count but of murder,” Judge Eric Leach said.
Under South African law — as in some European countries and Canada — state prosecutors can appeal a verdict to a higher court, as they did in this case. Experts say appeals court judges in South Africa, which does not have a jury system, routinely overturn verdicts or sentences handed down in a lower court.
“There’s nothing untoward in that,” said Marius du Toit, a criminal defense lawyer and a former prosecutor. “What you often find is that they would disagree with a ruling and say, ‘This decision is clearly wrong.’ They’re not pronouncing on the bona fides of the judge. It’s just part of the checks and balances you would want in a legal system.”
The appeals court ordered the lower court to hand a new sentence to Mr. Pistorius, who became the
first double amputee to compete in the Olympic Games, in London in 2012.
The court’s ruling revives a long-running legal battle that transfixed South Africa last year with its touchstone themes of celebrity, violence against women, crime and home intrusions. In a unanimous ruling, the appeals court described the case as “a human tragedy of Shakespearean proportions.”
Mr. Pistorius’s family said that it had “taken note” of the ruling by the appeals court, the second-highest court in the country, but that it had not decided on its next steps.
“The legal team will study the finding, and we will be guided by them in terms of options going forward,” the family said in a statement.
Legal experts said Mr. Pistorius could try to take his case to the Constitutional Court, but it was unclear whether that court would regard it as a matter under its jurisdiction.
Mr. Pistorius, whose lower legs were amputated when he was 11 months old and whose use of curved prosthetics earned him the nickname Blade Runner, said he shot Ms. Steenkamp through the locked door of his bathroom at home in February 2013 in the belief that she was an intruder.
In her verdict last year,
Judge Thokozile Matilda Masipa of the High Court sided with the defendant, saying his account “could reasonably be true.” She acquitted him of the more serious charge of murder, saying that prosecutors had failed to bring “strong circumstantial evidence” and to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Mr. Pistorius had shown intent to kill.
But prosecutors, and Ms. Steenkamp’s family, argued that Mr. Pistorius had deliberately killed his girlfriend after an argument.
In presenting their case before the five-judge appeals court last month, prosecutors argued that Judge Masipa had misinterpreted the legal concept of dolus eventualis in finding Mr. Pistorius not guilty of murder. They argued that Mr. Pistorius should be found guilty because, under the legal principle, he should have known that firing through the locked door would kill whoever was inside.
The appeals court agreed, saying that Judge Masipa had misread the legal principle by narrowly applying it to whether Mr. Pistorius believed Ms. Steenkamp was inside the bathroom.
“I have no doubt that in firing the fatal shots, the accused must have foreseen, and therefore did foresee, that whoever was behind the toilet door might die, but reconciled himself to that event occurring and gambled with that person’s life,” Judge Leach said. “This constituted dolus eventualis on his part, and the identity of his victim is irrelevant to his guilt.”
In a withering criticism of Judge Masipa’s ruling, Judge Leach said she had also erred by dismissing relevant circumstantial evidence, including the type of ammunition used by Mr. Pistorius.
Judge Masipa, whose handling of the high-profile trial was widely praised but whose verdict drew criticism as too lenient, is expected to deliver the new sentence on the murder conviction.
The legal proceedings in recent months drew little of the intense attention that the trial attracted in South Africa last year. But after Thursday’s ruling was announced, the reaction, on social media at least, appeared to reflect the general sentiment that the punishment handed down last year was not commensurate to the crime.
“Finally some justice,”
read many messages on Twitter. One
person posted: “99% of us don’t have the law degree Masipa had but we’ve been saying what Leach has summed up.”
The victim’s father, Barry Steenkamp, told journalists: “I’m satisfied with everything now. I would hope to God that all of this could have been prevented, but seeing that it has been done, let us now all get on with our lives.”
At the hearing last month, lawyers for Mr. Pistorius argued again that he had feared for his life when he fired four shots into his bathroom. In a country with high crime rates, the fear of home intrusion cuts across social and racial classes and, in the kind of gated community in Pretoria where Mr. Pistorius lived, manifests itself in high walls and security guards.
Mr. Pistorius was released from prison in October after serving about one year of his five-year sentence. He had been serving the remainder of his sentence under house arrest at his uncle’s home in Pretoria, the capital.
Mr. Pistorius, who was eligible for early release after serving a minimum of one-sixth of his sentence, was initially scheduled to be released from prison in August. But his release was delayed several times because of pressure from Ms. Steenkamp’s parents, who argued in the news media that Mr. Pistorius had served too little time in prison for the killing of their daughter, a model and law school graduate.
The killing occurred several months after the 2012 Olympic Games. Mr. Pistorius, a global model for the disabled and a hero for post-apartheid South Africa, was selected to carry the nation’s flag at the event’s closing ceremony.
The South African news media recently showed him reporting to a police station to perform community service, as required by his sentence. Mr. Pistorius, who was wearing dark sunglasses and a baseball cap, did not respond to questions from journalists.
