The recent decision of the Supreme Court of Appeal of South Africa in Director of Public Prosecutions, Gauteng v Pistorius (96/2015) [2015] ZASCA 204 (3 December 2015) makes interesting reading.
In its unanimous judgment the Court summarized, rather colorfully, the background as follows:
[1] This case involves a human tragedy of Shakespearean proportions: a young man overcomes huge physical disabilities to reach Olympian heights as an athlete; in doing so he becomes an international celebrity; he meets a young woman of great natural beauty and a successful model; romance blossoms; and then, ironically on Valentine’s Day, all is destroyed when he takes her life. The issue before this court is whether in doing so he committed the crime of murder, the intentional killing of a human being, or the lesser offence of culpable homicide, the negligent killing of another.
The Court then identified the essential error of law; in these terms:
[32] What was in issue, therefore, was not whether the accused [Oscar] had foreseen that Reeva might be in the cubicle when he fired the fatal shots at the toilet door but whether there was a person behind the door who might possibly be killed by his actions. The accused’s incorrect appreciation as to who was in the cubicle is not determinative of whether he had the requisite criminal intent. Consequently, by confining its assessment …… to whether the accused had foreseen that it was Reeva behind the door, the trial court misdirected itself as to the appropriate legal issue.
In other words Oscar meant to kill, it did not matter whether it was Reeva or someone else; and that amounted to murder.
