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Crime Prevention
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Posted February 19, 2013 at 7:20PM
Thought I heard someone in my bathroom last night. Just in case it was a burglar I shot a few bullets through the door ;-)
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Posted February 20, 2013 at 2:22PM
Bingalau
I don't want to speculate about what Pistorious might or might not do.
I'll just say that getting in and out of South Africa illegally is pretty simple given its huge land borders. During Apartheid the military spent a fortune on border security of all forms. I doubt if that spending has been maintained.
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Posted February 20, 2013 at 8:26PM
According to reports he shot four times, and hit her with three of them.
Even if you could see somebody, and in daylight, that is pretty good shooting (at the sort of range we're talking about) with a hand gun in a panic, let alone through a door in darkness.
If you're firing blind you scatter the bullets around in the hope of a lucky shot, you also keep going until the magazine is empty.
If his story is true he was very unlucky to have hit her at all, let alone fatally.
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Posted February 20, 2013 at 8:40PM
I prefer not, at this stage , to prejudge this issue. However, if the law in SA is similar to UK then even if the bathroom occupant had been an illegal intruder, then the law of "reasonable force" comes into play. If he had seen the intruder coming at him with a weapon and feared for his life, he may get away with it. It is not "reasonable force" to open fire through a closed bathroom door at an unseen target,so at the very least it is unlawful killing of some kind.
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Posted February 20, 2013 at 9:52PM
FE
"That's not the problem - the real difficulty is going to come when the trial starts, and the court has to find an impartial jury"
But I thought jury trials had been done away with many years ago in South Africa? Which I believe is the reason why media reporting can be far greater than here, since there isn't a jury to influence.
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Posted February 20, 2013 at 10:09PM
That's what they said on Five Live news, there was no juries because there was 11 major languages used in South Africa which made for a hell of a complication trying to find a jury that was capable of understanding all the procedure, so they use a panel of professional legal people instead.
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Posted February 20, 2013 at 11:50PM
spider9 and Quickbeam
I stand corrected - the trial will indeed be before a panel consisting of a judge and two experienced advocates or Magistrates.
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Posted February 21, 2013 at 3:14AM
I think that I sooner have my trial by our ancient judgement of twelve men, good and true.
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Posted February 21, 2013 at 3:21AM
...or by combat if the evidence looked a bit too much in favour of the prosecution!
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Posted February 21, 2013 at 7:33AM
The prosecution case turns into a pantomime...
Is a fair trial possible now?
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