Pistorius' trial started six months ago, transfixing the world with graphic details of how he fatally shot Steenkamp.
Before she rejected the
premeditated murder charge, Judge Thokozile Masipa questioned why he
fired "not one ... but four shots" into the bathroom before he went to
find his girlfriend.
However, she said, the intention to shoot does not necessarily mean the intent to kill.
"Court is satisfied that
at the relevant time, the accused could distinguish between right and
wrong" and act accordingly, she said.
Shorly before, Masipa
cast doubt on witness testimony, and said she believes media coverage
contaminated testimonies. She doubted state witnesses, saying they were
in and out of sleep the night of the killing on Valentine's Day last
year.
"Technology is more reliable than human perception and human memory," she said.
She described the
victim's wound as "immediately incapacitating," and said she believed a
scream heard by witnesses the night of the killing was Pistorius,' not
Steenkamp's.
The judge appeared to be
accepting the defense timeline of events that the shots came first, then
screaming that must have been Pistorius.
She knocked down some
aspects of the state's case: the fact that Steenkamp took her phone and
locked herself in the bathroom allegedly out of fear for her safety,
phone messages between the couple that showed some rocky patches, and
her stomach contents.
Steenkamp's parents,
Barry and June Steenkamp, sat expressionless a few rows behind the man
on trial for killing their daughter. Her father bowed his head as he
heard about his daughter's fatal wounds.
Pistorius' uncle, sister
and brother also attended the hearing in the packed courtroom -- the
latter in a wheel chair from a car accident.
The verdict will cap a dramatic trial that started in March, and
featured months of gory details that have seen Pistorius gag, vomit and
break down in heaving sobs.
He fatally shot his law graduate girlfriend on Valentine's Day last year at his home in South Africa.
Prosecutors charged him
with premeditated murder, but he maintains he mistook her for an
intruder when he fired four shots through a locked bathroom door.
South Africa does not have jury trials, and Masipa must decide: Did he intentionally kill Steenkamp? Was it murder?
In addition to the murder charge, Pistorius faces three other weapons charges.
Of the additional three
charges, the most serious one is related to ammunition found in his
house when police searched it after the killing.
He did not have a proper license for it, but he maintains he was storing it in his safe for his father.
If he is found guilty of
the ammunition charge, he could face up to 15 years in prison, though
the judge could opt for a lesser punishment such as a fine or the loss
of his gun license.
Two other charges are
related to allegations that he recklessly fired a gun in public -- once
in a restaurant in 2012, and again out of the sunroof of a car last
year. Pistorius denies both.
The maximum penalty for
each charge is five years behind bars. If he is convicted of either, he
could face a lesser sentence, such as a fine or the loss of his gun
license.
Pistorius argues he made
a mistake and was trying to defend himself from an intruder. If Masipa
accepts that as plausible, she will then have to decide if his mistake
and his actions were reasonable.
If she says they were
not, she'll find him guilty of a crime called culpable homicide. There
is no minimum sentence for culpable homicide in South African law --
it's up to the judge to decide.
And there's one final possibility.
If the judge does not think the prosecution has proved its case, she will find him not guilty, and Pistorius will be a free man.
Masipa will make her decision with the assistance of two experts known as assessors.
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