Oscar Pistorius was sentenced to six years in prison on
Wednesday, capping a three-year legal saga that laid bare South Africa’s
struggles with race and domestic violence as well as the double-amputee track
star’s culpability for shooting his girlfriend through a locked bathroom door.
Mr. Pistorius could have received a sentence of at least
15 years for killing his 29-year-old model girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp on
Valentine’s Day in 2013, but Judge Thokozile Masipa said his
murder conviction should
be weighed against his regret and the year he already spent in prison.
“I am of the view that a long sentence will not serve
justice in this matter,” Ms. Masipa said, as the former Olympian sat
stone-faced before her in a Pretoria courtroom. Barry Steenkamp, Ms.
Steenkamp’s father, wiped away tears.
Ms. Masipa convicted Mr. Pistorius of
manslaughter in
September 2014, a far lighter verdict than state prosecutors sought after he
fired four shots through a locked bathroom door in the middle of the night,
striking and killing Ms. Steenkamp.
Mr. Pistorius said he thought he heard an intruder in his
upscale Pretoria home. Ms. Masipa said prosecutors failed to prove that Mr.
Pistorius knew Ms. Steenkamp was in the bathroom and meant to kill her. She
sentenced him to five years in prison on the manslaughter charge, and he was
released on parole after one.
But South Africa’s singular justice system allowed
prosecutors to appeal Ms. Masipa’s verdict. In December, South Africa’s Supreme
Court of Appeal ruled that Mr. Pistorius was guilty of murder, saying he
intended to kill someone when he fired his 9mm pistol, no matter whether it was
Ms. Steenkamp or the intruder he claims he heard.
That sent the case back to Ms. Masipa for sentencing.
Many South Africans felt Ms. Masipa, the second black woman appointed to the
bench at South Africa’s High Court, had missed an opportunity to make an
example of Mr. Pistorius in a country wrestling with both the racist legacy of
apartheid governance and high rates of cases of violence against women.
On Wednesday, Ms. Masipa agreed that Mr. Pistorius’s
crime was a grave one no matter who he thought he was shooting at that night.
“The fact that the accused thought it was an intruder does not make it less
serious,” Ms. Masipa said.
But she pushed back against assertions that she had
misjudged a famous and wealthy defendant. “Public opinion may be loud and
persistent but it can play no role in the decision of this court,” Ms. Masipa
said.
Her decision again stunned lawyers and activists who had
hoped for at least the 15-year prison sentence commonly applied to similar
murder convictions in South Africa.
“Six years is absolutely nothing considering he is now
convicted of murder,” said Zola Majavu, a criminal attorney in Johannesburg. “I
must confess I did not see this one coming…in my view I do not think that
justice was satisfied.”
Mr. Pistorius, 29, had both his legs amputated below the
knee after being born without fibulas. He became a South African hero and an
international celebrity after competing in the Olympics and Paralympics in
London in 2012. Fans dubbed him the “blade runner” after the carbon-fiber
prostheses he used to compete in events including the 400-meter dash.
His attorneys invoked his disability as both a reason
that he felt vulnerable on the night he claims he heard an intruder enter his
well-guarded home, and as a reason he shouldn’t be subjected to South Africa’s
notoriously brutal prisons.
On Wednesday, Ms. Masipa agreed.
“He’s a fallen hero, he’s lost his career and he’s ruined
financially,” Ms. Masipa said. “The worst is that having taken life of a fellow
human being in the manner that he did he cannot be at peace. Recovery is
possible, but it will depend mostly on the accused.”
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