Oscar Pistorius Found Not Guilty of Murder, but Could Face Lesser Charge

Pretoria, South Africa: The trial in the case of the Paralympic athlete Oscar Pistorius abruptly adjourned Thursday with one charge of unlawful homicide against him still pending.

The judge, Thokozile Matilda Masipa, had earlier cleared Pistorius of the gravest murder charges against him.

Then, after a lunch break, Masipa added to the courtroom tension when she adjourned the case until Friday morning, saying that Pistorius "acted too hastily," "used excessive force" and had been negligent in his conduct.

Her decision to suspend the hearings was not explained. "We'll have to stop here," she said, "and resume tomorrow morning."

Earlier, calmly and coolly taking up piece after piece of evidence, dismissing some, discounting others, offering practical interpretations of still more, Masipa said that although Pistorius made a poor and evasive witness, she found large parts of his story credible. Most significantly, she said it seemed - or at least that the prosecution had been unable to prove otherwise - that when he shot and killed his girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp, 29, through a bathroom door in February 2013, Pistorius genuinely believed that intruders had broken into his home and were hiding in the bathroom at the time.

Sitting in a wooden dock in a dark suit, white shirt and black tie, Pistorius slumped forward and sobbed as the judge spoke.

There are no jury trials in South Africa, so it has been left to Masipa, with the help of two aides, to render the verdict on her own. According to normal procedures in the country, the judgment includes a summation of the facts, an analysis of the evidence, and then the announcement of the verdict, charge after charge. The judge is spending the day reading her verdict to the court.

Masipa also dismissed out of hand large portions of the prosecution's evidence, in particular the testimony of neighbors who said they had heard the sounds of a man and woman arguing in Pistorius's house before the shots were fired. And she said that prosecution evidence culled from WhatsApp text messages and meant to demonstrate that Pistorius and Steenkamp's relationship was "on the rocks," as she put it, could not be considered relevant. Nor, she said, could seemingly contradictory text-message evidence from the defense meant to show that the couple had a loving relationship be helpful in reaching a verdict.

"In my view, none of this evidence, from the state or defense, proves anything, she said. "Normal relationships are dynamic and unpredictable sometimes."

In being acquitted of the two harshest charges against him - premeditated murder and a lesser charge known simply as "murder" - Pistorius has possibly escaped a lengthy prison sentence. But culpable homicide, which is defined as the negligent killing of another person and is roughly comparable to involuntary manslaughter, can carry a wide range of sentences, at the discretion of the judge, from no jail time to more than 15 years in jail.

The judge's findings were delivered in a clinical appraisal of a case that has riveted South Africa, been broadcast around the globe and has been compared to the O.J. Simpson case in the United States. Her judgment seemed a huge setback for the prosecutor, Gerrie Nel, who had called for Pistorius to be convicted of murder and whose pugnacious courtroom manner earned him the nickname the Pit Bull.

In his version of the shooting, Pistorius, 27, said he awoke from his bed and heard what sounded like a window opening in the bathroom, making him think that an intruder had entered his home.

Then, walking on the stumps of his legs in a darkened passageway, with a handgun thrust out before him, he opened fire on a locked toilet door. Only later, he testified, did he suspect that Steenkamp was inside. When he broke down the door with a cricket bat, he said, he discovered her bloodstained body.

"Before I knew it, I had fired four shots at the door," Masipa quoted Pistorius as saying, as she listed the various ways he described the shooting during the trial. At times, he said he shot "in the belief that the intruders were coming out" to attack him. At other moments, he said "he never intended to shoot anyone" and had not fired purposefully at the door, the judge said. Part of Pistorius's evidence, she said, was "inconsistent with someone who shot without thinking."

Steenkamp, Masipa added, "was killed under very peculiar circumstances," but "what is not conjecture is that the accused armed himself with a loaded firearm."
Nonetheless, the judge ruled, the prosecution's evidence to support a charge of premeditated murder was "purely circumstantial."

"The state clearly has not proved beyond reasonable doubt that the accused is guilty of premeditated murder," she said. "There are not enough facts."

Much of the trial, with 41 days of testimony since it opened in March, has revolved around Pistorius' state of mind and intentions when he opened fire. During cross-examination in April, Pistorius sobbed, wailed and retched as he recalled the events surrounding Steenkamp's death.

While she accepted that Pistorius "would feel vulnerable" because of his disability," the judge said, he had been "a very poor witness" and had been evasive and "lost his composure" under cross-examination.

Until the killing, Pistorius, who had challenged able-bodied runners only months earlier at the London Olympics in 2012, seemed to be reveling in a glittery career of sporting success and celebrity acclaim.

The athlete, Masipa said, had denied the state's accusation that he killed Steenkamp after an argument, and had denied that he acted with premeditation. She said it was "common cause" that, after the shooting, Pistorius broke down the locked toilet cubicle door, cried out for help and was in an emotional state.

Masipa said the issues were limited to whether Pistorius "had the requisite intention" to commit murder and "whether there was any premeditation."

"There were no eyewitnesses," Masipa said, and the only people at the scene when the shooting happened were Pistorius and Steenkamp.

As the trial unfolded, the defense and the prosecution offered Jekyll-and-Hyde depictions of Pistorius' character.

The prosecutor, Nel, described him as trigger-happy, mendacious, narcissistic and prone to rage. By contrast, the lead defense lawyer, Barry Roux, sought to present him as anxious, vulnerable and fearful of South Africa's violent crime, laboring under the psychological burden of growing up since the age of 11 months with both legs amputated below the knee.

In part, the trial has been held up as evidence of a dramatic reversal of South Africa's white-dominated apartheid-era legal system. In 1998, four years after South Africa's first democratic election, Masipa, 66, became only the second black female judge to be appointed to the High Court. Born in a poor township, she had been a social worker and newspaper journalist before studying law at the height of the apartheid era. Now, under South African judicial protocols, lawyers and witnesses are obliged to address her with the honorific "My Lady."

But the trial has also highlighted the country's continued racial preoccupations and its high levels of crime against women. In other cases, Masipa has handed down tough sentences in cases of rape and violence against women.

Pistorius also faces three counts relating to firearms offenses.