Paralympic athlete Oscar Pistorius walks in the courtroom without his prosthetic legs during his resentencing hearing in court on June 15.
In a move that appeared calculated to elicit sympathy and a lighter sentence, convicted murderer Oscar Pistorius removed his prosthetic legs and hobbled across a courtroom on his stumps on Wednesday. The double-amputee and former Paralympic athlete - once known as "the fastest man on no legs" - walked without his prosthetics in an apparent bid to underscore his vulnerability on the night of the attack.
Pistorius has been found guilty of killing girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp, though he has argued that he mistook her for an intruder when he shot her.
"We see his humanity now," his attorney, Barry Roux, said at his sentencing hearing, which will continue through the end of the week. "This is the person at 3 o'clock in the morning. When he was on his stumps, his balance was compromised. He was anxious, he was frightened."
"It was not the man winning gold medals that must be judged," Roux continued. "It is a 1.85-meter man standing on his stumps at 3 o'clock in the morning in the dark that must be judged."
Pistorius was initially convicted by Judge Thokozile Masipa of culpable homicide and is serving the first year of that five-year sentence under house arrest. But South Africa's Supreme Court overruled that conviction and upped it to murder. Masipa is the judge now deciding his sentencing. The official minimum sentence for murder is 15 years, but Masipa is expected to reduce the sentence because of "mitigating circumstances." The sentence will not be announced until July 6.
At the hearing, the defense has continued to argue that Pistorius killed Steenkamp by mistake, in a cloud of fear in the middle of the night while physically vulnerable. His legal team has also increasingly made a psychological argument for lenient sentencing, saying Pistorius is a "broken man" who is, in the words of a clinical psychologist brought on to testify, "despondent and lethargic, disinvested, and leaves his future in the hands of God."
The prosecutors have rebuffed those arguments, saying Pistorius has made time to appear on television but not to testify in court. They have accused him of being obsessed with guns, being arrogant and feeling entitled to leniency because of his celebrity. They have asked Masipa not to reduce the potential 15-year sentence.
On Tuesday, Steenkamp's father, Barry, testified about his daughter and sought a strict sentence for Pistorius. He said that though his wife had forgiven Pistorius, he had not, and that forgiveness cannot exonerate a killer anyhow.
"She must have been in so much fear and pain," he said, referring to his daughter. He added that he had pricked himself with needles while imagining her death to try to feel the pain she must have felt. "That is what I think of all the time. It must have been absolutely awful."
Steenkamp's parents pored over gory photos of their deceased daughter and chose six that they wanted to be shown publicly. They asked Masipa to approve their release for the "world to see" the pain Pistorius had inflicted. On Wednesday, the judge permitted the release of the photos, which have already begun circulating, albeit blurred, in the media.
© 2016 The Washington Post
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