Biography Of Oscar Leonard Carl Pistorius's 'Blade Runner'

Oscar Leonard Carl Pistorius, also known as “Blade Runner”, was born November 22, 1986. He was born in Johannesburg, South Africa and is the middle of three children. Oscar was born with a condition called fibular hemimelia. Fibular hemimelia is a congenital condition in which someone is missing the fibula in one or both legs. Unfortunately, Oscar was born without a fibula in both legs. His parents had to make a terribly difficult decision to have his legs amputated when he was 11 months old. The amputation occurred below the knees but within six months, Oscar was on a pair of prosthetic legs and doing extremely well. Growing up, his parents divorced when he was just 6 years old and his mother passed away when he was 15 after suffering a
reaction to a medication after she was wrongly diagnosed with hepatitis. Pistorius was extremely active and enjoyed sports at his school such as rugby, cricket and water polo. In a 2012 interview, Pistorius said “I grew up in a family where disability was never an issue. We didn't really speak about my disability, not because it was a topic that was taboo... it was just never an issue. And that's the mentality that I've had.”2 When he was just 18 years old, he won the gold medal in the 200m race in the Paralympic Games in Athens. In the Beijing Paralympic Games, he won the gold in all three competitions. The biggest part of his success came from the 2012 Summer Olympic Games in London when he competed with able-bodied runners while on his prosthetics which coined his name as the “Blade Runner”. In November of 2012, Pistorius met and began dating South African model Reeva Steenkamp. It is said that they were crazy in love and proclaimed their happiness and love on twitter over the months of their relationship. But, what was to come next would shake not only South Africa but the rest of the world as well. In the early morning hours of Valentine ’s Day 2013, Reeva was shot and killed by Pistorius in his home. The evidence would prove key in whether or not this was a cold blooded murder or if it was culpable homicide in which Pistorius had said.
Evidence
Evidence is “any means which seeks to prove the truth of a fact in question”.1 When being considered by a jury, it needs to be known that this evidence was collected lawfully, is material and relevant to the trial. There are five types of real evidence: physical items, pictures, trial exhibits, witness testimony that is direct or circumstantial. Evidence that speaks for itself is called Prima Facie. Prima Facie is evidence that is sufficient to prove a case without any other evidence. An example of this may be a video recording or a security camera that has the caught criminal in the act. In order for the accused to have the outcome of a guilty verdict, the state must show that there was criminal intent, also known as mens rea.
Evidence can be legally obtained in numerous ways depending on the specifics of the case. Searches and warrants are all common ways to gather evidence but depending on how it is collected is what deems it legal or illegal. For example, searches and warrants are generally only allowed if probable cause has been found. In order to establish probable cause, the age of the information and the vicinity of criminal activity are some things that need to be taken into consideration. After probable cause is determined, a warrant must be obtained from a magistrate for a search warrant to obtain evidence that they believe can be used in the case against the defendant.
Most evidence is permissible in the court of law; however, there are certain rules that can exclude evidence from being used during a trial. Some of these excluded examples include unfairness which means that they believe at any time that the state has been unfair to the defendant or hearsay due to the fact that it can or cannot be true.
Evidence is important because it can be used to establish the guilt or innocence of the accused. One piece of evidence can turn the case entirely on its head depending on what it proves. Evidence is crucial to any case whether it be proof to the innocence or guilt. In order to so, it needs to be proved beyond a reasonable doubt that it contributed to the guilt or innocence of the defendant. It is not about the quantity of evidence but the quality of that evidence. It is solid, unbiased and holds an undeniable amount of truth.

The Murder and Trial Reeva Steenkamp was murdered on February 14, 2013 by Oscar Pistorius.
At around 4 A.M., Detective Hilton Botha got the call and went straight to Oscar’s home in the gated community of Silver Woods Country Estate in Pretoria. The first scene was the body of Reeve Steenkamp with three gun shots. Pistorius called the manager of the community to call an ambulance and then carried her down the stairs from the bathroom. It was reported that he gave her mouth to mouth and someone tried to tie a tourniquet around on of the shots to stop the bleeding. A witness told Botha that she had still been breathing. A doctor had rushed over from a nearby house but noticed head wounds and said the resuscitation would not help. A few moments later, she stopped
breathing. The main crime scene was the bathroom where the shooting had actually occurred.
One theory is that she may have been cowering in the toilet with crossed arms explaining why a bullet had gone through her fingers and eventually hitting her arm. The other two shots were above the right ear and another to her hip. Apparently, Pistorius thought there was a burglar in the house and had gone towards the bathroom because he thought they had locked themselves in there. That is when he shot through the door and then when he opened the door, he realized it was Reeva. Botha was not convinced. “There is no way anything else could have happened,” said Botha. “It was just them in the house, and according to the security registers she had been staying there for two to three days, so he had to be used to her by that time.... There was no forced entry. The only place there could have been entrance was the open bathroom window, and we did everything we could to see if anyone went through it, and it was impossible. So I thought it was an open-and-closed case. He shot her—that’s it. I was convinced that it was murder, and I told my colonel, ‘You already read him his rights, so you have to arrest
him.’”3 The State vs. Oscar Pistorius began on March 3, 2014.4 On September 12, 2014 Judge Thokozile Masipa delivered the not guilty verdict of murder, which he had been charged with in Pretoria court on February 15, 2013, but instead guilty of culpable homicide because Pistorius acknowledged that he had shot Steenkamp but thought she was an intruder. On October 21, 2014, Pistorius was handed a five year maximum prison sentence and then another three years for his reckless endangerment for his firearm at the restaurant. Unfortunately for Pistorius, in December of 2015, the Supreme Court of Appeals decided to overturn the previous verdict and instead found his guilty of murder. “Judge Leach described the continuing saga as ‘a tragedy of Shakespearean proportions’”.5 On July 6, 2016 he was given six years in prison but an appeal from the state doubled that term to 13 years and five months.