Major difference in cases of Oscar and ‘Jub Jub’

The cases of Paralympian Oscar Pistorius and rapper Molemo “Jub Jub” Maarohanye are only similar in that people died.

 

In the case of Pistorius‚ his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp was killed when Pistorius shot at a toilet door at his Pretoria home‚ while Maarohanye collided with another vehicle while he was high on drugs killing four schoolchildren and seriously injuring two others.

The difference is that while the conviction of Pistorius was initially that of culpable homicide and later replaced with that of murder‚ Maarohanye’s conviction was initially that of murder‚ later replaced with a culpable homicide conviction.

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In the case of Maarohanye and his friend Themba Tshabalala‚ the Soweto Regional Court initially convicted them of murder for the killings and sentenced them to a 25 year jail term.

On appeal‚ the full bench of the high court found that the application of dolus eventualis in instances involving the driving of motor vehicles had been controversial.

Dolus eventualis means that an accused who foresees that someone may be killed‚ reconciles himself with that possibility and proceeds with his action‚ is guilty of murder.

“The matter before us is one of the cases in which the prosecution authorities decided to indict the appellants for murder based on dolus eventualis‚” the bench remarked.

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The full bench said as there was evidence that the two had taken drugs‚ there could be no suggestion that Maarohanye and Tshabalala had the foresight that their escapade could result in death and serious injury to pedestrians and reconciled themselves with that eventuality.

“Their mental makeup must therefore have been the opposite of causing death or injury‚ their disposition was that no collision‚ let alone life threatening‚ would take place.”

However‚ in the case of Pistorius‚ Judge Thokozile Masipa initially convicted Pistorius of culpable homicide in 2014.

She found that although Pistorius had not had the necessary intention to kill Reeva‚ he had done so negligently and was therefore guilty of culpable homicide.

However‚ the Supreme Court of Appeal overturned that conviction.

It found that the high court finding was that as Pistorius did not realise that it was Reeva in the toilet‚ he did not foresee that his action in shooting could cause her death and he could not be held guilty of her murder.

The appeal court said what was in issue was not whether Pistorius had foreseen that Reeva might be in the cubicle when he fired the fatal shots at the toilet door‚ but whether there was a person behind the door who might possibly be killed by his actions.

In the case of Maarohanye‚ the convictions were set aside and he was sentenced to a prison term of 10 years.

Pistorius was sentenced to a six year prison term‚ after Judge Masipa deviated from imposing a prescribed 15 year sentence because there were compelling and substantial circumstances.

Pistorius spent his first night in jail the hospital wing of the Kgosi Mampuru II prison in Pretoria.

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