Lessons from Pistorius sentencing
What you need to know:
- A watch worth some $10,000 was stolen from his bedroom when the police ransacked his house in February. Though this tells us something about South African prisons and police, it’s not the most important lesson from the trial.
- Thomas Cholmondeley, the Delamere grandson, was charged with the murder of Robert Njoya, but was convicted of manslaughter at the High Court in Nairobi.
As Oscar Pistorius was being led downstairs to begin his five-year imprisonment, he slipped off his expensive timepiece and gave it to his uncle.
It was a precautionary measure. A watch worth some $10,000 was stolen from his bedroom when the police ransacked his house in February. Though this tells us something about South African prisons and police, it’s not the most important lesson from the trial.
The Paralympics and Olympics star sprinter was accused of shooting his girlfriend in his house on Valentine’s Day last year. The double amputee, known as the Blade Runner, was charged with murder, but found guilty of culpable homicide (manslaughter).
In South Africa, the maximum sentence for manslaughter is 15 years. In Kenya it is life imprisonment.
The most important lesson, though, is the thoroughness of the sentencing hearing. It was thorough and painstaking, and rightly so. Sentencing is the most important end-result of a trial and it’s often said sentencing is an art, not a science. That’s why it requires careful, meticulous attention to detail.
Judge Thokozile Masipa was fastidious. She scrutinised every report, testimony and technicality. In contrast, in a typical Kenyan case, the sentencing hearing, usually in the form of a probation report, is often slapdash, sometimes even sloppy.
Often, the less high-profile a case is, the more likely the sentencing hearing will be cavalier. The further the case is removed from the capital, away from the public limelight, the more likely, too, the sentence hearing will be perfunctory. Two examples of sentencing hearings illustrate this. Dokicha Abashore was charged with murdering Omar Godana in Handaraku, Tana Delta District.
The charge was reduced to manslaughter and he was convicted. The following is the cursory manner — in less than 60 words — in which the judge at the Malindi High Court recorded the sentence hearing in her judgment.
“Miss Mathangani (for State): Treat as first offender. Mr Shujaa (for Accused): The accused is 39 years old. He is epileptic. He is first offender. He has been in custody since 2010. Notes on sentence: Accused first offender. Probation Officer’s Report positive. Accused’s family and that of victim seemingly reconciled after traditional compensation paid. Accused sentenced to serve three years’ probation.”
Thomas Cholmondeley, the Delamere grandson, was charged with the murder of Robert Njoya, but was convicted of manslaughter at the High Court in Nairobi. During the sentencing hearing, the prosecution went to great lengths to guide the judge as to what the sentence should be. The defence counsel also spared no words to urge the judge to consider the effect of a sentence to the accused person, among other things.
However, the Cholmondeley sentencing hearing was less explicit compared to the Pistorius hearing that took several days and thousands of words before the judge pronounced the sentence.
Although the sentence she gave disappointed many South Africans, it was arrived at after a thorough and meticulous hearing. The sentence was, therefore, more transparent. Such transparency is needed in Kenyan courts.
