The Dewani case and judicial systems

I think I read today that the main prosecution witness, the man who was convicted of her murder, has died from a brain tumour. Not sure what that does to the case.

durhamjen yes, he died in prison, he had been ill for some time. He was jailed for his part in the murder. He had two accomplices who are also prosecution witnesses.

Is it the norm in South Africa for sentencing proceedings in this type of crime to be spread over several days?

Do sentencing hearings take that long in the UK?

In the UK the prosecution and defence make their submissions at the close of the trial after all the evidence has been heard. Then the judge sums up giving a balanced view and pointing out any inconsistencies and so on. Then the jury retires to decide.

Sentencing is sometimes deferred for psychiatric or social enquiry reports which may take a week or two, otherwise sentencing follows very shortly after conviction.

Eloethan for serious cases, yes, as both sides (prosecution and defence) make their case for what type of punishment is appropriate, and evidence in mitigation is heard. In less serious cases, that could take up say, a morning. This takes place after the closing arguments. The judge may ask questions for clarification, but does not summarise (until he/she delivers the verdict).

In the Dewani case the man who has died and who was convicted of actually shooting Anni was not going to be called as a prosecution witness and was also the only one of the three men involved who did not say that Dewani ordered the murder. Obviously we don't know what evidence will be put forward by the prosecution but is anyone else uncomfortable with the fact that the other two were offered plea deals to testify against Dewani

sunseeker I agree it's not ideal (striking plea bargains).

I know I shouldn't be distracted by details like this when it's a murder case - but I read somewhere that their wedding cost £200K!

I heard of the rumours (from an Asian friend and in the Asian community) immediately after the shooting, that he was homosexual, so I was interested to see that he had made an admission of being bisexual, as soon as the hearing started.

Poor girl.

Talking about judicial systems - Gogglebox recently featured one of those criminal justice/police programmes and a murder suspect was monotonously repeating "No comment" even to questions like "Is your name ...?" and "Do you live at ..." (where they had just arrested him). It must drive the policemen crazy. How did it ever get to that!

We don't seem to be getting much news coverage of the Dewani case, yet we got every bit of the Pistorius trial. I'm more interested in what happens regarding a British person (a member of my family once worked for him), rather than a foreign 'celebrity'.