Ugh. I’m going to try to wade through this nonsense, but if there are any experts in South African law who want to yell at me, be my guest because this is confusing. The verdict (or partial verdict) came back today for Oscar Pistorius. On Valentine’s Day 2013, Oscar Pistorius shot and killed his then-girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp, and he was charged with multiple crimes involving the killing, including homicide and multiple gun charges. I think (??) he was found not guilty on most of the charges today.

After months of hearings, the judge in the murder trial of Oscar Pistorius said on Thursday that there were “not enough facts” for him to be found guilty of premeditated murder, the most serious charge facing the double amputee track star. The judge, Thokozile Matilda Masipa, also found that, while Mr. Pistorius acted “unlawfully,” he could not be found guilty of a lesser form of murder in the killing of his girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp, 29, whom he shot and killed in the early hours of Feb. 14, 2013, in the mistaken belief, he has said, that she was a burglar at his home.

Sitting in a wooden dock in a dark suit, white shirt and black tie on Thursday, Mr. Pistorius slumped forward and sobbed as the judge spoke.

But her ruling did not amount to an acquittal. Shortly before she adjourned the hearing for lunch, she said there was also the charge of culpable homicide to consider — the least serious offense, which offers the judge wide discretion in sentencing. Premeditated murder, by contrast, carries a minimum 25-year term.

In his version of the shooting, Mr. Pistorius, 27, has said he awoke from his bed and heard what sounded like a window opening in the bathroom, making him think that an intruder had entered his home. Then, walking on the stumps of his legs in a darkened passageway, with a handgun thrust out before him, he opened fire on a locked toilet door. Only later, he testified, did he suspect that Ms. Steenkamp was inside. When he broke down the door with a cricket bat, he said, he discovered her bloodstained body.

“Before I knew it, I had fired four shots at the door,” Judge Masipa quoted Mr. Pistorius as saying, as she listed the various ways he described the shooting during the trial. At times, he said he shot “in the belief that the intruders were coming out” to attack him. At other moments, he said “he never intended to shoot anyone” and had not fired purposefully at the door, the judge said. Part of Mr. Pistorius’s evidence, she said, was “inconsistent with someone who shot without thinking.”

Ms. Steenkamp, Judge Masipa added, “was killed under very peculiar circumstances,” but “what is not conjecture is that the accused armed himself with a loaded firearm.”

Nonetheless, the judge ruled, the prosecution’s evidence to support a charge of premeditated murder was “purely circumstantial….The state clearly has not proved beyond reasonable doubt that the accused is guilty of premeditated murder,” she said. “There are not enough facts.”

Much of the trial, in 41 days of testimony since it opened in March, has revolved around Mr. Pistorius’s state of mind and intentions when he opened fire. During cross-examination in April, Mr. Pistorius sobbed, wailed and retched as he recalled the events surrounding Ms. Steenkamp’s death. While she accepted that Mr. Pistorius “would feel vulnerable” because of his disability,” the judge said, he had been “a very poor witness” and had been evasive and “lost his composure” under cross-examination.

[From The NY Times]

Judge Masipa also said that Pistorius’ angry, controlling texts to Reeva did not “prove anything… because normal relationships are dynamic. Human beings are fickle.” So, she believed that Oscar Pistorius was not an angry, controlling, jealous man who would fly off the handle and murder his girlfriend during an argument. I guess. I’m also thinking that “culpable homicide” is sort of like manslaughter in the American legal system? Like, Oscar behaved recklessly and that’s why Reeva is dead? Sure. Here’s hoping. I will update with any news.

Photos courtesy of Getty, WENN.