Oscar Pistorius Appeal Denied, Now Facing Murder Conviction

South Africa’s constitutional court has rejected Olympian sprinter Oscar Pistorius‘ appeal against his conviction for the murder of his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp. This was his last chance to overturn his murder conviction. Although the state prosecutors appealed the athlete’s prior culpable homicide conviction in the Pretoria High Court, the Supreme Court of Appeal changed Pistorius’ culpable homicide conviction to murder causing the South African authorities to challenge his appeal.

Pistorius shot and killed Steenkamp on Valentine’s Day three years ago, firing four bullets into the small toilet cubicle where she was standing. He then used a cricket bat to break down the door and then carried her downstairs. Pistorius has said that he thought she was an intruder and never intended to kill anyone. The trial judge, Thokozile Masipa, had accepted that he had believed Steenkamp was in the bedroom and charged him of culpable homicide, or negligent killing, because of his reckless action of firing four times, and sentenced him to five years in jail.

In December, Judge Eric Leach decided that the ruling in the original court was “fundamentally flawed” because the gold medalist should have known that the way he fired the gun had to have killed whoever was in the bathroom, regardless of whether he thought it was Steenkamp or an intruder. Leach didn’t officially agree with the prosecutor stance that he intentionally killed Steenkamp after an argument, but did say that although Pistorius could have had genuine fear of an intruder, he should’ve acted more rationally, noting how he did not even fire a warning shot.

“The identity of the victim is irrelevant to his guilt,” said Leach.

Pistorius is currently facing house arrest and now faces a 15-year minimum jail sentence. He will be sentenced on March 18th in Pretoria’s High Court.