Two women dead, two killers applying for parole and two similar outcomes – both denied parole.
This was the scenario last week when Donovan Moodley on Wednesday applied for parole. He was jailed for the death of Leigh Matthews in 2004.
The parole board did not recommend parole, but because Moodley is serving a life imprisonment term, the Minister of Justice and Correctional Services must speak the last word on whether he should be released on parole or not.
Two days later, Oscar Pistorius was denied parole – a ruling made by the parole board as Pistorius is serving a determined sentence.
In both cases lawyer Tania Koen represented the victims’ families, who opposed parole at this stage.
In the case of Moodley, Rob and Sharon Matthews, the parents of Leigh, felt he had not shown remorse, nor had he spoken the truth about the killing of their daughter. Moodley has over the years presented various versions of what actually happened.
In his case, the parole board recommended further profiling. This included the need for further psychotherapy.
Koen explained that in Moodley’s case, the recommendation of no parole at this stage would be handed to the National Council for Correctional Services for consideration.
Minister Ronald Lamola will then make his decision known.
Koen said Moodley had the advantage that he could apply for parole earlier.
He murdered Leigh on July 9, 2004.
In terms of the previous law relating to the sentencing regime, offenders who had committed crimes before October 1, 2004, are only required to serve 12 years and four months before being considered for parole. After October 1, 2004, they need to serve a minimum of 25 years.
Koen said another key difference between the two cases was that Pistorius received a total of 15 years’ imprisonment for murder, but it was not premeditated.
Moodley, on the other hand, received the ultimate sentence as the killing of Leigh was planned.
She said the two parole hearings were different in the sense that in Moodley’s case, he was in the same room as the victims – Matthews’ parents.
But in Pistorius’s case, the proceedings were split and the board saw him separately from Reeva’s mother, June Steenkamp.
Koen said the scenario was not how things should have been done.
In Pistorius’s case, the parole board decided that the athlete had not yet done all his time and that it would revisit his parole bid in March next year.
The department said the reason was that Pistorius had not completed the minimum detention period as ruled by the Supreme Court of Appeal. This, the department said, was clarified in a letter received on March 28 – three days before the hearing.
Acting President of the Supreme Court, Judge Xola Petse, in an email to the Atteridgeville Correctional Centre, where Pistorius is being incarcerated, said: “It (is) apparent from the judgment of this court, delivered on November 24, 2017, that Oscar Pistorius
was sentenced by this court to an effective term of 13 years and five months, taking into account the period of 12 months’ imprisonment and correctional supervision of seven months.
“The order of this court is unqualified which means that the substituted sentence is effective from November 24, 2017 – the date on which this judgment was delivered,” the judge said through the court’s registrar.
Pistorius’s brother, Carl Pistorius, meanwhile said the family would later issue a statement about his ongoing parole saga.
“We will include a timeline to help clarify the events,” he said. Carl quoted Martin Luther King, where he said, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”
Koen said a few days before Pistorius’s parole hearing, she questioned the chairman of the parole board whether he did serve half of his jail time and thus qualified for possible parole.
“This was because according to my calculations, he did not. The chairman followed it up, for which I have a lot of respect, because this issue is in the interest of justice.”
Word was received three days before the hearing that Pistorius was only eligible next year.
Koen questioned why, in light of this, the parole hearing actually went ahead on Friday.
“If he did not serve his time, there should not have been a hearing,” she said.
But Julian Knight, Pistorius’s lawyer, said the Supreme Court had its calculations wrong.
“We will have to approach the Supreme Court for clarity,” he said.
Kelly Phelps, a criminal justice consultant, meanwhile said the “clarification” made by the Supreme Court regarding time served by Pistorius, was wrong.
To illustrate her conclusion, she set out the time frames and their application to the Supreme Court.
She said in January 2021 after the parties sought clarity from the Supreme Court, it issued a variation order ante-dating its sentence to July 6, 2016 (date of original murder sentence).
“This would render Pistorius eligible for parole in early 2023.”
In August 2021 the Supreme Court again varied its order, this time ante-dating its sentence to October 21, 2014 (date of culpable homicide sentence). This would render Pistorius eligible for parole in 2021, she said.
In November last year, the Supreme Court withdrew both of its previous variations, leaving the parties back where they began.
“On March 28 this year, the Supreme Court issued a so-called clarification order, stating that ‘the substituted sentence is effective from November 24, 2017’ (the date of the Supreme Court sentence of 13 years and 5 months).”
According to her, the Supreme Court simply had its calculations wrong.
Pretoria News