Pistorius for the day

The BBC has continuing coverage of the Pistorius trial:

The girlfriend of Oscar Pistorius was shot in quick succession as she fell down, a forensics expert has told the South African athlete's murder trial. This differs from a police ballistics witness, who said there was short break between the first and second shots.
Pistorius denies intentionally killing Steenkamp in the early hours of Valentine's Day of 2013.
He says he fired rapidly in fear through the toilet door after he mistook Steenkamp for an intruder. The prosecution says the 29-year-old model and law graduate was deliberately killed after the couple had an argument.
The double amputee Olympic and Paralympic athlete faces 25 years to life in prison if convicted of premeditated murder. The trial has been adjourned until Thursday, which will be the last day before a break; proceedings will resume on Monday, 5 May.
The focus has now shifted from Oscar Pistorius' distress on the stand to some technical evidence from his team's second expert witness, forensic geologist Roger Dixon. He may not be an orator but his testimony forms a crucial part of bolstering Pistorius' version of events. Dixon, who is something of an all-round expert, having formerly worked with the police, gave wide-ranging evidence on the stand, including his findings on the light in Pistorius' house at night, sound tests, and ballistics analysis.
But it is this wide-ranging nature of his evidence that Prosecutor Gerrie Nel is calling into question. Nel suggested to the court that the methods used for the tests were quite pedestrian, implying that a layman could have done them.
Dixon conceded, perhaps more than he would have liked to, that he was not an expert on many of the fields he testified on, but stuck to his findings. He tried to explain to the court how, as a scientist, he has used the fundamental principles applied in geology to analyse the crime scene and all its elements.
Earlier in the trial, ballistics expert Captain Christiaan Mangena said he believed Steenkamp was standing up facing the closed door when she was hit in the right hip.
He said she then fell back onto a magazine rack next to the toilet before three more bullets were fired at the door, one of which missed her.
The BBC's Pumza Fihlani says Dixon's testimony challenges the state's version that Steenkamp would have had time to scream after the first bullet and that Pistorius then changed aim and continued firing.
Dixon told the court his tests showed that, with the light out, Pistorius' bedroom would have been almost completely dark on the evening of the shooting, despite a couple of LED lights.
This also supports Pistorius' evidence that he did not see whether Steenkamp was still in bed when he got up. The court also heard sound recordings Dixon had made of a cricket bat striking a door similar to the one in Pistorius' toilet, and of gunshots fired through the door at a distance of 60 and 180 meters.
Dixon seemed to struggle to tell the sounds apart, which the defense will use to cast doubt on what neighbors say they heard that night.
Prosecution witnesses have testified to hearing a woman scream, followed by gun shots, but the defense disputes their testimony, saying the only scream came from Pistorius after he had fired.
But prosecutor Nel has sought to cast doubt on Dixon's credibility and qualifications as a forensics witness during his cross examination on Wednesday.
Dixon is a geologist and university lecturer who worked as head of materials analysis at a police forensic laboratory in Pretoria, South Africa for eighteen years until 2012 and repeatedly said he was not a ballistics expert.
Nel also sought to prove that he was out of his depth when he was testifying about marks on Steenkamp's body. He had identified one as a bruise which other pathologists had not, Nel said.
At one stage Dixon used the phrase: "in my layman's understanding". "Now you call yourself a layman. You see how irresponsible it is to make inferences that aren't in your area of expertise," Nel replied. Dixon took the stand after seven days of testimony from the sprinter came to an end with him reading a Valentine's Day card from his girlfriend. If Pistorius is acquitted of murder, the court must consider an alternative charge of culpable homicide, for which he could receive about fifteen years in prison. He also faces charges of illegally firing a gun in public and of illegally possessing ammunition, both of which he denies.
There are no juries at trials in South Africa, and his fate will be decided by the judge, assisted by two assessors.

Rico says he's getting to the 'Pissed-off-ius' phase with this guy... (And if Dixon is the best the defense can come up with, they're useless.)