not believable, that his explanation for what happened is implausible. what s the best-case scenario, i suppose, for the prosecutor at this point, assuming that pistorius doesn t change his story or dramatically falter on the stand? and i don t think he s shown that he will. what s the best-case scenario for the prosecutor when this line of questioning is done? i think we seem to have lost kelly phelps for us in pretoria right now. she can t hear my questions. but again, what s happening now in the courtroom, and this testimony s going on right now, is finally, at last, after circling around pistorius for several days, dealing with the issues on the side, the prosecutor getting to the heart of the issue what was pistorius thinking and what did he do in those key moments before he shot and killed reeva steenkamp? we will update you all morning as to how this discussion unfolds. meantime, let s take a look at what s coming up on new day. kate bolduan joins us this friday morning. g
and at that point of me turning to ask him why he had done that, the firearm went off. cnn legal analyst kelly phelps live for us in pretoria, south africa. it seems to me in this prosecutor is trying to paint a picture of oscar pistorius as a guy who picked on his girlfriend, who was hot headed, who messed around, was aggressive with guns, and got angry at her, had some kind of fight and was just reacted, shot her, killed her, it was murder. that s what they re trying to paint here. reporter: well, that s clearly the narrative that they re trying to paint, but one must distinguish between the narrative that they re trying to paint and the evidence that they ve got on record and how the judge is committed to engage with that evidence. so, all of this evidence that pertains to that narrative is character evidence. and in south africa, character evidence only has limited persuasive value in terms of the extent to which a judge can rely on that particular evidence in order to reach
from pretoria, south africa. let s start with these text messages, because the prosecution is using them in a very interesting way. he s asking pistorius to explain what reeva steenkamp meant in some of these messages, why she was scared, why she felt teased, why she was disgruntled. reporter: he s clearly trying well, he was clearly trying to back pistorius against a wall and essentially force him to blame the victim for the fight. this is never a good position for an accused person to be in, and i think he was fairly successful at doing that. but it is important to place this evidence in its legal context. in south africa, character evidence is generally not admissible, and it s only been admissible in this case because the accused himself raised evidence of his good character. so, the judge will be very keenly aware of that and the limited persuasive value that character evidence can have in terms of her overall
steenkamp. breaking down his side of the story. what he says he went through that day. calling a neighbor for help also an ambulance. listen to a part of his testimony. that that reeva had already died. i was holding her before the ambulance arrived so i knew there was nothing they could do for her. just moments ago, crucially, the cross-examination began. this is the prosecution s chance now to test the oscar pistorius version of events that night. let s go to kelly let s go to kelly phelps for us in pretoria right now. kelly, what does the prosecution now need to do to poke holes in the pistorius version of events? reporter: well, they essentially need to either show some evidence of inconsistency in his version of events. that he s changing his version of events.
i m scared of you sometimes and how you snap at me and how you will react to me. cnn legal analyst kelly phelps is live outside the courthouse in pretoria. kelly, let me tell you the words that i heard there, scared, tantrum. you know, those are not good words for the defense, are they? reporter: no, but this isn t the first time we ve heard those words. that was him repeating a text message that the state had relied on in their case. and essentially, what his defense team spent a lot of time doing today was putting on the record for the first time the over 1,700 messages that the state did not put on the record that were all loving, and placed those four negative messages in the context, essentially, of the normal ups and downs of any relationship. they also put messages immediately after those initial argumentive messages had been sent that essentially showed that those fights had been