Role reversal: what the murder trial of Oscar Pistorius--and the black judge who presided over it--says about South Africa's post-apartheid transformation.

• Author: Smith, Patricia
• Position: INTERNATIONAL

The murder trial of Oscar Pistorius in South Africa had no shortage of larger-than-life figures: the double-amputee sprinter known as the Blade Runner; the glamorous blond model, Reeva Steenkamp; the prosecutor so pugnacious he was nicknamed the Pit Bull.

Last month, Pistorius was found not guilty of premeditated murder in the shooting of Steenkamp, his girlfriend, but guilty of "culpable homicide." That charge is roughly equivalent to involuntary manslaughter in the U.S. The ruling was a sad twist on the athlete's triumphant story (see "Fallen Hero," right). But for South Africans, almost as unbelievable as the case itself was the judge who presided in court: Thokozile Matilda Masipa, a 67-year-old black woman.

It's a situation that would have been unthinkable a generation ago, before the end of apartheid: a black South African woman sitting in judgment of a rich white man, sometimes chiding the white lawyers in her courtroom who addressed her with the honorific "My Lady."

And it was Judge Masipa alone who determined Pistorius's fate. South Africa's legal system works differently than America's: Jury trials were abolished in 1969 amid fears that racism would prejudice white jurors, so judges both preside and decide.

Under apartheid, the system of rigid racial segregation in South Africa during most of the 20th century, blacks were excluded from the judiciary and all facets of government. In a nation that was then 70 percent black, a white minority ruled, denying blacks basic rights: They couldn't socialize with whites, vote, or even travel without government permission outside the segregated townships where they were forced to live. They were essentially treated as outsiders in their own land.

Overcoming Apartheid

It was in this other South Africa that Masipa came of age. She grew up in Soweto, a poor black township outside Johannesburg, in a two-room house. She was one of 10 children, five of whom died in childhood. A former newspaper reporter, she was once arrested during an anti-apartheid protest and ordered by her white jailers to clean her cell's filthy toilet.

"Whoever thought that one day a black woman would be standing judge over a white boy?" says Nomavenda Mathiane, 68, a former newspaper colleague.

Under international pressure, the minority-white government abolished apartheid in 1991. Three years later, Nelson Mandela, a longtime antiapartheid activist who spent 27 years in prison, was elected South Africa's first black president. (Mandela died last year at the age of 95.)

In 1998, Masipa became the second black woman to be appointed to the judiciary. As a black female judge, she remains a rarity. Blacks now make up 80 percent of the population but account for 44 percent of judges; black women account for 15 percent.

Though it's been more than 20 years since the end of apartheid, its legacy of racial tensions and violence persists.

TV, Tears & Vomit

Even Pistorius's defense rested in part on white South Africans' deep fear of crime and home invasions. He testified that he believed an intruder had broken into his house and was lurking in the bathroom when he fired four shots through the closed door and accidentally killed Steenkamp.

The 41-day-long trial included all kinds of drama: Pistorius broke down in tears and even vomited during testimony. Despite the glare of live television and social media, legal experts say Judge Masipa guided the proceedings skillfully and gracefully.

"One time they were all shouting at each other, and it was getting worse and worse," says Margie Orford, a South African novelist who has written about the trial. "She called them over, and they stood before her like naughty schoolboys and said, 'We're sorry, My Lady.' It was a beautiful little apartheid reversal going on there. "

Pistorius's sentencing was pending at press time. Depending on Masipa's discretion, Pistorius could serve no jail time or as much as 15 years behind bars for...