Oscar Pistorius faces sentencing this week in a South African court after being convicted of culpable homicide for killing girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp.

The sentencing of the double-amputee athlete is expected to involve several days of legal argument and testimony during which judge Thokozile Masipa will assess what kind of penalty Pistorius deserves for shooting Steenkamp through a closed toilet door in his home.

The sentence for a conviction for culpable homicide, or negligent killing, is at the judge's discretion and can range from a suspended sentence and a fine to as much as 15 years in prison.

Pistorius will return to the courtroom on Monday for the first time since his conviction last month. He is currently free on bail.

Pistorius, once a celebrated athlete who ran in the 2012 Olympics, was charged with premeditated murder in a televised trial that transfixed many people around the world, but Masipa found him not guilty of that charge.

She drew criticism from some South Africans who thought Pistorius could at least have been convicted of a lesser murder charge on the grounds that he knew a person could die when he fired four bullets through a toilet door in his home early on Valentine's Day last year.

Steenkamp, a 29-year-old model, died in the hail of bullets, and prosecutors said Pistorius had opened fire in anger after the couple argued. The runner testified that he mistook Steenkamp for an intruder who was about to come out of the toilet and attack him.

South African lawyers vary widely in predictions about what kind of sentence Pistorius will get. Some say he is unlikely to go to jail because defence lawyers will successfully argue that the athlete is a first-time offender with a disability that would subject him to particular hardship in prison, while others anticipate that Pistorius will be sentenced to some prison time because of the severity of his crime.

"I think that the probabilities are that the judge will send him to prison for a certain period, but not a very long one," said George Bizos, a human rights lawyer.

There are "clear aggravating and mitigating factors" that could influence the judge's decision-making but that it was difficult to accurately predict the penalty because the "sentencing law is so individually applied", said Kelly Phelps, a senior lecturer in the public law department at the University of Cape Town.