Hans Reiser and the "Geek Defense" Strategy

lseltzer alerts us to a story in the Washington Post on the defense strategy in the Hans Reiser murder trial. "In the courtroom where Hans Reiser is on trial for murder, [the evidence] might appear to indicate guilty knowledge. But his attorneys cast it as evidence of an innocence peculiar to Hans, a computer programmer so immersed in the folds of his own intellect that he had no idea how complicit he was making himself appear. 'Being too intelligent can be a sort of curse,' defense counsel William Du Bois said. 'All this weird conduct can be explained by him, but he's the only one who can do it. People who are commonly known as computer geeks are so into the field.'"

All geeks are the same

[by Anonymous Coward]

Most of us have soaked our floorboards after we removed the passenger seat.

Re:All geeks are the same

[R2.0 (532027)]

Believe it or not, I have been in a situation where I had a removed front passenger seat and a soaked footwell. I was having a problem with water getting into the car and couldn't find it. It was coming from under the dashboard, so I removed the seat so I could get my head in there to look closely. But then I ran out of time, so I just left it like that till next weekend.

Sure enough, during the week I got pulled over for speeding. The cop certainly looked at me funny, but I didn't have a warrant out for my arrest, so all was OK.

I'd email this story to Reiser's lawyers, but for 2 things:
1) I had a VW, and the leak was idiosyncratic to that model. He drove a Civic.
2) I think he's guilty.

Re:All geeks are the same

[dubl-u (51156)]

Believe it or not, I have been in a situation where I had a removed front passenger seat and a soaked footwell. [...] I removed the seat so I could get my head in there to look closely. But then I ran out of time, so I just left it like that till next weekend.

That's surely plausible. But the notion that Reiser then threw out the seat? No way. Every geek I know has a giant collection of old parts that they will use "someday". A real geek would have kept the seat. Even if there was something wrong with it, there were plenty of good parts on that sucker.

Christ, I've still got a 100 MB SCSI hard drive in my parts bin that I haven't thrown away yet. Yeah, megabytes, that's right.

Re:All geeks are the same

[spintriae (958955)]

Believe it or not, I have been in a situation where I had a removed front passenger seat and a soaked footwell.

Oh, I believe you. I too have had to remove my passenger seat and hose down the floor board. Mainly because they were soaked in my ex-wife's blood...

Since then I always keep tampons in the glove compartment.

Re:All geeks are the same

[Adambomb (118938)]

Despite the fact that Sean Sturgeon is a known killer, Nina Reiser was a physician, and the fact that apparently they found "Books on Crime" along with the sleeping bag and blood samples on the pillar in his garage? With no body, no witnesses, and no direct evidence?

Who the hell commits a crime with pair of books on crime in their vehicle, and then leave it all there for someone to find. Programmers know too much about allocation and management of objects to not destroy them when its detrimental they no longer exist.

I'm not saying I think he is innocent NOR that i think hes guilty. I simply think it all warrants much further investigation.

Re:All geeks are the same

[Asztal_ (914605)]

Who the hell commits a crime with pair of books on crime in their vehicle, and then leave it all there for someone to find. Programmers know too much about allocation and management of objects to not destroy them when its detrimental they no longer exist.

Maybe he was foiled by non-deterministic Garbage Collection.

Re:All geeks are the same

[tomhudson (43916)]

Who the hell commits a crime with pair of books on crime in their vehicle, and then leave it all there for someone to find. Programmers know too much about allocation and management of objects to not destroy them when its detrimental they no longer exist.

So there's no such thing as a buffer overrun, or forgetting to mate every call to malloc() with a free()?

I don't buy the "programmer geek defense". It doesn't match up with the reality, which is that you don't have to be a programmer to be an asshole. They're orthogonic. Lets look at the excuses another way:

1. The books - a "reverse psychology" ploy - figurng that he's so much smarter than everyone else, and that they'd buy into his "well, if I were guilty, why would I have such books? I'd be stupid!" Narcisssists are very much likely to think along such convoluted lines, and to believe that others will fall for their "explanations"
2. The front seat - well, if it had blood on it, he had to dispose of it, since he wasn't smart enough to know that its possible to destroy the dna evidence (if he hadn't been into reading popular books about crime scene technology, and instead read up on the subject properly, he'd have known this). The last murder trial I sat on, the dna expert said he couldn't mention the techniques that could be used to destroy the evidence (you can buy the needed stuff at your local grocery store, btw), but that no such destruction had taken place.
3. The $8k and passport. That doesn't need much of an explanation, and could be quite innocent. His wife had already grabbed $$$ from the bank account. Wouldn't YOU want to stay "liquid" in such a case? Passport - why leave it around for someone to grab when you're living in your car?

Do I believe he did it? I can't say - I'm not on the jury. However, I definitely don't buy into the defense tactic of 'geek nerds are "special" and "hard to understand"' as a "get out of jail" card.

Reiser's lawyer is making a big mistake. Sure, he's playing the "this guy is a creep" card to the jury - but he's also insulting the jury's intelligence by thinking that they won't see it for what it is - a ploy, and not evidence one way or the other. Not trusting a jury can come back and bite you - look at what happened with Jamie Thomas and the $222,000 copyright infringement award. The jurors were pissed that she lied to them [switched.com], and made it known both inside and outside the courtroom [wired.com].

"She's a liar. We wanted to send a message. I don't know what the fuck she was thinking."

Better to not take the stand, and let people suspect you're an idiot, than to take it, and prove them right.

Then there's the danger that the jurors will think - "If they really expect us to buy into this bs, they must think we just fell off a turnip truck. Sounds like what I'd expect a guilty know-it-all to do."

At the very least, the choice of tactics shows that the lawyer doesn't believe his client is innocent. Based on that, I'd say the jury will probably convict.

Re:All geeks are the same

[Lijemo (740145)]

Not trusting a jury can come back and bite you - look at what happened with Jamie Thomas and the $222,000 copyright infringement award. The jurors were pissed that she lied to them [switched.com], and made it known both inside and outside the courtroom [wired.com]. "She's a liar. We wanted to send a message. I don't know what the fuck she was thinking."

Wow, reading stuff like this makes me really glad I don't live in a country that has something as stupid trial by jury. I wouldn't want my fate to be decided by a bunch of random idiots. Isn't the jury supposed to decide if the accused is guilty of the deed they are accused of ? Instead of "sending her a message" because she hurt their feelings ? That statement by a member of the jury alone should have been enough to nullify the judgement.

There are two types of jury trials in the US-- criminal and civil. In a civil trial (where the punishment, if there is one, is in the form of a fine) the jury determines what the penelty is.

In a criminal trial (such as the one in TFA, which can result in imprisonment), all the jury decides is whether the prosecution has proven their case that the defendent is guilty. The judge then decides the penalties, based on guidelines, precedents, and his/her own judgement

The standard of proof required is also different. In a civil case (such as the one you quote), if a jury member is 60% sure the defendant is guilty, they are suppposed to find them "guilty". In a criminal case, the standard of proof is much higher, so the same 60% certainty of guilt should result in "not guilty", because their prosecution has not sufficiently proved their case.

The result is that the civil trial system is much more capricious than the criminal trial. Thus you should not hold up an example of a civil trial to complain about our criminal trial system. (There may still be things to complain about, but don't hold up an apple and complain about oranges.)

Re:All geeks are the same

[jbengt (874751)]

According to reports I've read, he bought those books after he was treated as a suspect by the cops, not before the crime.

Re:All geeks are the same

[killjoe (766577)]

You remember how the 9/11 hijackers left a video tape of flying lessons in their car? Yea just like that.

You remember how their passports survived the fire that brought down two buildings by melting the steel support structures?

Yup. Just like that.

Re:All geeks are the same

[TapeCutter (624760)]

"There's a sizable amount of circumstantial evidence that he did it, with little plausible explanations in his defense."

And that is the problem, circumstantial evidence should not be enough to convict. And no, the defense doesn't have to 'explain' the seat, nor does anyone need to answer 'who did it' to aquit him.

Like many Aussies, I thought this woman [wikipedia.org] was guilty simply because she came across as an unfeeling religious zelot that couldn't explain other peoples' assumptions about dingo behaviour. By no means does that imply this guy is innocent but as the judge said 'the evidence is thin'.

Re:All geeks are the same

[ucblockhead (63650)]

Please read up on circumstantial evidence [wikipedia.org]. If a someone is seen entering a house, the victim is heard screaming "oh my God, he's killing me!!!!" and that someone then is seen fleeing the house with a bloody knife, then there is only circumstantial evidence that he committed the crime.

Circumstantial evidence is any evidence that is not direct. The phrase "circumstantial evidence" means that the evidence implies that manner in which the crime was committed. It says nothing about how strong the implication is. For a murder, pretty much only confessions and eyewitnesses are not circumstantial evidence. Scott Peterson [wikipedia.org] was convicted purely on circumstantial evidence. DNA evidence is circumstantial evidence. Finding the Mona Lisa in someone's bedroom is only circumstantial evidence that they stole it.

The evidence against Reiser may well be thin. Not sitting in the jury box, it is not for me to say one way or another. But that the evidence is only circumstantial has nothing to do with whether the evidence is weak or not.

If you refuse to convict on circumstantial evidence, you'll almost never convict anyone.

Re:All geeks are the same

[HeavensBlade23 (946140)]

I wouldn't vote to convict based on that, however damning it may look, anymore than I would vote to convict of a computer crime because they were using encryption. Maybe he did kill her, I don't know, but there's some serious doubt about whether she could be hiding out in Russia or dead at the hands of the ex-boyfriend who admitted to killing nearly a dozen people.

peers?

[vDave420 (649776)]

The effort will be watched and appreciated down the breadth of Silicon Valley, perhaps the only place a computer genius might find a jury of peers. There, Hans Reiser's actions appear fairly reasonable, at least to people who spend much more time with computer code than with other humans.

Come on - the only place a half-crazed defense strategy can work is when pitched to computer geeks?
What what what?

-dave-

Re:peers?

[DNS-and-BIND (461968)]

If they were so smart, they would have thought of an excuse to get out of jury duty.

Re:peers?

[Skapare (16644)]

If they were so smart, they would have thought of an excuse to get out of jury duty.

That presumes they want to get out of jury duty.

Re:peers?

[DNS-and-BIND (461968)]

Let's see: go back to my code and my cubicle, or deal with a problem that is purely judgement and requires a lot of thinking about and dealing with other people?

Re:peers?

[Harmonious Botch (921977)]

The jury is middle aged, middle class, small-C conservative. It draws people who make decisions in society - wield real power - simply because they are able - and willing - to put in whatever time and effort is needed to get the job done.

Sorry, but I've gotta call you dead wrong on this. It draws mostly from people who are NOT decision makers. The people who end up on juries are the mostly the compliant ones who leave decision making up to others.
This is how ALL the parties involved want it. The real decision makers want to get back to their decision-making jobs, not be one of twelve, so they find a way out. The prosecution and the defense attorneys do not want someone who makes decisions; they want someone who can be led and instructed. So does the judge.
The whole system is designed to filter in people who can be controlled and led.

Re:peers?

[Dutch Gun (899105)]

The entire point of being on a jury is to weigh available evidence and come to a *decision*. Sure, the defense attorney would love to get indecisive people, but the prosecutor will be looking for those who can think and come to a reasonable decision based on the available evidence. The judge is looking for people who can work within the rules of the system, but that surely doesn't preclude decision-makers either.

I've been on a jury before, and contrary to popular opinion, it was not composed of people who had nothing but time on their hands. Nearly everyone there seemed to be a businessperson or professional of some sort. Even so, no one complained about the time it took, as we all knew a young man's future was to be greatly impacted by our decision. As such, we took our job extremely seriously (and it wasn't anything so dramatic as a murder trial). While I'd never hope to spend another day surrounded by arguing lawyers, I certainly wouldn't go out of my way to recuse myself if called up again.

A curse I've had to live with . . .

[reboot246 (623534)]

Being too intelligent is a curse I've had to live with my whole life!

But I guess it sorta goes with my outstanding good looks. :)

Gem of a quote

[by Anonymous Coward]

His signal adult achievement was ReiserFS, a file system he named for himself, unusual in the programming world. The system organizes data on Linux, the "open source" operating system.

In the same breath, they say naming something after ones own name is unusual, and refer to the OS written by a guy named Linus. Hows that for irony.

Re:Gem of a quote

[mccalli (323026)]

In the same breath, they say naming something after ones own name is unusual, and refer to the OS written by a guy named Linus. Hows that for irony.

Linus named it FreakOS I believe. It was someone else who convinced him to rename it to Linux.

Cheers,
Ian

Actually, Linus originally picked "Freax"

[Richard_J_N (631241)]

http://www.freax.org/ [freax.org] has a little more info

/. defense

[tverbeek (457094)]

I'm too anti-social to be a threat to society.

My Suspicion

[jjohnson (62583)]

Assuming he killed Nina (a pretty safe assumption, on the face of it), I suspect he's making an error of reasoning that hyper intelligent people and small children are prone to: Because there's no direct evidence, he can't logically conclude his own guilt from his actions, therefore no one else can.

It's like a child hiding cookies behind his back and assuming that, since Mom can't see what's in his hands, she can't know that he's got cookies.

There's a quote about how circumstantial evidence *is* evidence to smart people, because smart people of capable of making inferences and deductions.

Re:My Suspicion

[MightyMartian (840721)]

Nina *may* have gone to Russia. Didn't her family supposedly have some "connections"?

Well, at least some symbolic links.

risky defense

[timmarhy (659436)]

it's very risky this type of defense. it might be seen that he's so smart, that maybe he KNEW he could use this kind of defense and planned on hiding out in the open so to speak.

personally i find it strange they aren't looking closer at the cross dressing lover who has admitted to killing people in the past.

also there is no body yet, so i don't understand how exactly they are mounting a murder case against him? for all they know this is all staged by his bitter russian bride in an attempt to get back at him, stranger things have happened.

Re:risky defense

[timmarhy (659436)]

I can't believe you can go to a murder trial with so LITTLE evidence she is dead though. they found some small blood samples in his car and garage.

those could be explained easily in normal circumstances, even easier with his wifes known affair with a BDSM freak. maybe at some point her and her lover got freaky in the garage before the divorce?

so we have that and we have a book on famous murder trials. wow really compelling case there, you can't even prove she's dead let alone who killed her.

Re:risky defense

[QuantumG (50515)]

I believe the reason the judge let the case go ahead was because Hans was demanding a speedy trial (as is his right) so the judge wanted to give the prosecution time to get their case together.. even after getting Hans to waive his right to a speedy trial and delaying it so Hans' lawyer could go on holidays, the prosecution still couldn't come up with any more evidence.

What really sucks is that at the conclusion of the prosecution, Hans' lawyer asked for the case to be dismissed on the evidence. Because this is a standard thing for the defense to do, the judge didn't even consider it. He has publicly said that the case has no evidence, but he won't throw the case out on two separate occasions.

The Geek Defense Argument

[mincognito (839071)]

1. killing ones wife requires having a wife to kill
2. the accused is a geek
3. geeks cannot have wives
4. the defense rests

Re:The Geek Defense Argument

[Renderer of Evil (604742)]

OK, so you've established that Reiser is not a geek... So what is he?

Hans Reiser is a general-purpose, journaled collection of cells that relies on DNA metadata to reduce internal fragmentation.

What serious evidence is there against him?

[MikeRT (947531)]

Sean Sturgeon confessed to killing eight people [wired.com]. If I were the homicide detective, you damn well better believe I'd be urging the prosecutor to dismiss the charges without prejudice so that the scope of the investigation could be brought to bear on HIM, now. The guy is into "death yoga," serious BDSM and confessed to killing eight people. The guy is a total loon based on what has come out, and he'd probably score very dangerously high on a sociopath scale. Hans might be the killer, but if I were a cop, I'd have spat my coffee out all over the report in shock when I read that Nina had gotten herself involved with a guy who sounds like a real nutjob who probably killed her.

Unless they found Nina's blood all over Reiser's car, they don't have much to go on. Even then, it's not unrealistic to think that Sturgeon might have tried to frame Reiser.

The details of this case are very sordid. I wouldn't put it past the prosecutors to be ignoring sturgeon's high probability of guilt out of pride because they "have their man." This is one of the reasons why I unabashedly support making it impossible to give a life sentence or execution without a minimum of two credible witnesses, and serious penalties (that can include execution in murder cases) for those who commit perjury.

Re:What serious evidence is there against him?

[by Anonymous Coward]

The guy is into "death yoga," serious BDSM and confessed to killing eight people. The guy is a total loon based on what has come out, and he'd probably score very dangerously high on a sociopath scale.

'Serious BDSM' is what I do sometimes, but it has nothing to do with being a sociopath!

If BDSM is not your piece of cake, fine, but do not put it at the same level as killing people because you simply do not understand it.

Re:What serious evidence is there against him?

[by Anonymous Coward]

'Serious BDSM' is what I do sometimes...

If BDSM is not your piece of cake, fine, but do not put it at the same level as killing people because you simply do not understand it.

*sighs*

You OS X people are all alike. And it's "BSD", not "BDSM."

Re:What serious evidence is there against him?

[Adambomb (118938)]

No, they found items containing her blood (sleeping bag), and there was blood samples in Reisers garage.

Strangely enough though, this is one case where i would expect it to warrant further investigation as A) Nina Reiser was a physician and B) as the GP stated, Sean Sturgeon is one frightening fucking individual. That gives the knowledge necessary for such things to be possible, combined with a nature that has done such things before.

I'm not saying for sure one way or the other, but don't you think the friggan BOOKS ON CRIME they found along with it all as rather like someone padding the bill? (Plus what kind of programmer wouldn't think to properly destroy those objects so no one finds them wasting in memory heh). Not certainty by any means, but worthy of investigation.

beyond the shadow of a doubt

[hxnwix (652290)]

I and many of my geek friends would have a hard time proving our innocence if such accusations were leveled against us.

Imagine if they looked in our basements... I can hear the cross examiner already: "sir, can you explain to us what made you so angry that you shot this Compaq server 382 times with a .22 rifle? Do you usually shoot things that annoy you? You said that computers are important to you - so important that you like to shoot them repeatedly. Was your wife important to you? Did she sometimes annoy you? No further questions."

Fortunately, we are innocent until proven guilty...

Sense and Circumstance

[_Sprocket_ (42527)]

The issue seems to come from the apparent weakness of the prosecution's case. The most damning part of the case seems to be that Reiser acted strangely; did odd things, said odd things, behaved in unexpected ways. That kind of thing works well to tie together strong evidence to show motives and behaviors that link the evidence to the suspect. But lacking that, the case becomes little more than "he sure SEEMS guilty." And that is, as the article mentioned one judge noting, a very thin case indeed.

So this is what the defense has to rally against. They have a client who is his own worse enemy. They have to remove the focus on irrational, unexpected behavior and shift it back to the strength of the real evidence presented by the prosecution's case. In short, they have to defeat a strategy that may give circumstantial evidence more weight than it would otherwise be given by people who don't share the same sensibilities as the defendant.

I've known plenty of technical folks (engineers, coders, sysadmins, screwdriver slingers, etc.) who are just odd birds. I've got a whole host of weird stories based on experiences working with and around these folks. Many of these stories could (and sometimes are) taken out of context to imply a lot more about the individual than they really should. I'm not at all surprised that such an issue might rear its ugly head in the aggressive atmosphere of a court of law.

From the hood....

[FlyingGuy (989135)]

Well, I tell ya. I live in Han's hood, and let me tell ya a thing or three..

• Silicon Valley is on the other side of the bay.
• The jury of his peers came from Alameda County, not San Mateo or Santa Clara County, which comprise 95% of what is considered Silicon Valley and most of them probably came from the city of Oakland, a Blue Collar city for the most part.
• The guy who owns the local hardware store went to High School with Hans ( Skyline High School ) and is also a Deputy Sheriff. He personally thinks that Han's did the deed and well, for the most part so do most folks that live in Montclair.

I personally am not convinced since I know a few Russian women, and for the most part they are pretty normal, well until you piss them off, then all bets are off because they are some pretty vindictive women. Prior to his wife going missing and him getting arrested I had seen Han's around the village a few times, picking up his mail, the grocery store, the usual stuff and he never really impressed me one way or the other, so I don't know him as a person.

One thing I will say is that from the live blog coverage of the trial, he is certainly not doing himself any favors with his courtroom antics. I might stop by the trial this coming Wednesday. If I do I will srop you all a line back to let you know my thoughts.

In the meantime, I am not sure I would start any long term projects that rely on his file system brilliance...

Can't. Shut. Up!

[Apotsy (84148)]

The Wired blog about the trial mentions him constantly arguing with his lawyer & the judge. His lawyer is constantly asking for things to be repeated because Reiser is pestering him, even when he's busy questioning a witness!

The judge has asked him if he wants to fire his lawyer, but he says "no". If he wants to try the case himself, he should. If he wants to talk to his lawyer about things, he should ... at the appropriate time. But his constant interruptions have apparently antagonized everyone in the courtroom. Now apparently, his lawyer is going to try to explain that away with "well ... it's because he's just that much smarter than everyone else!"

It's obviously nonsense, because if you go back and look at any of the times he was badgering people on the LKML, they are experiencing exactly the same sort of annoyance with him. He just won't shut up, and won't stop pestering everyone with his ridiculous, delusional ideas that he can't let go of (like when he said ReiserFS would become the new VFS layer, with VFS implemented "on top of" it). Is anyone really prepared to claim he's not only smarter than everyone in the courtroom and day-to-day life, but that he's smarter than everyone on LKML too? Maybe he's just annoying and can't stop talking. Maybe he's just got something like Tourettes. It certainly doesn't sound like it has all that much to do with his intelligence.

A wide spectrum of possibilities.

[chris_sawtell (10326)]

A disclaimer: I am not a US citizen and live thousands of miles away, but thanks to Wired, SFGate.com and Jay Gaskill, I have kept myself as well informed about this sad state of affairs as it is possible to do with out actually being in the Court.

The whole trouble with this case is that the evidence we have seen so far allows one to mentally conjour up so many equally valid scenarios. To wit - all equal possibilities, ranked in seriousness:-

1. A nasty, skilled, pre-meditated killing.
   Evidence for the prosecution:
   
   • Hans knew that Beverly Palmer was going to be away for the whole week-end.
   • Hans arranged for Nina to come to the empty house in the middle of a long holiday, when few of the neighbours would be around.
   Missing Evidence:-
   • No 'Smoking Gun', or actual witness.
2. A crime of passion. Nina's previous behavour had so sensitized Hans that he struck out in an uncontrolled, mindless rage and killed her in a few seconds using a Judo chop of some kind.
   For:
   • Han's behavour immediately after Nina's disappearance.
   Against:
   • Rory said his mother gave him a hug and left the house.
3. Nina left the house, and proceeded to a 'Professional Appointment' with Sturgeon. She died, possibly accidentally, during the 'treatment'. Hans may or may not have been involved with the disposal of the body.
   For:
   • It's happened before in other Jurisdictions.
   • Sturgeon has confessed to having been involved with many deaths.
   Against:
   • None.
4. Nina, a pleasant looking chick, and alone in her car, got hijacked, dragged off to some unknown place, gang raped, killed, and dumped in the sea to be eaten by sharks.
   For:
   • Judging by what I read about the Oakland neighbourhood, this is no more a fanciful scenario than any of the others.

This whole parody of a trial seems to me to be something straight out of 'Alice Through the Looking Glass'. The defendant and his parents are all as mad as the Hatter. The forensic DNA technician is incompetent. The prosecution has spent 3 whole months spouting a cloud of largely irrelevant waffle. While they have demonstrated that Hans could have done the deed, and that he had a degree of motive, there has been not one jot of independent expert evidence that, at the time of the alleged crime, he was sufficiently sane to form the intent to murder, that he was fit to plead, or that he actually did the deed. This is the sort of crime, and resultant investigation, which cries out for a "Not Proven" verdict,

Re:Desperate Twinkies

[milsoRgen (1016505)]

Also why is he constantly referred to as a genius?

i.e. "an exceptional natural capacity of intellect, especially as shown in creative and original work in science, art, music, etc."

Granted I couldn't design and implement my own file system, but I hardly think that deserves the label 'genius'.

Re:Desperate Twinkies

[liquidpele (663430)]

I agree with this. I *could* design an implement my own filesystem if I thought it was really profitable, and I'm no genious. But I also wouldn't have gone to Russia for a mail-order type bride and let her get her citizenship after having some kids, or run my business into the ground while my Russian wife stole money because I was stupid enough to let her handle the finances and not double check things myself. Sure they guy is smart, but he's also very, very stupid from the stories I here.

Re:Desperate Twinkies

[by Anonymous Coward]

I'm no genious

Yeah, no shit.

Re:Desperate Twinkies

[liquidpele (663430)]

Yea... except I would view that as a huge waste of time since I don't see it as important.

I put my time and energy into things I find important, which does not include file systems. However, any CS department should have a fielsystem course like mine did, and I've read practical file system design [letterp.com] by the guy who wrote the Be Filesystem (great book btw). It's hard, but nothing particularly special if you put the time and energy into it. In short, I see it as like someone building their own electric car. If you've got the time and energy, it's cool shit. But it won't put food on the table.

Re:Desperate Twinkies

[Omnifarious (11933)]

It's not the Twinkie Defense. Hans is claiming he didn't murder her, not that some bizarre psychological condition associated with being a geek should mitigate his action in some way. The psychological aspect is used only to explain why he acted so strangely and why those strange actions are not indicative of guilt. Basically, it didn't even occur to him that those actions might be seen as acting guilty.

From what I can tell, the prosecution has absolutely not proven Hans' guilt beyond the shadow of a doubt. They have not met the standard of proof required for a criminal conviction. All they have is some fairly flimsy circumstantial evidence.

But that's a separate question from whether or not I think he's guilty. And given the available evidence I can't decide either way. This case just is too bizarre. I can actually believe that Nina has managed to escape back to Russia and finagled the courts through the rest of her family into letting her children go back too. But I can also believe that Hans murdered her. Both scenarios fit the available evidence.

Re:Desperate Twinkies

[BiggerIsBetter (682164)]

You forgot to mention the other guy, Sean Sturgeon, who was also close to the victim. The dude who has confessed to killing 8 (yes, eight) people, and was dating Nina (Hans' wife). IMHO, it's more likely that Hans was reading up on how to kill Sean (or even how to avoid being killed by Sean) than how to kill Nina.

Re:Desperate Twinkies

[tomhudson (43916)]

"There is no clear motive for Hans to of killed his wife."

There are motives aplenty:

1. She cleaned out his bank account
2. She got custody of the kids
3. She was sleeping with someone else
4. She had called an end to their marriage
5. She had gone out and gotten herself a job where she specified she was now single

People have killed their former spouses over much less. There's plenty of motive.

Re:Desperate Twinkies

[LaskoVortex (1153471)]

because this seems like a defense of desperation

A defense of desparation is no worse than a prosecution of desparation. From what I understand of the article, the prosecution has (1) no dead body (2) no murder weapon (3) no suspects outside of "the usual supects" and (4) no evidence outside of peculiar behavior. So, if your evidence of a crime you can't prove even ever happened is peculiar behavior of a suspect for the hypothetical crime, don't feel short changed when the defence turns out to be the defending of said peculiar behavior.

Re:Desperate Twinkies

[JavaRob (28971)]

I'm always leery of using media reporting to follow any court case, though perhaps Wired will do better than the average general-consumption newspaper.

Did you notice this from the (Washington Post) article?

His signal adult achievement was ReiserFS, a file system he named for himself, unusual in the programming world. The system organizes data on Linux, the "open source" operating system.

Ah, unusual in the programming world (this guy's a freakish egomaniac!) -- and in the next sentence they mention Linux, which as we all know was created by Bob Torvalds.

Re:Desperate Twinkies

[Ozan (176854)]

No, I would think more of an inverted Chewbacca defense:

William Du Bois

Ladies and gentlemen of this supposed jury, the district attorney would certainly want you to believe that my client killed his wife. And they make a good case. Hell, even I almost think it was him! But, ladies and gentlemen of this supposed jury, I have one final thing I want you to consider. Ladies and gentlemen, this is Alan Turing. Turing was a Mathematician from England. He came up with what is now called a Turing Machine. Now think about it: that does make perfect sense!

Paul Hora

Damn it! He's using the Turing Defense!

William Du Bois

Now why would Alan Turing, a Mathematician from England would invent something like a Turing Machine? Because it helps to show that some problems are never solvable by computing. Does that make any sense? Yes it does.
Imagine a Turing Machine and a set of instructions. Can anybody tell, if the machine, running those instructions will ever stop? And more important: can we program a Turing Machine, so that it decides whether a set of instructions would cause a Turing Machine to halt eventually? But more important, you have to ask yourself: What does this have to do with this case? Everything. Ladies and gentlemen, this case completedly depends on it! It does make a lot of sense! Look at me. I'm a lawyer defending a software engineer, and I'm talkin' about Alan Turing!
Now how can it be, that this halting problem is undecideable? Because, if we hypotheticaly have a Turing Machine that solves the halting problem, we could use it to construct another Turing Machine that does not halt when it should, and thus, when given to itself to test for halting, would contradict its own behavior!
Does that make sense? Ladies and gentlemen, I am making perfect sense! And so you have to remember, when you're in that jury room deliberatin' and conjugatin' the verdict, do you know wheter you will ever stop deliberatin'? No! Ladies and gentlemen of this supposed jury, you will never know! If the jury doesn't halt, you must acquit! The defense rests!