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Hans Reiser Guilty of First Degree Murder
Posted by
kdawson
on Mon Apr 28, 2008 06:32 PM
from the so-much-for-the-geek-defense dept.
from the so-much-for-the-geek-defense dept.
Anonymous Meoward writes "Today Hans Reiser was found guilty of first degree murder in Oakland, California. Quoting Wired: 'In a murder case with no body, no crime scene, no reliable eyewitness and virtually no physical evidence, the prosecution began the trial last November with a daunting task ahead... The turning point in the trial came when Reiser took the stand in his own defense March 3.' Whether he really did it or not, Hans basically just didn't know when to shut up."
Related Stories
[+]
Hans Reiser and the "Geek Defense" Strategy 738 comments
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.'"
[+]
Hardware: The File-System Fallout of the Reiser Verdict 605 comments
perlow writes "Yesterday, the Open Source community took an emotional hit when veteran Linux programmer Hans Reiser was convicted of first degree murder in the suspicious disappearing of his wife, Nina. While I won't go into the details of the case, as this has been covered extensively in the press, I would like to talk a little bit about how this verdict will impact the technology in play for file system dominance in our favorite Open Source operating system, Linux."
[+]
News: Hans Reiser To Reveal Location of Wife's Body 882 comments
dlgeek writes "The story of Hans Reiser is well known to all Slashdotters by now. Some still placed doubts about the conviction, stating that he might be innocent. It now seems that all doubt has been quelled, since Alameda County District Attorney Thomas Orloff has revealed that Hans Reiser will disclose the location of Nina's body for a reduced sentence.
The deal is not yet finalized, though. 'There's been some overtures,' Orloff said, 'But everything is in its preliminary stage.' The deal would reduce his conviction from first degree to second degree murder. In addition, an anonymous source close to the situation said that 'the only real leverage he has is if he can provide a body. He really doesn't have any options left. Even if he won a retrial somehow, he'd likely be convicted.'"
[+]
Hans Reiser Gets Sentence of 15-To-Life 553 comments
mallumax writes "Hans Reiser was today handed a prison sentence of 15-to-life for murdering his wife. Earlier this year, he pleaded guilty and led police to his wife's body. His jury trial concluded in April with Reiser's first-degree murder conviction. That carries a 25-to-life term, but the authorities, in a backroom deal, later offered him 15-to-life if he produced his wife's body and waived any rights to appeal his conviction."
Several other readers contributed coverage at SFGate.
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Free Software (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Free Software (Score:5, Funny)
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If you get arrested and/or get put on trial... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:If you get arrested and/or get put on trial... (Score:5, Informative)
I once spent 48hrs in custody and 2 years of going to hearings for not listening to this basic piece of advise.
I ended up proving myself innocent of what I was being accused of (and the real guilty party, my boss at the time, was never accused).
So, I learned two valuable lessons after this ordeal:
1- If you find out that your boss is doing unethical and illegal stuff, quit your job.
2- If you find yourself being questioned by the police about something, ask first if you are under arrest. If you are, don't say a word to the cops until you get your lawyer to speak for you.
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Re:If you get arrested and/or get put on trial... (Score:5, Insightful)
What you describe is entirely correct. When an officer starts asking you questions if you know what's good for you UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES ANSWER any questions or volunteer any information. Instead and again like you said: Ask "Officer am I under arrest?". If you're not then leave. If you are, tell them "Officer I am invoking my right to remain silent". They will threaten that remaining silent only makes things worse. In many cases they will threaten with arrest if you remain silent or they will offer to help you if you admit to the charge. A POLICE OFFICER HAS NO INFLUENCE ON CRIMINAL PROCEEDINGS OTHER AS A WITNESS. A police officer can not reduce your charges, a police officer can NOT drop charges. But... they are permitted to lie to you in order to obtain incriminatory information. They are permitted to offer false legal advice if it serves the prosecution(!).
You can expect some very tense moments with officers when you deny them permission to search your vehicle or your property or if you remain silent. I have been there. Be prepared for pressure but know that in the end it's better to get intense with the Officer than with your future cell mates (not that I have been there
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Re:If you get arrested and/or get put on trial... (Score:5, Insightful)
Let this case also stand as an object lesson in that other important rule: Once your attorney is there to do the talking, take his or her advice. If you are, oh, let's say an expert computer scientist with an advanced understanding of filesystem design, you wouldn't invite some random schmoe from the street to head your development team. That would be stupid. The converse applies: you are the random schmoe, so let the person with the legal degrees and an advanced understanding of criminal trials make the legal decisions.
Oh, and another thing: don't murder your estranged wife. Murder your uncle, your neighbor, or your boss if you absolutely must kill somebody. And then paint "PRIME SUSPECT" in three-foot-high red letters on your house. That is still an order of magnitude less suspicious than having your fucking wife go missing during the middle of an acrimonious custody dispute.
Now if you'll pardon me, the sudden revelation that any clueless jackhole can build a filesystem has me itching to fire up the ol' compiler.
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Re:If you get arrested and/or get put on trial... (Score:5, Funny)
I have no particular interest in offering guilty people a defense for what they've done. If you've intentionally murdered someone, please go to jail and get the hell out of our society.
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Summary of the evidence (Score:5, Informative)
My personal opinion is that Hans killed Nina in a fit of rage, then scrambled to cover up the evidence. I did not see any evidence whatsoever of premeditation. So I can not at all understand how this jury reached a verdict of First degree murder.
Yes, I knew Hans and Nina (Score:5, Interesting)
I met Nina Reiser at a pre-school picnic.
Nina seemed like a typical harried mom - devoted to her kids and quite kind (she got a cup of juice for my daughter).
Hans, on the other hand, went out of his way to be mean, petty, arrogant, and small minded. He acted as if he owned the Open Computer Facility, and that everyone should kow-tow to him. Once he booted an undergrad off the system because she had posted a Usenet message that he disagreed with.
I attended the trial for several days. I was impressed with how carefully the jurors followed the witnesses, even though the testimony was boring.
Hans shot himself in the foot by testifying. Maybe he shot both feet. He used the passive voice when describing critical events, as if he were an outside observer. He varied from extremely explicit (remembering license plates) to utterly vague (not remembering where he slept).
Even though I wanted him to get out of this squeeze, I quite agree with the jurors on this one: there may not be a body, but Hans committed murder.
So what exactly IS the default cellblock size? (Score:5, Funny)
What he did is bad, but you gotta admit... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:So... (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:Doubt disappeared when Hans testified (Score:5, Insightful)
The thing is, that while there was only circumstantial evidence, there was rather a lot of it. That amount of evidence is used to convict people plenty often. You don't have to have a body, a gun with fingerprints on it, and ballistics that match the bullet in the body. "Circumstantial" blood stains require either a lot of good explaining, or a lot of shutting up and leaving room for the "reasonable doubt" that your lawyer will certainly argue for. When you try to explain it away, and your explanations sound hollow, then that only leaves the interpretation that you are lying because the circumstantial evidence is real evidence.
There's a good lesson here: Listen to your lawyer. If your lawyer says it would be a bad idea for you to testify, it's probably because they know what they are talking about. It's very much a geek thing to want to address every point made by your opponent directly, to leave nothing left unaccounted for. Except that when your rebuttals are weak, you can actually have the opposite effect. Let your lawyer figure out when that is appropriate.
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Oblig ReiserFS Joke (Score:5, Funny)
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The FAT defence (Score:5, Funny)
It has a 4GB limit, in the age of 5GB DVDs why would you ship a product with a 4GB limit?
It just doesn't make any sense!
If this is FAT32 partition, the jury must acquit!!
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Re:US jury system does it again (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:US jury system does it again (Score:5, Insightful)
Can you imagine what would happen if this guy was black?
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Re:US jury system does it again (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:US jury system does it again (Score:5, Informative)
I introduced the lists to make it more readable, and put clarifications for the referenced sections in brackets to avoid the need to look them up.
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Re:US jury system does it again (Score:5, Insightful)
That's because you aren't on the jury and didn't actually sit through the full trial.
Neither did I, which is why I won't say whether or not he's guilty.. I (and you) don't have all the facts.
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Re:Down here... (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:Down here... (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Down here... (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re:US jury system does it again (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re:US jury system does it again (Score:5, Insightful)
I think we've just proved that I can be convicted of first degree murder if my friend turns up missing.
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Re:US jury system does it again (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:US jury system does it again (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:US jury system does it again (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah that'd do it, genius.
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Re:US jury system does it again (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:US jury system does it again (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:US jury system does it again (Score:5, Insightful)
Did you bother to RTFA? There was plenty of evidence. A body is not required to arrest and convict somebody of murder. Otherwise all anybody would have to do would be to cremate the body and poof! No crime!
The article gives just a couple of examples, but they're obviously examples of many. The guy spent 11 full days on the stand. The one pretty incriminating example of evidence cited in the article is the fact that he removed the passenger seat of his car just after his wife's disappearance, then hosed down the interior and left an inch of standing water on the floor boards. Now, you tell me why any average person has reason to do that. I can tell you that in 20 years of car ownership and six different cars, I have never once taken the passenger seat out of my car, thrown it away and then hosed down the interior, and I don't know anyone else who has either. His explanation was that he liked to sleep in the car and wanted the extra room. Does this sound plausible to you?
So, let's just look at this *one* piece of evidence. Guy's wife disappears. He then immediately removes the seat from his car, which is never seen again, and he hoses down the interior of the car. That doesn't paint a picture for you? Now, let's say you ask the guy why he did that and he gives you a laughably ridiculous explanation. And let's say this goes on for 11 days as the prosecution asks him to explain every other piece of evidence, and his explanations are no less ridiculous in each case.
The standard for guilt or innocence is proof beyond a reasonable doubt. That doesn't mean *any* doubt, and that's the mistake people often make. It's *reasonable* doubt. Is it reasonable to assume he was telling the truth about that car seat? Would any reasonable person do what he did with that car seat? And if all his other explanations about the evidence presented were similar, is it reasonable to assume he was telling the truth about anything?
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Re:US jury system does it again (Score:5, Interesting)
Coincidentally, not immediately. Your bias is showing.
This murder was not proved. They have no body, they have insufficient blood to prove she is dead. Typical human holds 8 pints IIRC, that is much more than a 6" stain. They have no evidence of planning to commit on his part. All they have is a defendant that got up on the stand and delivered answers that the jury found weird, strange, not-normal.
So they alienated him, found him strange, and thus, were no longer a jury of his peers. Just a jury finding that the defendant was odd and probably hiding something and since we're in a murder trial, it must be that.
I have no special knowledge of this case. He may be a raging lunatic for all I know. But the one take-away that all
When in court, on trial for your life, subject to judgement from average citizens who have no hope of understanding you, your mannerisms or your bizarre hobbies and interests, keep your mouth shut.
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Re:US jury system does it again (Score:5, Insightful)
You've likely never slept in a car, then. I have, plenty of times. And I'd much rather sleep in the passenger seat than remove it and sleep on a hard bumpy floorboard with rails and bolts sticking out of it. Especially if I were tall, because if I slept on the floor, the back seat would get in the way, whereas the front seat back extends over the back seat and thus gives you more room.
So no, that claim is not credible at all. Especially when combined with a refusal to tell where you disposed of the seat, and hosing down the floor mats.
(Of course, the best car to sleep (or fsck) in were the old Ramblers, where you folded down the front couch, and it lined up with the rear seat to become a double bed.)
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Re:US jury system does it again (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:US jury system does it again (Score:5, Interesting)
There was the last case I helped with (civil, not criminal) for them (I was the *tech guy* who ran the powerpoint display) where we were representing a homeless man who's throat had been torn out (yes, he uses the same voice box similar to the tracheotomy having smokers) who was sueing the police for medical damages (he had been sleeping under a tree when they were chasing a criminal(not him) and as far as the cop dog was concerned, he *looked* guilty, don't believe that crap about the cop dog following a scent, these are the dogs trained to attack and disengage on a word (shedard dogs) not follow trails (hounds))(by the way, before everyone jumps and says "but he's homeless, so he was just money grubbing, DSHS (Department of Social and Health Services) were putting a lein on the settlement outcome, had we got what we were after (money wise) it would have only have paid the debt to the hospital that treated him). Our attorney did a FANTASTIC job during jury selection (only a 6 person jury, they do that in civil court) but he advised over and over and over, don't take the stand.
He did.
I know what the real tale was, I'd met and talked to the defendant, but, he was homeless, very mentally unstable (as most are) and the jury thought he sounded crazy. End of story. No win. One branch of the government did not have to hand over tax payer money to an other banch of government. Cause he *seemed* unhinged.
Similar is this case. Hans is an egotist. He *knows* he's smarter than you. And he spews contempt at your ignorance for not realizing this. Ask anyone who's ever debated with him in a forum. He acts as though you are nothing cause he knows all. Well, how well you think that flew with the proles on the jury? I can tell you, it didn't.
All they saw was a smart man telling them they were idiots. And that, they don't like. So they voted for the lynching.
The fault in out justice system is that our fate is in the hands of the lowest common denomiator.
May Mr Saturday come for us all.
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Re:US jury system does it again (Score:5, Interesting)
As a former juror, let me be the first to say "screw you". All 14 of us (dont forget alternates) worked really hard to get our decision right, even in the cruddy little case we saw. Two days agonizing over it, worrying that we were being swayed by personalities or facts, reviewing written testimony over and over again. Its really easy to spew here on Slashdot because ultimately its completely meaningless. I had to look someone in the eye and say 'guilty', and probably ruin their life, and it was really *really* hard.
I will *never* second-guess a jury after that. Even OJ! Unless you've sat through the trial and been in the jury room, you have absolutely no right to pass judgement on them or the burden they carry. So you with the laptop projector and the speech impediment calling me a "moron"? Bite me.
Lawyers cant get smart thoughtful people *off* a jury, because people somehow get really smart in groups of 12. Strangely it mostly works just like it should. I bet some of them even watch CSI and Judge Judy once or twice, and *still* managed to ask intelligent questions, make rational or impassioned arguments, and most of all be willing to take criticism from others and force yourself to re-examine your own position. I've never seen anything like it... it's like an anti-slashdot, if anyone here could imagine such a thing. Hell, someone even quit in the middle of deliberations and was mostly afraid that if they told us why they might influence us one way or another. People get it right most of the time. Even the people who aren't as smart as you are.
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Re:US jury system does it again (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh, and water is wet.
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Re:US jury system does it again (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:US jury system does it again (Score:5, Interesting)
Mod parent up. This is absolutely the case. I've been called to jury duty several times, and have been rejected every time as well.
The selection process is such that even if one side finds a juror that they may think may sway to one side, the other side will simply excuse them. Of course the idea is that once you are all done with the process, you should end up with total middle-of-the-road people that *should be* completely neutral to the case.
But there is another hidden factor involved: how easily does the attorney have a chance against persuading the juror to agree on their arguement? So pretty much you just end up with the dumbest, most gullible people on the jury making the final judgement call. These are the people you would totally not trust for any important decision making. (apologies for being elitist, but you just had to be there)
The last time I had to go, I took a quick look at who they were excusing, and who they kept. They kept the unemployed, the single parent, the person with a criminal record, etc. None of which had any form of education higher than a HS diploma, if that. The lowest common denominator was laughably stereotypical. They booted out the accountants, the doctors, the lawyer, and the tech geeks. If you went to graduate school, there was no chance you wouldn't be dismissed.
Attorneys are not interested in a fair trial; they have money riding on their case. They are looking for people that will listen to their 'vote for me!' speech.
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Re:US jury system does it again (Score:5, Insightful)
Look at the issues in the Hans Reiser case: Marriage. Money. Economic disparity between the accused and the alleged victim. Breakdown of an abusive relationship. Comfortable, middle-class, single male may just not have a lot of empathy for any of these situations.
Or, to put it another way: Who would you want sitting on your jury? Hans Reiser?
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Re:US jury system does it again (Score:5, Interesting)
Depends on the lawyer. My uncle was a bank inspector which caused him to assist lawyers prosecuting bank employees on several occasions. The prosecutors ALWAYS wanted smart, intelligent people who could understand how the defendants had defrauded the bank. Of course the defence wanted idiots who could not understand any of it.
My uncle joked that jury selection was as simple a looking at the newspaper the potential juror carried into the court room: FT and they were out, the Sun and they'd be selected!
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Re:US jury system does it again (Score:5, Funny)
Hans Reiser has done himself in with the same weapon.
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IN SOVIET RUSSIA (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:US jury system does it again (Score:5, Insightful)
In this case, his attorney was right in advising Hans not to take the stand. Better to have people think you are an idiot than to open your mouth and remove all doubt!
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Re:A man... (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:A man... (Score:5, Interesting)
In all likelihood, Reiser's lawyer did not want to put Reiser on the stand. However, it is generally accepted "[i]n a criminal case, [a] lawyer shall abide by the client's decision, after consultation with the lawyer...whether the client will testify [abanet.org]." It is assumed that the right of a client to testify in criminal cases is a constitutional right. See Nix v. Whiteside, 475 U.S. 157, para. 16 [resource.org]. Even if the client's testimony can only hurt the defense, the lawyer must allow the client to testify if the client so insists. To do otherwise would be unethical and impair the client's rights.
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Re:Reasonable doubt? (Score:5, Funny)
I'm guessing it will disappear in the middle of the night, never to be heard from again. Police will arrest the xfs maintainer on chargest, the evidence being that neighbors saw him carry out what could have been a backup tape wrapped in a roll of carpet in the middle of the night.
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Re:Reasonable Doubt (Score:5, Insightful)
For an interesting review of historical views on 'N' (and Blackstone's criteria in general), see http://www.law.ucla.edu/volokh/guilty.htm [ucla.edu].
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Re:Reasonable Doubt (Score:5, Interesting)
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Because it may not be accurate (Score:5, Insightful)
Now this is important, because otherwise, it would create a "Get out of murder free" situation more or less. As an example:
Suppose you and I conspire together. You are going to murder someone, but I agree that if you get caught I'll confess to it at your trial. This would of course create reasonable doubt for you. However, I'll make sure that there is plenty of evidence showing I didn't do it (for example be on camera somewhere at the time of the murder) so when they bring me to trial, I get off. Bingo, you got away with murder.
This isn't even to mention the problem of people with mental problems who confess to things they didn't do for any number of reasons.
A good judge isn't going to allow evidence, on either side, that is likely false. They also aren't going to allow in evidence that is highly prejudicial if it isn't relevant to the case, even if it is true. For example on the prosecution side prior bad acts are limited. They can be admitted to evidence if they relate to the case, for example if someone is accused of robbery and he has 5 robbery convictions, well that's relevant because it establishes a pattern of behaviour. However if you were on trial for tax evasion, they couldn't get in a domestic violence conviction, since all that would do is prejudice the jury and it isn't relevant.
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