Hans Reiser in Court Today 496
An anonymous reader writes "Hans Reiser has pled not guilty to murdering his wife and invoked his right to a speedy trial. He will attend a hearing today where the judge will decide if the state has a case " We had covered this story back when it had first broke; and for those of you playing catch-up, Hans is the author of ReiserFS.
Thank you media (Score:3, Interesting)
This just goes to show you that stuff like this happens all the time that never gets seen in national media.
Give him a laptop and let him work (Score:5, Interesting)
WRONG (Score:0, Interesting)
Re:Think about his kids (Score:1, Interesting)
The article says a big point of contention between Hans and his wife was custody of the children. He is presumably a logical person, a man of reason judging by his coding ability; and if guilty of this crime also one of uncontrolled emotion. To think that such a hurtful, irrational decision could be made; so that essentially he would rather the children end up in the care of the state than see his wife win.
He has not been proven guilty yet, but we know the human mind is capable of this. It isn't even unlikely. It is sad and scary.
Re:Free Hans (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:We had covered this story... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:We had covered this story... (Score:3, Interesting)
Obviously if you believe in due process, then clearly you support O.J. Simpson.
Nina's whereabouts (Score:3, Interesting)
Nina Reiser's 2001 Honda Odyssey minivan, with groceries inside, was found Sept. 9 in the city's Thornhill neighborhood. Neighbors first spotted the parked minivan Sept. 5, the day she was supposed to pick up her children at school, police said."
The minivan was 'spotted' Sept 5th? But 'found' on Sept 9th? Groceries inside? When did the reciept show the groceries were purchased? Before she dropped the kids off or after? If it was after, something is fishy. Grocery store surveilance cameras?
Hmmmmmm.
Just my two cents worth.
(Almost) Everyone. (Score:3, Interesting)
That doesn't mean they're bad people. On the contrary, some of the nicest and most well-balanced people I know, would have zero compunction at all in blowing you away, if you in any way threatened or harmed their families. For that matter, neither would I; my obligation to protect my loved ones is far stronger than my obligation to not harm another human being that I don't know or particularly care about.
I have always found people who claim that they just could not kill, to be oddities. I'm torn between simply believing that they're deluding themselves about their own nature, or accepting that there are people who are just wired so fundamentally differently than everyone I know. I suspect there is a combination of both at work; while some people might actually be just incapable of killing someone else regardless of circumstances, a greater number of people would just like to believe that about themselves, but would probably pull the trigger in the right situation or with the right conditioning. Personally, I have always found realistic introspection to be more useful than wishful self-delusion; I have a pretty good idea of the circumstances under which I'd kill someone else. By beginning from the assumption or knowledge that you could end someone else's life, you can work backwards to the various triggers that would produce that end, and perhaps avoid the situations entirely (if any of the situations are avoidable).
Re:Compass first, GPS second; always. (Score:3, Interesting)
I have had extensive training with GPS (civilian and military) and three different types of compasses (normal, prismatic, digital) plus how to read all of them in relation to a map. Based on this I think your implication that it has anything to do with the equipment or the user is wrong or at least side stepping the issue.
The biggest problem with a GPS is that it is prone to failure from all of the elements; to hot, to cold, to much pressure (weight applied) and it dies. As well as the well known issues I know with my nature of being a geek I would priorities the importance of its power cells towards communication devices in the event that I really need rescuing rendering it completely useless anyway.
I started off being a huge fan of GPS over other means when I started doing a lot of camping and bush walking though I quickly (around six months) switched to having a standard $70 silver attached to me at all times when out bush. Don't get me wrong I think people should have both - I just don't think they should always expect that GPS to work. Having some thing you know will always be there and have an acceptable margin of error that you know is far more important, in my opinion, than know where you are down to the centimeter and having no guarantees.
Re:We had covered this story... (Score:1, Interesting)
The ALLEGED criminal goes free. It's not ass backwards, and you CANNOT FAIRLY claim it to be, because those cases never make it to court; you have NO IDEA what the rest of the evidence is or may be, and most likely have based your current assessment of said "criminal" based on the PR campaign or some half-assed news coverage by our dear, intelligent, fair and balanced US media.
Also, the claim that if a cop breaks the law, the evidence is gone is patently FALSE. It may or may not be; fruit of the tree I believe is the standard. If the evidence would have been gathered in due course, it can be included, and a judge decides that standard (as they rightly should) if the DA presents it.
The fact is, you've already shown that you do not know enough about the US criminal justice system to be really commenting about the ills of the system. You also seem to be sorely lacking in understanding that if you let criminality form the police system, then the repurcussions trounce the judicial process--police would end up torturing suspects, and we've already had this debate when it comes to 'terrorists' (not to mention watched the definition of such change in the last 5-6 years).
Not to mention, you presented a rather ridiculous argument--if a professional cop screws up, the evidence should be tossed unless it would have been gathered by some other legal way in due course. Do your job incorrectly, there are and ought to be repercussions. If a doctor screws up, they open themselves up to a tort claim. If a data entry person screws up, they can be fired.
Still, you want the evidence included? The public already is on a pro-police, pro-victims rights bent. The police can place your face in the dirt legally in PA for simply not following their instructions, even if you are not even the suspect (as happened in West Hempfield, Lancaster County, PA, when a person was pulled over for a suspected DUI, and the passenger was inebriated). Open this door as you like, and we'll see how fast the exodus of people from the US occurs; you can already examine what occurred in PA in the past 10 years (and still is although they've stemmed the flow); you'd acknowledge hunting season for racial minorities, beatings to get confessions, no Miranda warnings, police deceit (oh, sorry, that's already legal in the US; the cops can lie to you to get a confession), etc.
You want to live in that sort of country? I sure as hell don't.
Re:We had covered this story... (Score:2, Interesting)
If he hadn't attempted to go for help, no tracks would have been left, they would still be looking for the family and they would have all been dead.
He saved their lives at the cost of his own.
The distance he went over a 2 day period in those conditions was super human as well. After having not eaten for a week, in freezing cold temperatures, through very rugged, snow covered terrain the man went 16 miles. The last day he would have been wet and slowly freezing to death.
Nina got $8,000 a month in alimony (Score:4, Interesting)
According to this article [nbc11.com], Hans Reiser had to pay $8,000 in alimony a month to Nina. Nina was getting $96,000 a year for not working!
I don't condone any killing, legal or not, but if she had indeed cheated on him before their divorce and then got that kind of money, it's easy to see how the feeling of having been so completely beaten by someone he loved could have made him desperate.
Something seems broken with California's alimony law.
Re:We had covered this story... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:We had covered this story... (Score:3, Interesting)
Although the cop will still be held responsible for his/her actions, the evidence is admissable, and for all intents and purposes, the 4th ammendment is null and void. How this didn't generate more attention when it happened is beyond my comprehension.