Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments
Search

News for nerds, stuff that matters

Slashdot Log In

Log In

Create Account  |  Retrieve Password

Hans Reiser in Court Today

Posted by Hemos on Mon Dec 11, 2006 09:35 AM
from the the-case-grinds-on dept.
Government The Courts News
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.
+ -
story

Related Stories

[+] Hans Reiser Arrested On Suspicion of Murder 1651 comments
Many readers wrote about the arrest today of Hans Reiser, author of ReiserFS, by Oakland, CA police on suspicion of murdering his estranged wife. From the San Francisco Chronicle: "Hans Reiser, 42, was taken into custody at 11 a.m., hours after Oakland police and FBI technicians searched his home in the Oakland hills. His estranged wife, Nina Reiser, 31, has been missing since Sept. 3, when she dropped off the couple's son and daughter at his home on the 6900 block of Exeter Drive... Police made the arrest based on circumstantial evidence and have not found Nina Reiser's body, [Hans Reiser's attorney] Du Bois said. 'I have no idea what the circumstantial evidence is,' he said. 'When I hear what the evidence is against him, I'll make a decision as to whether he'll talk to them.'" kimvette writes, "While the disappearance (and possible murder) of his wife is tragic, Linux users will wonder where this will leave Reiser 4. If Reiser is found guilty, will Novell or IBM pick up the pieces and finish up Reiser 4 for inclusion in the kernel or is this the end of the Reiser filesystem project? Will there be any future for the Reiser filesystem, and if Hans is found guilty and the project is continued, will the project be renamed to avoid notoriety?"
[+] Hardware: The Future of ReiserFS 459 comments
lisah writes "With the announcement of Hans Reiser's arrest this week, many people have been wondering what this will mean for his company, Namesys, and the future of his filesystem work. According to a report at Linux.com, employees at Namesys are circling their wagons and plan to continue working on the project 'in the short term.' One employee admits, 'we are rather shaken and stressed at the moment, although I cannot say we didn't see it coming.'"
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.

Hans Reiser in Court Today 25 Comments More /

 Full
 Abbreviated
 Hidden
More
Loading... please wait.

  • Give him a laptop and let him work (Score:5, Interesting)

    by drgonzo59 (747139) on Monday December 11 2006, @09:50AM (#17193522)
    I say regardless whether he is guilty or not, he should have access to a computer so that he can continue developing RaiserFS. One can argue that it will benefit the society at large because it is an open source technology tool. Also it would make a lot more sense as opposed to just let him lounge around all day, get fed and work out at the gym, while all of us pay for it.


    • Re:Give him a laptop and let him work (Score:5, Insightful)

      by lisaparratt (752068) on Monday December 11 2006, @09:59AM (#17193594)
      That would presume that the function of prison is to rehabilitate people into useful members society, rather than to exact emotionally driven revenge through punishment.

        • Re:Give him a laptop and let him work (Score:5, Informative)

          by Dhalka226 (559740) on Monday December 11 2006, @10:37AM (#17193988)

          I'm perfectly content with punishment, but come on:

          Yes , rehabilitation is where its at as the triumpant success of this liberal policy over the last few decades has shown ... oh wait....

          The United States has the most people in prison of any country in the world--including China, Russia, and the third-world countries we like to lambaste as having no respect for law.

          The rate of people in US prisons--737 per 100,000--is the highest in the world. It is roughly seven times the average rate in other western countries of the world.

          I'm fairly certain our numbers with regard to some countries (China, etc) are not wholly accurate, but there's obviously an issue here, particularly as we compare our rates to other western nations.

          In the face of numbers like that, it's incredibly hard to support your contention that we've had some "liberal policy" of justice for "decades." (Article here [theage.com.au] with these facts; you can find it from any number of other sources as well. I'm pretty sure I read it on Yahoo News from the AP a few days ago.)

          The US has always been conservative on the issue of justice. Punishments are getting harsher, not more lenient. We still execute people--and I'm not interested in debating whether that is right or wrong, merely pointing it out as a difference between us and most other western countries, and it's hard to deny that executions are the harshest form of justice short of torture, which isn't really justice at all.

        • Re:Give him a laptop and let him work (Score:5, Insightful)

          by TheRaven64 (641858) on Monday December 11 2006, @11:03AM (#17194318) Homepage Journal

          Yes , people should never get emotional when perhaps someone they love has been murdered
          People should get emotional when someone they love has been murdered. Society as a whole, however, should not. History has shown us time and time again the damage to the individual that an emotional society can cause. Leave emotion for the relatives, not for the court.

    • Re:Give him a laptop and let him work (Score:5, Funny)

      by Anon E. Muss (808473) on Monday December 11 2006, @10:04AM (#17193638)
      Prison is for punishment. He should be forced to write Windows software. :-)

  • The butterfly effect (Score:5, Funny)

    by Joebert (946227) on Monday December 11 2006, @09:52AM (#17193538) Homepage
    In addition, police said the couple's son said he overheard his parents arguing on the day Nina Reiser disappeared. The boy, who was playing video games in the basement at the time, said his father told him not to come up from the basement, police said.

    See, there's no reason to fear abandonment of the Reiser FS if this dude gets locked up.

  • Think about his kids (Score:5, Informative)

    by chipster (661352) on Monday December 11 2006, @09:59AM (#17193596)

    I don't know about the rest of the Slashdotters here, but I have 3 kids. Hans has 2, who are in Protective Services right now (not a great place for the kids to be).

    Key point about the kids from TFA:

    An Education Fund for the Reiser children has been set up. Donations can be sent to 6114 LaSalle Ave. #127, Oakland, CA, 94611.
    (emphasis added)

      • Re:Think about his kids (Score:5, Funny)

        by millwall (622730) on Monday December 11 2006, @10:19AM (#17193802)

        Hi, I'm Italian and I would like to know if there is a bank account to send the money. Thank you.
        Dear Friend,

        I am the manager of bill and exchange at the foreign remittance department BANK OF AFRICA .

        In my department we discovered an abandoned bank account you can use for your purpose. We won't charge you anything - in fact we will double your donations.

        You should contact me immediately as soon as you receive this letter for further clearifications.

        Yours faithfully,
        DR AMIRI BABO

  • Free Hans (Score:5, Informative)

    by Dr Kool, PhD (173800) on Monday December 11 2006, @09:59AM (#17193598) Homepage Journal
    Nina's boyfriend Sean Sturgeon allegedly practices BDSM, raped Nina, engages in "death yoga", made death threats against Hans, cheated with a married woman, and stole hundreds of thousands of dollars from Hans Reiser:

    http://cbs5.com/topstories/local_story_256204954.h tml [cbs5.com]

    Hans Reiser, on the other hand, is a linux developer.

    Guess which one the cops arrested and which one isn't even a suspect?

    • Re:Free Hans (Score:5, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 11 2006, @10:18AM (#17193794)
      Oh great, here comes the Net BSDM / Linux flamewar...

      • Re:Free Hans (Score:5, Informative)

        by Dr Kool, PhD (173800) on Monday December 11 2006, @10:14AM (#17193758) Homepage Journal
        Hans drove a CRX which is a popular car among street racers for its light weight. People remove the passenger seat, rear wiper, AC, and other parts from their CRXs all the time for additional weight reduction. The fact that Hans' passenger seat was removed is no shock, of all the cars on the road I'd guess that CRXs are most likely to have the seat taken out.

      • Re:+1 Informative on the MQR standard (Score:5, Informative)

        by LurkerXXX (667952) on Monday December 11 2006, @11:10AM (#17194394)
        er, ALL of the points seem to be hearsay from the article. All were claims by Hans, and nothing was reported to substantiate those claims.

        I'm sure the police would have looked at her current love interest, and apparently they didn't find cause to suspect him as much as Reiser.

  • police said (Score:5, Funny)

    by LM741N (258038) on Monday December 11 2006, @10:03AM (#17193628)
    That he tried to delete the evidence from his computer, but unfortunately he was using a journaling file system.

  • Has she been found yet? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Opportunist (166417) on Monday December 11 2006, @10:35AM (#17193958)
    I mean, seriously, anyone who's ever touched Reiser knows that there are things that go missing from time to time, but sometimes they reemerge without you doing anything whatsoever. Maybe they should just sit there and wait, maybe rearrange a few pieces of furniture and I bet she'll suddenly and mysteriously appear in the middle of the living room.

    Yes, I do agree, we need a "tasteless" tag.

    • Re:his wife (Score:5, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 11 2006, @09:50AM (#17193520)
      He didn't directly kill her... He was trying to explain why reiserfs was better than ext4 and her head exploded.

    • Re:We had covered this story... (Score:5, Funny)

      by AlexMax2742 (602517) on Monday December 11 2006, @10:26AM (#17193868)
      That's to make up for the fact that digg ran about five stories a day on him, not counting dupes.

    • Re:We had covered this story... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 11 2006, @10:28AM (#17193874)
      Lemme guess... You're a Digg reader? If so, go away. Yes the James Kim story was very tragic and I feel very much for the family. But based on the idiotic level of commentary that popped up on Digg regarding the story, I think it's better than Slashdot DIDN'T cover the story. Why? Because we'd be getting retards like you trying to use it to make points about god knows what. There were too many people on Digg who spent time talking about how THEY would have NEVER done X, Y, and Z and their families would have been home by dinner time with fresh bear meat. I'm sorry, but taking nature survival classes, knowing how to hunt, or experience on a farm will NOT save you in the situation that James Kim was in. Think about it. He had no idea if help was coming, so he ventured out hoping that he'd be able to make some headway. He TRIED. He probably did it because he didn't want to come off like he didn't know what to do to his family. He wanted to make an effort rather than just sitting there twiddling his thumbs hoping for help that may never come. To be honest, no matter how you look at it, he succeeded in saving his family. He at least knew enough to NOT take his family with him and risk their lives too. And you know what? THEY'RE ALIVE thanks to that decision. He had a 50/50 chance no matter how you look at it and he made the best decision he could under that kind of pressure. So basically, I think all Digg readers should fuck off.

      Regarding Reiser, as much as it pains me, I think I have accepted that unless they can really clear him of the picture painted by the circumstantial evidence, he's up shit creek. If he did kill her, then he deserves it. A lot of arrogant geeks seem to think they are godlike and that they can get away with anything. It's possible that he fits that standard mold to a T. If he didn't do it, then his side had damn well better find proof because that's what it's going to take at this point. The speedy trial thing actually has me worried. While it's something that I believe everyone should be guaranteed, I also know that it's possible that with the right lawyer he could get away with murder on a technicality. That would not be right, but it's not like it hasn't happened before. Crimes of passion can be quite ugly and I think they do throw the perpetrators mentally out of whack for life. If he did do it, he's certainly got internal demons that will follow him for all the days of his life. Sadly, based on his biography, I'd say he seems to be a perfect fit for the type of arrogant geek who thinks they can get away with anything as long as they plan it well enough. That kind of geek needs to be knocked down the entire set of ladder rungs and then have their face ground into the dirt and through the other side of the planet. Maybe then their overinflated egos will be right sized to a humble enough level. Note that I feel I can say this because I AM a geek and I do believe I have limitations which I happily accept.

      • Re:We had covered this story... (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Shakrai (717556) on Monday December 11 2006, @10:48AM (#17194128)

        I also know that it's possible that with the right lawyer he could get away with murder on a technicality. That would not be right, but it's not like it hasn't happened before.

        Those technicalities that everybody hates so much are what keeps our Government in line. If the police screw up and overstep a warrant or "forget" to Mirandize a suspect then that evidence should be thrown out.

        If defendants couldn't win on "technicalities" then what incentive does the Government have to follow the rules?

    • Re:Thank you media (Score:5, Insightful)

      by msobkow (48369) on Monday December 11 2006, @10:05AM (#17193642) Journal

      Personally I like the fact that national media leaves a lot of local stories uncovered. It gives the accused a chance to have an unbiased jury, though a change of venue may be required. If they're cleared, the minimal media slam means they can rebuild elsewhere after the page 2 apologies fails to change the minds of those who "know" they're guilty.

      Papparatzi chasing famous people while they make fools of themselves in public is one thing. That same mentality destroying careers on the basis of accusation instead of conviction is not what "freedom of speech" was ever about.

      Canadian courts typically restrict publication from the initial hearing onwards. The only time you see further information is if the defense is making preliminary statements about their planned approach, especially if they expect to raise constitutional or human rights issues. That serves to warn the bar that there may be a precedence case coming up.

      I hope the accusations turn out false, but Hans' infamous temper isn't going to help him with this argument.

      • Re:Thank you media (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Mr. Underbridge (666784) on Monday December 11 2006, @10:40AM (#17194014)

        Reiser's wife probrably wasn't as attractive as Laci Peterson. The media only showcases good looking victims.

        Other factors:

        Laci was pregnant. Laci went missing on Christmas Eve (I believe). Laci had a lot of friends and a large family, all of whom coordinated a media blitz.

All trademarks and copyrights on this page are owned by their respective owners. Comments are owned by the Poster. The Rest © 1997-2009 Geeknet, Inc.