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Live Blogs From the Hans Reiser Trial
whoever57 writes "The Hans Reiser trial has been underway for some time now, the prosecution is moving towards the end of its case. For those interested, not only in the outcome of the trial, but a detailed description of the trial, including some insights into police methods, two reporters are live-blogging. One report is by Henry K. Lee for the San Francisco Chronicle and the other is by David Kravets and published by Wired"
If the tree doesn't balance then you must acquit!
Here's what's bad in my mind: Morasch testified that [Nina Reiser] had recently paid her utility bills and even paid $150 to register her car with the California Department of Motor Vehicles. The testimony was gleaned by Hora in a bid to convince jurors that Hora believes Nina Reiser would not voluntarily disappear without her money while keeping her bills up to date.
Earlier testimony showed nearly $2,000 in cash was found in her Oakland apartment, and her inside her van the authorities found a $2,100 check made out to her landlord that she never delivered. Now, guys, tell me: If you're planning on disappearing to Russia, do you make out a check for your landlord and stuff it in your van, never to be delievered? Because that's basically Hans' defense at this point -- that she volunatarily left for Russia. Now, it's still possible that she involuntarily left for Russia, but the defense, thus far, hasn't presented any evidence at all that this happened, either.
My blog
Hans Reiser is a programmer who developed the ReiserFS file system as well as Reiser4. He's on trial for the murder of his wife who disappeared in 2006.
Absolute power corrupts absolutely. indymedia
1. have no justice system at all
2. have a human system of justice
which means you have all manner of abuses and failures and stupidity at every step of the system
those are your choices. 1 or 2. there is no
3. have a perfect infallible system of justice
sorry, never will be
to have this sort of disdain for the entire justice system because it has human flaws doesn't make you wise, it makes you naive
of course things can be improved, and that is where our disappointment in the system should be channeled. but this is not the vibe i get from some people. some people i get this vibe that they hate the idea of police and courts, rather than they'd like to improve them. which is an attitude which is bizarre and ignorant
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
What disturbs me a bit is that one of the blogs doesn't mention the word 'linux' even once, while the other mentions it in almost every entry: "Hans Reiser -- the popular Linux programmer who is accused of killing [...]", "The trial of the Linux programmer, who is accused of killing his estranged wife", "Hans Reiser, the Linux developer accused of murdering his wife", "the 31-year-old estranged wife of the Linux programmer who authorities say murdered her"...
Of course, his work on the linux kernel might be what he's most known for and if you don't know him, then mentioning that is the right thing to do. But mentioning it so often creates an odd and disturbing link between 'murder' and 'linux'. Especially since as far as I know, his work on linux plays absolutely no role in the murder case.
the worst part, have you ever sat on a jury? I have been in 2 and some people's "justifications" are insane. One trial 2 women were willing to send the guy down the river 30 secodns after we got in the room, they based it on what the DA said that the judge told them to strike from the record. It was pure fantasy on the DA's part and we were instructed to not consider it.
People are people. They are this way today, were this way 10 years ago, they were this way 200 years ago. That's why we have a jury system so rigged such that a *single* person can hang the jury and let the defendant go.
we spent the next 8 hours going over things and trying to get these ditsy two to actually think. And this is the norm in Jury duty.
See?! It works! This is why the jury system is so beautiful! (And why it sucks so bad for those of us that think a little bit) Most people suck. But the odds of everybody sucking when you get 12 random people together drops rather dramatically.
Welcome to jurisprudence! BTW: my heart-felt thanks for serving on jury duty!
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
Agreed; I'd hate to end up in court over ANYTHING. Guilty, innocent, or entirely unaware of what I was being accused of, I'd probably still push the wrong buttons on the jury, just be being a geek.
;)
One thing I find interesting though, is the legal systems assertion that you're entitled to a "jury of your peers". What exactly do they mean by that, I wonder? Can you say you consider your peers to be other geeks? People of the same non-judgemental religion? Literally, peers on your P2P network? Other pimps?
My late Dad, a retired Cop used to say, "We would rather let 9 guilty ones go free to protect the 1 innocent."
Now it seems that the cops think "We'll convict 9 innocent ones to get the 1 guilty."
Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.
And we can deduce that:
But what I do know? My entire legal expertise hangs solely on what I read in layman's periodicals and books, what I read on the Internet, and, of course, watching shows like "Law & Order".
My blog
No, not necessarily. Because there wouldn't be the wrong decision. There also wouldn't be an encumbrance to acquittal. So if I was afraid of falsely convicting someone and serving the time they were sentenced, then the easiest way out of it is to acquit and not have anything hanging over me at all.
The only way you could determine the wrong decision was made is to replay the entire trial to people who haven't talked about it or the outcome in any way since the conclusion. the easiest way to get around that might be to seat two or three juries and take the popular opinion. but anything done after the fact has the benefit of information not present in the original trial being presented as well as information being presented differently. If the first jury didn't buy that the reasons his fingerprints where on the gun and powder residue on his hands was because he took it to the shooting range the very same day it was used to kill someone, they could bring in others at the shooting range that saw him shooting it. If he claims it was stolen on the way home and there was a police report about it, then he has a plausible excuse for something that would normally be a conviction of guilt.
but it wouldn't have to stop at that. Anything could keep the fact the same and be presented differently if only in the words being used to change how convincing something is. The prosecutor could say something different and lose creditability and so on. It wouldn't be the same trial and the decisions wouldn't be the same.
Maybe forcing the jury to do interviews with the state and defense counsel and allowing stuff discovered in this way to be grounds for a retrial could be the answer. Otherwise, it depends on the other members to be reasonable enough and assertive enough to make the right things happen.
Nina Reiser discussed mediation between the two in the e-mail, which she apparently wrote on June 19, 2005. The judge said the jury will hear a redacted portion of the e-mail. Goodman then read sentences from Nina Reiser's e-mail that the jury will not be allowed to hear because the prejudical effect outweighs the probative value: "I will not continue mediation if you keep threatening me. When you give me a hard stare and (inaudible) that you are very good at combat, your request that I drop domestic-violence charges against you, it very much sounds like another threat. I warn you that if you are going to communicate with me in this manner, I will have to end mediation and report it to the police. However, threats are not part of the mediation process."
But of course, that's not admitted.
This is my sig.
"We spent the next 8 hours going over things and trying to get these ditsy two to actually think."
Most people are not consistently able to be logical. Even judges often give me the impression that they are lucky not to be programmers. They are sometimes so unable to be logical that they would not be able to debug their programs.
States often hold cases in local city neighborhoods so that it can be comfortable for people to observe. For example, I watched a state supreme court case in an auditorium at a local junior college in which a man was being tried for doing something that was illegal when he did it, became legal later so that he was allowed to go without punishment, and later was made illegal again. The prosecutor was like an attack dog; he gave the impression he wanted to convict anyone for anything.
The state supreme court judges seemed sleepy; they seemed willing to put in an amount of energy that was comfortable for them, not the amount of energy necessary to make the right thing happen.
To serve in government, there should be comprehensive tests of ability to be logical. Maybe no one should be allowed to be a lawyer except if he or she wrote a complicated program and debugged it.
We live in a culture that is absolutely dependent on careful logic. However, people who are logical aren't respected. Our culture is also absolutely dependent on understanding of technology, but people who understand technology are called disrespectful terms: "geeks" and "nerds".
The amount of money available to corrupt the local governments and the federal government in the United States is huge. Millions are available to elect those who are intellectually lazy or easily influenced to be corrupt, judges included. In my state, some judges are elected; the money to create recognition of their names apparently comes from those who want corruption.
Read your state laws. They were written by people who were elected for their popularity, not for their ability to be logical, leaving numerous opportunities for corruption. Laws often (usually?) have numerous logical shortcomings, such as edge cases which often happen but are not considered by the law. A programmer who didn't handle exceptions would be fired; people like George W. Bush, who has apparently never shown any willingness or ability to be carefully analytical, are re-elected.
Another part of the problem is that lawyers make far more money if the law is confusing and illogical.
Correction: it'll end all convictions, period.
There's absolutely no reason for me to put someone away if I can be personally punished for making a mistake, but not be personally rewarded for making the right decision.
Plausible conjecture should not be misrepresented as proof positive.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
I write sci-fi for metalheads
the problem with judging cases with a professional class of adjudicators is that over time, the adjudicator forms an agenda, and his or her judgment becomes less and less about the actual case in front of them, and more about his or her abstract approach to a certain kind of crime. judgments on one case begin to color and cloud judgments on others. this is extremely dangerous
btw, this effect is absolutely certain. it's called the seduction of power. no one is immune to it. to say anyone is immune to it, is to simply admit that one is also blind to their own weaknesses
say for example you have an expert on dna evidence. the man has various personal opinions of his own on certain procedures and such. it is impossible not to have these opinions. anyone who studies any special class of knowledge has certian passionate opnions on the subject. it is impossible not to. no one devotes years of their life to a subject matter and has a robotic neutral outlook on the subject matter. its simply impossible. if someone had such a neutral uncaring attitude on a subject matter, they would never get involved in studying in it in the first place. catch-22
so these underlying passions are always in danger of seriously clouding an experts agenda. there is no such thing as an expert on any class of knowledge that is also impartial and without an agenda. i repeat: it is impossible for a human being to be learned in a subject matter and not also have a dangerous (dangerous in terms of an ability to judge impartially) ideological agenda on that subject matter
furthermore, much of education really isn't education, but indoctrination into the dominant opinion on a subject matter within a given academic clique. for objective sciences, like physics, or math, this is less so, but still prevalent. go ahead, ask any doctoral student in any university if there is no soap operas and cliquish political drama and pressure to conform to the dominant opinion. for soft sciences, like psychology and criminal justice, this effect is massive. the end result is those who are supposedly annoited with the most objective knowledge on a subject, also saddled with the most subjective attitudes and agenda on the subject matter
this is why a jury of impartial peers is superior to a professional class of adjudicators: they don't care. your professional judging class of swedes DO care. about an ideologicla agenda. a concept absolutely anathema to the idea of impartial justice
universities, by bequeathing the imprimature of truth and knowledge, merely rubber stamp and give weight and credence to something that is nothing more than intellectual fashion and vogue in the soft sciences. go ahead and compare dominant attidues on controversial topics from now and 30 years ago. you can say new research merely changes attitudes. except that a lot of this new research often boils down to the conclusions of folk wisdom from 5 centuries ago! pfffft. it's all bullshit
so so-called experts have something to prove, an axe to grind. this will color their judgment on cases, espcially as they blur together. his or her judgment on cases begin to resemble less a search for impartial truth, and more a soapbox for him to push his agenda. i am deathly frightened of being judged by an "expert". he won't see and my case at all. he will see his or emotionally invested theories, and how my case befor ehim or her could prove or disprove his theories. frightening
meanwhile, the stupid, uninterested guy on the street who would rather be drunk? i MUCH RATHER be judged by him. the experts can be in teh courtroom to guide him or her about scientific facts and opinion. and taken as one or the other, the man on the street can most definitely have some really bad prejudices. but averaged out over 12 people, those prejudices cancel out. those prejudices don't average out that way with a bunch of so called experts, all born of the same university clique, deciding amongst themselves who is deserving or not, simply because they conform to the same opinio
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
until you need one
;-)
a professional class of people whom you hire to guide you through a complex legal system is absolutely a necessity because
1. you will never find the time to learn the complexity of your legal system on your own unless you are a lawyer yourself
2. if your legal system isn't complex, it is simple and brutal and you are living in a barbaric society
so there's simply no way around lawyers. they are necessity. a disgusting necessity, but a necessity nonetheless
when people say they hate lawyers, what they are really saying, in a deferred way, is they hate the fact that justice is a human, flawed endeavour
that the lawyer class seems to attract the slimiest of human beings, rather than more virtuous ones, is an observation i won't touch, because i, er, agree with it
oh what the hell: shoot lawyers on sight, you win
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
From the blog published by Sfgate: "In all, Nina Reiser was about $30,000 in debt, he said."
More testimony:
"She seemed honest, right?" Du Bois asked.
"She definitely seemed honest, yes," Erwin said.
"You had the impression she was an honest person?" Du Bois asked.
"Yes," Erwin said.
"She exuded honesty?" Du Bois pressed as a juror in the front row appeared to have a bemused smile.
"Yes," Erwin said.
And this seems interesting, from the Wired blog:
"The Reiser couple's young son, now 8 years old, had told local child protective services officials and testified before a different judge during a 2006 preliminary hearing that he did see his mother drive away after his mother left him and his little sister for the Labor Day weekend. Before the jury, he did not testify he saw his mother leave the house."
This too:
"But on Wednesday, the scientist testified on cross examination that errors she made meant it was unclear whether there was two sources of blood -- meaning it could be the wife's or the husband's -- or blood from both of them. She testified she was not '100 percent certain' whose blood was on the pillar.
"It's an important distinction. There are two pieces of forensic evidence linking the husband to allegedly killing his wife. The other forensic evidence is a sleeping bag cover found in the defendant's car stained with the woman's blood. The rest of the evidence is circumstantial, including the husband's front passenger seat vanishing."
I'm often curious as to what those faceless FOSS contributors are doing instead of programming while I'm waiting for them to deliver their next milestone, as they blow their next deadline.
"Murder trial" usually doesn't occur to me. Usually something more like "new videogame release" seems more likely.
--
make install -not war
I write sci-fi for metalheads