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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.'"
Most of us have soaked our floorboards after we removed the passenger seat.
Is this supposed to be over thinking or thinking without knowledge of how others socially percieve you?
It could be done either way, making yourself look stupidly guilty to throw off the scent (aka movie plot #6) or a real personality issue that is so stereotyped that we now have at least one major box office movie and major tv sitcom dedicated to it.
) Human Kind Vs Human Creation
) It'd be interesting to see how many humans would survive to serve us.
Come on - the only place a half-crazed defense strategy can work is when pitched to computer geeks?
What what what?
-dave-
The pig browse. With Google. Sigh is to the chicken. Chicken is fool. Giggle. The DailyWTF giggle.
But I guess it sorta goes with my outstanding good looks. :)
The old Twinkie Defense upgraded for the year 2000.
I'm sick of following my dreams. I'm just going to ask where they're goin' and hook up with 'em later.
I'm too anti-social to be a threat to society.
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
Open Source advocates.
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.
Anyone who loves or hates any language, platform, or manufacturer, doesn't know what they're talking about.
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.
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
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
Ludwig Wittgenstein
Sean Sturgeon confessed to killing eight people. 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.
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I and many of my geek friends would have a hard time proving our innocence if such accusations were leveled against us.
.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."
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
Fortunately, we are innocent until proven guilty...
So he doesn't strike some tech people as particularly odd as far as technical people go.
Yes, but he is odd as a normal, functional human being goes.
Why does the meme persist in which brilliance can only go hand in hand with eccentricity?
Surely, many people have been both brilliant and eccentric, but a fair many others have been
brilliant and perfectly functional. I would describe myself as a tremendous nerd, yet I am perfectly
capable of functioning in normal society.
So, this defense relies on the fact that Hans Reiser is so brilliant, it gets in the way of being able
function as a normal person. Or he so brilliant as to dupe his lawyers and jury into believing that
he couldn't possibly have committed the crime because of his extreme eccentricity.
did it. After all, that is what the Mafia was good at, why would the LinuxMafia be any different.
Arrest that Rick guy, he sounds guilty.
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.
I read somewhere that he said he removed the seat and threw it in a dumpster because he was sleeping in the car. It's the books about killing someone in the car that bothers me... who would leave something so incredibly incriminating in their car? I almost thought he was being framed when I read that; although there is just too much that he hasn't said anything about. As geeks we only do 'weird' things for a special reason that makes perfect sense to us, and we're the first ones to explain why we would be doing something so 'strange', as we've spent a good amount of time thinking about it in order to make the most 'logical' decision. Just my $0.02.
If I mod you up, it doesn't necessarily mean I agree with what you've said, sorry.
Well, I tell ya. I live in Han's hood, and let me tell ya a thing or three..
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...
Hey KID! Yeah you, get the fuck off my lawn!
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So Reiser is separated from his wife, she then dates the sex freak.
She then breaks up with sex freak and a few months later she disappears.
Sex freaks admits to being a serial murderer later.
Maybe its just me, but who seems more likely to have killed her?
The husband who has been separated from her for 2-3 years or the obvious loon who she broke off with a few months before?
8. ???
9. Profit!
DRM: Terminator crops for your mind!
Mail order bride.
From Russia no less.
Hans *is* a geek without a doubt.
... is a abnormal thing in comparison to non-geek users.
It must have been some stupid user who killed her and pinned it on Hans.
I mean all geeks are gods and gods don't kill, right?
http://www.newfreedownloads.com/find/reiserfs-recovery.html she's probably lost in that last Matrix system crash.
I'll explain again, kids. Linus Torvalds wrote a kernel, a crucial tool for making an OS.
The resulting OS is GNU/Linux Linux doesn't always have a GNU userland over it. A lot of Linux system designs, especially embedded systems, ditch glibc and Coreutils in favor of the smaller uClibc and BusyBox.
You had me up until you advocated the death penalty for perjury. WTF?
It's rare that you're presented with a knob whose only two positions are Make History and Flee Your Glorious Destiny.
"Was your wife important to you? Did she sometimes annoy you?"
Sure your honor, but my wife didn't run Windows like my PC did.
http://www.freax.org/ has a little more info
If this works, every geek who gets busted for trying to get some action from hookers will be using it.
.....and now the:
So far, we have the:
Twinkie Defense
Peer Pressure Defense
"God-Told-Me-To-Do-It" Defense
"I'm-A-Geek" Defense.
Knowing Google's lust for data collection, the Soviet Union is still alive and well inside the psyche of Sergey Brin....
A while back, one of the neighbors near my house was a nightclub that featured crossdressing entertainers. Over the years, I met a bunch of them. The majority of them were just normal guys, who did it for fun, not too psychologically different from someone who might play bridge for fun. For them it was partly an art, partly a game.
Then there was a second group - a small minority - who were just plain lost. They usually quit after a while, or became part of the first group.
Then there was a third group - also a small minority - who were truly twisted, fucked-up people, who believed in radical solutions with little introspection. "I'm unhappy. It's not because I'm a junkie, it's because I'm a woman trapped in a man's body. I'm going to pretend I'm a woman. That will fix everything." Or "I don't need AA to deal with my drunk driving. I'll wear a dress and heels."
( Please note that I'm not saying that crossdressers are twisted impulsive people; rather, that that some twisted implusive people become crossdressers. )
That same type of person - fucked-up, impulsive, not introspective - is a person who is more likely than average to commit murder.
PS: Saying that there are an dispoprtionate number of potentially murderous people among crossdressers is like saying there is a disproportionate number of aspies among programmers. It does not mean that they all are.
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.
Free Hans!
Funny how all you BDSM folks seem to post as AC's though.
What some people seem to forget is the standard in the courtroom is a reasonable doubt, not any doubt. So to convict someone, the prosecution has to prove their case beyond a reasonable doubt. That doesn't mean they have to give you an iron clad mathematical proof of guilt, it means they have to present evidence such that it is not reasonable to doubt that the defendant is guilty.
For example: Suppose you have a guy on trial for killing his wife. There's no body, but she disappeared and no evidence of her has been found. Prior to her disappearance, the defendant was observed to make threats against her. On the night of the alleged murder, a neighbour heard a big fight, then silence. The neighbour then observed the defendant moving a large, body-sized container to his car. There is then video from an incinerator in town showing the defendant putting the body sized container in to the fire.
Well, this would be a case where it just isn't reasonable to doubt that the defendant is guilt of murder. Sure, you can come up with all sorts of off the wall explanations for what happened, but none of them give reasonable doubt.
So that's what's going on here. The Reiser case isn't as clear cut as the example I came up with, but it is the same deal. The prosecution is saying that there is all sorts of circumstantial evidence that shows that he is guilty, and there is no reasonable doubt. Ultimately, the jury gets to decide if that is the case or not.
The prosecution doesn't have to prove guilt beyond the shadow of a doubt.
The prosecution only has to prove guilt beyond a "reasonable" doubt. To the point where the jury is convinced that no further debate will lead them to any other conclusion but a decision to convict.
All they have is some fairly flimsy circumstantial evidence.
Almost all evidence is "circumstantial." You build your case slowly and carefully, in the hope that the jury will see that the pieces fit together in only one way,
$ rm nina*
howto recover evidence... check the journals or in this case the crime books...
I'm willing to bet that how he managed to get rid of her is somehow related to filesystems.
In a murder trial in which the body was never found, the defense attorney made the following argument:
"Jurors, please turn your gaze to the courtroom door, because in exactly one minute the supposed victim is going to walk in through it, very much alive."
The Jurors watched, but in one minute nothing happened. The lawyer then explained, "For a full minute you believed it possible that the person was still alive. Doesn't that possibility imply reasonable doubt as to the guilt of my client?"
The jurors didn't deliberate long before rendering a verdict of guilty. When asked how they could render such a verdict in the face of their own reasonable doubt, they explained,
"yes, when you said that the victim would walk in, we all looked at the door. But your client didn't."
Sorry, but it's true.
I always thought it was funny that the motto for BDSM is "safe, sane and consensual". The mere fact that you have to say it implies that it might not be true. And don't get all high and mighty on me for saying that. I've enjoyed tying people up and whipping them as a sex act (among other things), so I speak from experience when I say, something just isn't right about it.
All the same, I really doubt the BDSM guy killed anyone. You're right when you say that just being into BDSM isn't any king of proof that someone is a killer. It is proof that they're not right in the head, but then again almost no one really is.
So, Reiser starts behaving 'weird', displaying 'guilty knowledge'. The prosecution jumps on that and takes him to court. Hans makes a show of just being weird in court and, with plausible explanations for his activities, is found not guilty. Now, the prosecution can't go after him again (double jeopardy).
His weird act might have been a ploy to get the prosecution to move prematurely.
Have gnu, will travel.
Ok, I am not on the jury, so I don't know what has gone on beyond the various sources of courtroom reporting I have looked into.
One of the issues I am seeing is that there is not clear indication if a crime has been committed or what it is. Yes, it looks like Hans is probably guilty from what I am reading, but "probably guilty" isn't enough to convict in this country. At least with Lacy Peterson, there was a body, and enough evidence to put Scott in the area at the time of her death. Here we don't even know beyond a doubt that Nina is dead (she probably is, but we don't know for certain). Even if she is, a lot of key evidence doesn't point at Hans.
So all you have is what appears to be guilty knowledge. That is not enough to convict in my view. This is what I concluded when the prosecution rested.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
Actually it's still a fair point. There are those that are into somewhat "safe" BDSM, and then there are those who (while often eventually weeded out by the community) are just in it because they're really screwed up people.
BDSM in itself might not be indicative of such a messed up personality, but one could conjecture based on this particular person's "other" habits that he's probably not the type that's into safe words.
Just like the nerd community is quite often full of the obsessive and antisocial, the BDSM community is often mature enough to admit to having some pretty messed up membership as well.
One episode has Arnold Rimmer self-convict him over his actions that led to the death of all the crew of the red dwarf.
Kryten then seeks to defend him with the plea that Arnold is just to stupid to ever be held accountable for such an action.
Kryten: A man so incompetent...
Arnold: OBJECTTION
Kryten: so incompetent that he would even object to his own defence
I am not quite sure wether I would call it just being intelligent, but it is certainly possible for people who are in other areas pretty intelligent to be complete idiots in others.
It is entirely possible for this guy to be on the one hand smart enough to develop a filesystem that outperforms anything else on themarket including stuff made by huge companies, and on the other hand be a complete idiot when it comes to listening to his own lawyer or knowing when to shut up.
This is NOT about IQ (if you even believe in that) but rather about personality. This Hans may very well be an opinionated loud mouth who is incapable of just shutting up and let other people do the talking but being a twit is NOT a crime.
The problem for his lawyer is that offcourse he has to sugar coat it. With an opinionated loudmouth for a client he can't just plead that his client is a freak who doesn't have the social skills of a 6 year old. So he has to dress it up FOR HIS CLIENT that his client is too intelligent.
The problem I see is that it really isn't much of a defence because it works both ways, while his actions CAN be explained as being innocent because Hans simply did them without ever considering how they might look he might ALSO have done them because he arrogantly believed that with his intelligence his actions would be so brilliant nobody else could see through them. Several Columbo eps have this, where the suspicion is raised because the crime is too perfect.
Hans may well have done those actions that look to suspicious because he hoped for exactly that effect that people would ask "why would an intelligent person do such a stupid thing".
But really, this is one of those "truth is stranger then fiction" cases. We got a friend who the wife slept around with who has confessed to being a serial killer.
On the other hand, if Hans is so brilliant perhaps he used this as an alibi? He killd his wife and hoped that his wifes lover would be blamed for it? That would certainly suit me, slaughter the cheating bitch and get her lover to fry for it.
We got three suspects here, a russian woman whose past is to say the least a bit odd (much is made of the fact that she has a high education etc etc but she worked for a dating service and accepted a 50.000 dollar job, neither impress me, exactly what background does she come from?)
We got Hans who seems to be a typically socially inept geek who however apparently has enough social skills to run an international business in ways that suggest he is not entirely adverse to a little risky/shady business.
And we got a self-confessed serial killer.
If you were an editor faced with this script you would just drop it because no audience would buy it.
If they make this into a Law & Order ep it will have tobe a two-parter at least to follow all the twists.
Odd case and with no clear evidence I think we will never know the real truth.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
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:-
- A nasty, skilled, pre-meditated killing.
- No 'Smoking Gun', or actual witness.
- 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.
- Rory said his mother gave him a hug and left the house.
- 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.
- None.
- 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.
- 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,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:-For:
- Han's behavour immediately after Nina's disappearance.
Against:For:
- It's happened before in other Jurisdictions.
- Sturgeon has confessed to having been involved with many deaths.
Against:For:
I've experienced this myself, although it was particularly bad in elementary school. Many geeks have Asperger's syndrome, and others, although not diagnosed Aspergers's, have traits that put them on the "autistic spectrum".
I have some of those traits, and the one that tends to cause the most problems in this context is "innapropriate affect". This is where you have an unexpected reaction or facial expression that doesn't match up with what "normal" people expect. In my case, I would smile and feel a bit giddy when I was getting dragged to the principal's office. It didn't mean I was happy, it just meant that my mind dealt with the whole deal by minimizing it to the point of meaninglessness, and that was very amusing. The "normals" interpreted this as a "guilty grin", and I got punished for it on more than one occasion when I was perfectly innocent. As I got older, I learned somewhat how to provide the correct "output" for various situations.
Assuming HR is innocent, it wouldn't surprise me if he were going through this. Of course, it doesn't mean he's not guilty either.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
Writing/designing a 'good' filesystem depends on your particular definition of 'good', it's a trade-off between KNOWN qualities using KNOWN algorithms with KNOWN limitations. Come up with an algorithm that has new qualities and you have something more than just a variation on a theme. For all I know it may be an optimal trade-off for a particular application but I highly doubt it has removed (or even moved) any pre-existing limitations on what a filesystem can do.
"It's quotes like this that make me not believe you."
Yet, I am supposed to listen in silence to a guy called LiENUS who completely misinterpreted what the OP said, and consequently missed any relevant point he may of had.
Your little FAT clone
I am fat you insesitive clod, but I don't have a clone.
"You really need to get over yourself."
That's what the so-called 'midlife crisis' is all about, I don't need another. If I'm still alive when you have yours, come back and tell me how you once thought ReiserFS was the bee's knees that would revolutionize storage.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
And if you read this in a good detective story, you would immediately know that the man fleeing the house with a bloody knife is almost certainly *not* the killer. Near the end of the book, you will be gratified to learn that indeed, it was not the poor bloke fleeing the house, (who was fleeing for his own life after unsuccessfully battling the killer), but neither was it the sinister filthy rich jerk you've suspected all along. In fact, you would have never suspected who it turns out to be.
For a good example, try The Clue of the Twisted Candle.
While these stories are fiction, and idealize the principle, circumstantial evidence in real life can be like a magicians sleight of hand, making you believe you saw what wasn't there. The classic ballad Go Down you Murderer speaks to the sometimes tragic results.
Come on it was in a Disny movie
But people don't get that not doing the crime in the first place is a terrible way not to get got.
If you go through and read some of the evidence they're trying to convict him with in court it's so laughable that I can't believe they haven't freed him already.
There was some "blood on a pillar", although it might not be Nina's blood and it might not be blood at all, it might be saliva according to the expert witness.. Best quote "Well it's not like someone is going to lick the pillar". Yeah, because children don't lick stuff...
That being said I don't think he did it, but there is one way to find out. Someone needs to hire a PI in Russia and I bet he'd have photos of Nina within two weeks of following Reiser's kids around.
The whole thing just looks too much like a setup..
- Rotting groceries in the car to make it look like she was caught by surprise
- Her passport conveniently in the car to make it look like we know she hasn't left the country
- The children being quickly sent away to Russia so they couldn't give vital information in the trial
- The children admitting that they had been told to say things to convict Reiser
and lets not forget Nina is a Russian rent-a-bride and probably only married Reiser to get the US visa.
If you don't svn commit, you must acquit!
"Genuis" is a term that often is used to compare people. In direct comparison to Joe Sixpack, Reiser is. Compared to most of us software engineers, he might not be.
Screw the FSM - Real geeks believe in the Invisible Pink Unicorn
'Being too intelligent can be a sort of curse'
I should have such problems!
What if I do the same thing, and I do get different results?
Regarding your sig, The source to Darwin for the latest OS Release is downloadable from here. As such it's not really accurate to say OpenDarwin has been killed. http://www.opensource.apple.com/darwinsource/10.5.2/
We are supposed to be the Moorlocks here that know how things work and not the Eloi that only serve a useful function with ketchup.
Translation: When in doubt, favor the accused.
Who killed Nina?
When I thought I have met the most stupid american...
Is that a country?.
If those are your idols...
Ubuntu is an African word meaning 'I can't configure Debian'
NOTE-I'm not to up on this issue. I just know what I've heard in the news....which isn't much. I'm basing these thoughts on his actions and the fact that they're trying to use his way of thinking as a defense. Sorry, but just because you're in a league above most men doesn't mean you lack the potential for murder. Minority report anyone?
This is Slashdot! Give me the latest gadget, bug, or OS project! This ain't english class so don't confuse the two!
Studies have confirmed repeatedly that IQ is a poor indicator of one's pimping skills.
After all, in some cases, I DO think decryption is a crime.
Say, my conversation via https with my bank.
If they mean more specifically in this case, do you think it's a crime, they are in trouble because they are asking whether you'd convict before you have the trial. I'm pretty sure that's not allowed.
The people who insist on GNU/Linux are unbelievably full of themselves and complete wankers.
If the children live with the grandmother and the missing wife is supposed to hide in russia wouldn't it make sense to hire a detective
to track the children because the assumption is that hans' wife want to see their children.
Am I missing something ? I don't think it would take long time to find out the truth.
The soaked floorboards is just a smokescreen, because if the car actually had a bunch of his wife's blood, no amount of soaking with water would be able to remove the traces of it - it would be easily visible under UV light. The only way to have removed the traces would be to soak it in BLEACH, which if was the case the prosecutors / media would surely be pointing out.
Not saying he is innocent or guilty, but IMO the fact that the defense doesn't up this inconsistency is confusing.
IQ is important, but as part of a set of longer term tests which demonstrate the ability to apply it over time. In the case of some management schemes, three days of testing is not considered too long.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
I don't buy the explanation that he thought to destroy evidence that's difficult to remove from the car (the seat) but not the stuff you can just pick up (books, sleeping bag, etc). The car looks like a "rice rocket" CRX hatchback, removing seats to save weight is a pretty common practice among people who want to make tiny cars go fast. Does it have a back seat? Or a spare tire and toolkit? Had anyone seen it with all seats intact before the murder?
0 1 - just my two bits
The three of them are a bunch of crime murder mystery die-hards and conspired to give the law, and forensic science a run for it's money. No online source confirmed Sean Sturgeon's confession is actually true. Come on, this has to be the hint to us that they're just messing with the police:
Well, one thing stood out in his head in that regard, Grant said. As the officer bent down to take pictures, that's when Reiser said, "You're about to experience chaos" and "for the lack of a better term, farted," Grant said. Jurors tittered. Reiser grinned. "It stayed vividly in my head, unfortunately," the officer said.
They were *killed* by the bullet. They were *murdered* by the one pulling the trigger.
Seems simple enough.
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
The defendant has the option of being tried by a judge.
The jury in a capital case is not a random collection of idiots.
You have to meet certain minimum requirements to serve on any jury: age, citizenship, residency, language skills, mental competency and so on.
In a capital case you can expect to be closely questioned by the state, the defense, and the judge. The voir dire will be dominated by attorneys who are expert in jury selection.
The jury verdict must be unaminious. In a trial before a judge there is no room for courtroom theatrics or a play for sympathy. Your defense had better be flawless.
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.
The risk in allowing your client to take the stand is that every flaw in her character will be mercilessly exposed. The woman came across as arrogant, manipulative, and deceitful. She was tripped up by her own lies.
First they confuse crackers with hackers, now this. I'm just waiting for the evil/psycho/stalking computer dude action picture.
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
Every time.
About how many of your roommates stick around for more than one lease? It doesn't matter who steals the orange soda, if it disappears, one of my roomates is a dick. The one who argues about it for 15 minutes is a bigger dick, even if he didn't drink it.
The prosecution's case has been a joke. Beyond "Hans is a weird and annoying guy who was having issues with his wife", they have nothing. They have not been able to prove anything.
Unless they find the "smoking gun", Hans should walk.
"If bits don't fit, err... you must fsck!"
"Don't let fools fool you. They are the clever ones."
Its amazing how bad people can be made to look when you have a good lawyers at work.
Sure programmers make errors, but his type of coders are way above average in dealing with detail work and simple errors are highly unlikely especially when he has a bit of time to think about stuff before during and after the act. Sounded to me like the ex-boyfriend killed her; not that he didn't have motive and a great excuse given her background.
The real question is: What should be done if he is found guilty? (even if innocent; hey, I know plenty of people who didn't or wouldn't shed a tear over loss of their spouse.) Is punishment the purpose? (it isn't exactly BTW.)
Why can't prisoners still contribute to society? If you can't live by society's rules there should be a functional place for you that fits your level of dysfunction. I'm not advocating the slave-like labor industry growing in popularity in US prisons.
I would assume that the Constitution is part of the law that you are sworn to uphold.
In fact, it trumps lower laws.
So, if you believe that a law is unconstitutional, then you are doing your duty (and not breaking your word or your oath) by finding a person not guilty on that basis, IMO.
Unfortunately, some judges and attorneys don't like people who think like that.
I was rejected for jury duty after I told that judge that I would use the Constitution of the United States as part of the process for determining whether or not the defendant was guilty.
If that was the reason that I was rejected (they never told me why), then I think that this is wrong.
Those who sacrifice security to condemn liberty deserve to repeat history or something. - Benjamin Santayana
Well, couldn't one then remove the traces of the bleach by soaking it in water?
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Hans: Damnit, there is an exploit for Firefox every week! I'm having a terrible time dodging malware!
Hans' Wife: Why not just use IE7 on Vista, it operates in 'protected mode' so no exploits can work.
*Hans loses it and stabs his wife repeatedly*
if you let slip about the enormous penises of all slashdotters (except the women; they have awe-inspiring badonkadonks), the IT industry will fall apart.
Please stop stalking me, bro.
Occam's razor is one of the most misapplied and intellectually virtueless axioms ever invented by man, and has no place in a rational discussion. Simplicity is always a matter of the framer's perspective.
For proof, do a google search on Cynthia Sommers.
What really bothers me about the Wired articles (which the Washington Post references) is that they make a concerted effort -- in each and every article of the almost daily series, to associate the words "Linux" and "Open Source" with Hans Reiser. I have written them numerous times to say (a) He is not a "Linux" programmer...he is a programmer of a file system, which can be used with any kernel as part of an operating system. Linux is not dependent on ReiserFS and vice versa. Secondly, why does it matter that he is an "open source" programmer. I feel that yes, this case is sensational and should get coverage, but Wired is going way overboard to make these associations. For example, the serial killer John Wayne Gacy was caught because he used Microsoft Word to write a letter to the police (they traced him by using the properties information stored in every document, of which Gacy was unaware). Does that mean that all Microsoft Word users are serial killers? As far as Reiser himself, it's very difficult. On the one hand, as a "geek" he does stuff that is odd for other people to understand. However, you could also ask, why wouldn't a single person driving a car with not much room, remove the passenger seat for more space and to sleep in. And, at some point, that person might feel the seat is "in the way" and through it out. Rationally, it makes sense, but it doesn't make sense to the typical American (who sees nothing wrong with driving a Hummer during a worldwide energy crises). A word to the wise, stay away from Russian mail order brides. There was a guy up here in Seattle who killed his in 2001 for fooling around. They basically bootstrap their way into the US on the backs of poor schmucks and then do what they will. There's no fool like an old fool...I guess.
Don't forget the Chewbacca Defense!
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
They are already in Russia and as far as I tell have not returned to the US (can't find any articles that say that they have returned, only articles that say Reiser's son hasn't/doesn't have to appear in court.)
Could it be that either the kids had their own cells or had the school call first the mother and, when she did not answer, the other parent to pick up the kids? That's how it works in a reasonable world. Kids are not left standing at the school gates until a disappearance has been legally ascertained. When a parent is an hour late, phones start ringing.
But that's just guessing from the other side of the planet and a country where most 7 year olds have their own cell phones...
Being very socially inept and/or being a genius can be related or unrelated. However this guy went to university aged 14. That's generally considered a sign of being a genius, despite any other characterizations he might get.
Coz eternity my friend, is a long *ing time.
12 comments on this post, and nobody questioned why did you keep it instead of throwing it away?
Actually in Iceland the response rate was 98% who "believe" in Evolution, I guess they asked a few immigrants from USA as well.
K.
They don't grade fathers, but if your daughter's a stripper, you fucked up. --Chris Rock
And what nincompoop gave this a flamebait rating?
If I ever get to metamoderate this, I'm marking it down.
And btw, this is yet another case of how the adversarial system fails us. Why can't we put the burden of investigation on the court where it belongs? Going to court for a game of tug-o-war only ensures that the strongest one will win, and it promotes cheaters into playing dirty.
I think Hans should take a polygraph...if he can find an honest examiner.