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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.
But I guess it sorta goes with my outstanding good looks. :)
I'm too anti-social to be a threat to society.
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
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
It's not the Twinkie Defense. Hans is claiming he didn't murder her, not that some bizarre psychological condition associated with being a geek should mitigate his action in some way. The psychological aspect is used only to explain why he acted so strangely and why those strange actions are not indicative of guilt. Basically, it didn't even occur to him that those actions might be seen as acting guilty.
From what I can tell, the prosecution has absolutely not proven Hans' guilt beyond the shadow of a doubt. They have not met the standard of proof required for a criminal conviction. All they have is some fairly flimsy circumstantial evidence.
But that's a separate question from whether or not I think he's guilty. And given the available evidence I can't decide either way. This case just is too bizarre. I can actually believe that Nina has managed to escape back to Russia and finagled the courts through the rest of her family into letting her children go back too. But I can also believe that Hans murdered her. Both scenarios fit the available evidence.
Need a Python, C++, Unix, Linux develop
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.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
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...
Yeah, no shit.
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.
You forgot to mention the other guy, Sean Sturgeon, who was also close to the victim. The dude who has confessed to killing 8 (yes, eight) people, and was dating Nina (Hans' wife). IMHO, it's more likely that Hans was reading up on how to kill Sean (or even how to avoid being killed by Sean) than how to kill Nina.
Forget thrust, drag, lift and weight. Airplanes fly because of money.
http://www.freax.org/ has a little more info
"There is no clear motive for Hans to of killed his wife."
There are motives aplenty:
People have killed their former spouses over much less. There's plenty of motive.
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!
I also live in the neighborhood (2 blocks from the last known location where Nina was seen). Indeed, this is not Silicon Valley, it is (basically) the North Oakland area -- which in the past 2 years has experienced a huge increase in homicides and other violent crime. Even California's Senate President Pro Tem (i.e. 2nd most powerful leader in the State) isn't safe as he got carjacked in broad daylight on a busy street. Without any direct evidence linking Hans to the crime, I am no more inclined to believe that it was him, and not some gang of thugs out cruising Montclair.
This is how ALL the parties involved want it. The real decision makers want to get back to their decision-making jobs, not be one of twelve, so they find a way out. The prosecution and the defense attorneys do not want someone who makes decisions; they want someone who can be led and instructed. So does the judge.
The whole system is designed to filter in people who can be controlled and led.
A defense of desparation is no worse than a prosecution of desparation. From what I understand of the article, the prosecution has (1) no dead body (2) no murder weapon (3) no suspects outside of "the usual supects" and (4) no evidence outside of peculiar behavior. So, if your evidence of a crime you can't prove even ever happened is peculiar behavior of a suspect for the hypothetical crime, don't feel short changed when the defence turns out to be the defending of said peculiar behavior.
Just callin' it like I see it.
The entire point of being on a jury is to weigh available evidence and come to a *decision*. Sure, the defense attorney would love to get indecisive people, but the prosecutor will be looking for those who can think and come to a reasonable decision based on the available evidence. The judge is looking for people who can work within the rules of the system, but that surely doesn't preclude decision-makers either.
I've been on a jury before, and contrary to popular opinion, it was not composed of people who had nothing but time on their hands. Nearly everyone there seemed to be a businessperson or professional of some sort. Even so, no one complained about the time it took, as we all knew a young man's future was to be greatly impacted by our decision. As such, we took our job extremely seriously (and it wasn't anything so dramatic as a murder trial). While I'd never hope to spend another day surrounded by arguing lawyers, I certainly wouldn't go out of my way to recuse myself if called up again.
Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
William Du Bois Ladies and gentlemen of this supposed jury, the district attorney would certainly want you to believe that my client killed his wife. And they make a good case. Hell, even I almost think it was him! But, ladies and gentlemen of this supposed jury, I have one final thing I want you to consider. Ladies and gentlemen, this is Alan Turing. Turing was a Mathematician from England. He came up with what is now called a Turing Machine. Now think about it: that does make perfect sense! Paul Hora Damn it! He's using the Turing Defense! William Du Bois Now why would Alan Turing, a Mathematician from England would invent something like a Turing Machine? Because it helps to show that some problems are never solvable by computing. Does that make any sense? Yes it does.
Imagine a Turing Machine and a set of instructions. Can anybody tell, if the machine, running those instructions will ever stop? And more important: can we program a Turing Machine, so that it decides whether a set of instructions would cause a Turing Machine to halt eventually? But more important, you have to ask yourself: What does this have to do with this case? Everything. Ladies and gentlemen, this case completedly depends on it! It does make a lot of sense! Look at me. I'm a lawyer defending a software engineer, and I'm talkin' about Alan Turing!
Now how can it be, that this halting problem is undecideable? Because, if we hypotheticaly have a Turing Machine that solves the halting problem, we could use it to construct another Turing Machine that does not halt when it should, and thus, when given to itself to test for halting, would contradict its own behavior!
Does that make sense? Ladies and gentlemen, I am making perfect sense! And so you have to remember, when you're in that jury room deliberatin' and conjugatin' the verdict, do you know wheter you will ever stop deliberatin'? No! Ladies and gentlemen of this supposed jury, you will never know! If the jury doesn't halt, you must acquit! The defense rests!
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:
Did you notice this from the (Washington Post) article? His signal adult achievement was ReiserFS, a file system he named for himself, unusual in the programming world. The system organizes data on Linux, the "open source" operating system. Ah, unusual in the programming world (this guy's a freakish egomaniac!) -- and in the next sentence they mention Linux, which as we all know was created by Bob Torvalds.