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Hans Reiser Guilty of First Degree Murder
Anonymous Meoward writes "Today Hans Reiser was found guilty of first degree murder in Oakland, California. Quoting Wired: 'In a murder case with no body, no crime scene, no reliable eyewitness and virtually no physical evidence, the prosecution began the trial last November with a daunting task ahead... The turning point in the trial came when Reiser took the stand in his own defense March 3.' Whether he really did it or not, Hans basically just didn't know when to shut up."
No evidence? No body? No murder weapon? Who cares! The prosecutor used Power Point in his closing.. The defendant is "weird".
Oh well, maybe Hans will confess and reveal where he stashed the body now.
[/rimshot]
How we know is more important than what we know.
A man who chooses to represent himself has a fool for a client.
No body, no weapon, no witnesses, no testimony, and nothing but a lot of circumstantial evidence. Sure, no problem!
Sure, he probably did and and fed her through a wood chipper, but the prosecution should still have to build a better case than "he's nuts, look at him!"
With the available evidence (as it was relayed by the various blogs, anyway), I personally could not have convicted him. If I'm going to take away somebody's freedom, I have to be absolutely certain that there can't be any other reasonable explanation of what happened. There's no way I could infer that from the evidence that has been presented. I don't say he's not guilty - I say I don't know. And to me, that would mean the trial either has to continue, with more evidence brought forward, or I would have to acquit him.
What happend to the good old "we'd rather have ten guilty men run free than put one innocent man in jail"?
Let's close the slavery loophole in the 13th amendment.
Can he work on free software from jail? He won't commercially gain from the crime and he can contribute for the good of society as a whole (in fact, provide a benefit that the world can use).
The prosecutor was also able to exclude the testimony of a guy called Sturgeon, who admitted to killing at least eight people and was having an affair with Hans Reiser's wife. If his testimony were allowed, it'd be the battle of the two weirdos and Hans, being the guy in a murder case who hasn't admitted to murdering, probably would have came out on top.
A NYC lawyer blogs. http://www.chuangblog.com/
There's reason for appeal right there. Personality of a guy who writes file systems???
The Mothership
you should see the moron he has for counsel!
I say let him sit in prison until his wife reappears alive. Nobody abandons their kids and cuts off contact with all family like that.
Getting caught with books on murder, evading police surveillance, having a front seat removed from your car, soaked in 3 inches of water?
This guy is a real piece of work. Saying he's narcissistic is an understatement.
Acquit him, and he's another OJ Simpson, free of ever being charged again.
SHUT THE FUCK UP. Honestly, that is the advice you need. SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP. Don't talk. Don't answer questions. If you must talk, please state the following: 1) "Am I under arrest?" If YES, then say, "I want a lawyer." If NO, get up and leave. If you co-operate and help them out and do them a favor, whatever--they will talk you into taking the blame. They'll have you convinced you did it even if you didn't. PLEASE, SHUT UP.
blarg.
Just goes to show, even if you can write your own file system doesn't mean you can get away with murder.
Norris/Palin 2012
Fact: We deserve leaders who can kick your ass and field dress your carcass.
but, as some people are going to say, there is certainly a large part of reasonable doubt.
Truthfully, though, that's not the standard people are sent to jail for. The standard is whether the jury merely thinks the person(s) did it. Who is the jury? Random elements of the hoi polloi, the bigoted the better.
My personal opinion is that Hans killed Nina in a fit of rage, then scrambled to cover up the evidence. I did not see any evidence whatsoever of premeditation. So I can not at all understand how this jury reached a verdict of First degree murder.
the SF Chronicle's blog.
To be honest, I thought he was guilty until the closing arguments of the case,
when the Prosecutor pointed out what he considered to be the single most damning
piece of evidence; namely, Nina Reiser's cell phone.
It had been found abandoned, with the battery removed, in her abandoned car.
Now, either Hans Reiser deliberately took the time to remove the battery
and leave it behind in her car. Or someone else who knew him did this to
frame him. Honestly, why in the world would he remember to disconnect the
battery, but leave the phone behind? It would've made much more sense to
simply take the phone and then dispose of it, unless you wanted to
frame him.
IMO, this verdict is bogus, and there's a guilty person still walking around.
Or Nina Reiser is indeed in Russia.
It's written in his journal!
In his journal. Get it! Ha ha, "journal", because it's a journaling file system. Just a little pun that was. Little bit of geeky humor for you right there.
Not knowing when to shut up might mean you killed a joke, but it sure as hell don't mean you killed a person.
I really feel sorry for the guy. Regardless of whether or not he committed the murder, he was a good programmer and an important member of the open-source community. It is too bad that brilliant people are often plagued by mental instability. I hope that Reiser is really innocent and simply did a lot of weird things that were indicative to murder. I can imagine that if he was innocent, he probably felt that people were out to get him, but simply had to way to articulate a reasonable response to the charges. I certainly hope that the truth about his wife's whereabouts becomes known, regardless of the innocence of Reiser.
A typical jury is a group of 12 people hand-picked by the lawyers to be the most easily emotionally manipulated people possible. You were expecting them to come to a conclusion based on logic?
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
Amazing how all these women pick guys like Hans Reiser over and over again. Money & success through men is still king even if it means a shortened life span.
A man in California runs the risk of a death sentence whenever his high profile wife dies mysteriously. I bet Scott Peterson is chuckling now. After all he was convicted essentially on the dazzling smile of his heavily pregnant wife. No other facts were really needed, except for the taped conversation of a lying adulteress who sold her story for millions of dollars.
this part of the article caught my eye:
"Defense attorney William DuBois cross-examined the witnesses about Nina's extramarital affair with Reiser's former best friend, Sean Sturgeon. (The jury was not allowed to hear testimony that Sturgeon has confessed to killing eight people unrelated to the case, in retaliation for child abuse.)"
With the explanations he apparently gave for some of the circumstantial evidence, I can see why he was found guilty. Seriously, sex leaving a 6 splotch of blood?! What kind of sex were they into? Jesus H. Christ man!
Seriously. WTF?
Derek Greene
...yes he may be a bit weird, but how can he be convicted of murder if no body has been recovered, and there is no hard evidence linking him to his 'deceased victim'? Mind you, he wouldn't be the first innocent person to end up in jail, although having no evidence to go with his 'crime' makes it all the more suspicious.
Hand Reiser volunteered. Where is the injurred party with a direct complaint for Mrs. Reiser not keeping her appearances? WHO IS THE COMPLAINANT? Does the prosecutor have an interest in the matter, because the prosecutor may not have a complaint but facilitate one on behalf of the true party in interest.
This is like a complainant being an off-duty police officer, who makes the complaint when he is in his company clothes/uniform, but jumps out of person as an officer while still retaining the color of authority to bully whomever he's complaining against while he wears his utility belt and company uniform.
Hans Reiser was equally as improper as that supposed Prosecutor. Now, who to hang...
There was some doubt. Then Hans' insisted on taking the stand. The jury may have considered perhaps Hans took the seat out to go racing or make room for a large purchase. But if that were the case he would have said so on the stand. The same goes for any other evidence. Because Reiser took the stand the jury couldn't conjour up possible explanations. If Reiser didn't present the doubt himself the jury couldn't consider it. Since it was obvious Reiser was lying (he even admitted to it) the jury couldn't believe what he had to say.
I live in North Oakland and knew Hans Reiser from the Berkeley OCF.
I met Nina Reiser at a pre-school picnic.
Nina seemed like a typical harried mom - devoted to her kids and quite kind (she got a cup of juice for my daughter).
Hans, on the other hand, went out of his way to be mean, petty, arrogant, and small minded. He acted as if he owned the Open Computer Facility, and that everyone should kow-tow to him. Once he booted an undergrad off the system because she had posted a Usenet message that he disagreed with.
I attended the trial for several days. I was impressed with how carefully the jurors followed the witnesses, even though the testimony was boring.
Hans shot himself in the foot by testifying. Maybe he shot both feet. He used the passive voice when describing critical events, as if he were an outside observer. He varied from extremely explicit (remembering license plates) to utterly vague (not remembering where he slept).
Even though I wanted him to get out of this squeeze, I quite agree with the jurors on this one: there may not be a body, but Hans committed murder.
IANAL, so could someone explain to me how it makes any sense that he was found guilty of first degree murder when no one can even prove that Nina is dead? Maybe a lesser charge such as manslaughter, but I think that the fact that the prosecution cannot definitely say that she is dead should be enough for reasonable doubt.
If "shutting up" would prove a potential murderer not guilty, something is seriously wrong with how things are handled.
I mean, while the legal system is there for a reason, even allowing someone to help a potential (or perhaps even proven) criminal from justice, shows how corrupt it truly is.
In some cases it is more evident than in others. Cases where the have been extremely well documented evidence, but in which that evidence (mostly because of a faulty way of obtaining them) is used to free a criminal... it's just disgusting.
America truly is the land of opportunities.
REISER DID THE L.A. FIRE
This video accurately transcribes what happened in court: http://youtube.com/watch?v=EISdUkG8Bbw
Were they talking of reiserfs, or where he hid the body?
Tacky.
Is it just me, or does anyone else find the courtroom sketches accompanying the article a bit more cartoonish than is usual for courtroom sketches? They border on caricatures, especially the children playing in the video.
The guy is a socially maladjusted geek. He thinks and acts differently from people around him. People consider him rude and arrogant and don't understand him.
None of that should be reason for conviction "beyond a reasonable doubt". There is reasonable doubt in this case whether the woman is even dead, let alone whether he killed her. This is a miscarriage of justice.
So there you go. His behavior in the court room resulted in a guilty verdict. Why I'm surprised this took precedence over the facts of the case I don't know. Perhaps there's more to it than this, but the Judge's comments are clear.
OK. Thats a fucked-up social circle.
I surprised to see so many here defending a man who quite clearly killed or was involved in killing his wife. Just because he invented a file system few people use, the Slashdot Crowd worships him to the point of blindness to the obvious. Is it amazing that he was able to pull it off while leaving such little actual evidence? Sure. But that "getting away with murder" doesn't justify it. It's pretty sad to see so many supporting this sociopath.
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
SINE ACTIONE AGIS, sad...
Carlos Niebla
I don't know whether or not Hans is guilty.
I do think that convicting somebody based on circumstantial evidence is almost always a bad idea. In fact, it's such a bad idea, it usually doesn't happen... and when it does, the judge often steps in and overturns the conviction.
In this case, you have a guy who did some things that are pretty damn hard to explain away. The day after his wife goes missing he removes the passenger seat from his car and hoses the entire thing down? Seriously?
Should that be enough to convict him? I don't know. What I do know is that I find it very strange that so many of you are willing to ignore things like that and declare your outrage about his conviction.
Now that he has been found guilty, perhaps you should explain why you think he is innocent?
The slashdot moderation system needs an overhaul. Just because someone puts forward an opinion other than the prevailing viewpoint - doesnt mean that the post is automatically flamebait.
And no, even though it will be marked as such, this is NOT offtopic - as I'm trying to raise the visibility of the parent due to poor moderation/tacit censorship of a comment linked to this story.
He should have waived a jury trial and let a judge decide the case. He might be free now if he had.
One must also remember that the US, as with the UK, use the adversarial court system. This attempts to establish guilt. Other countries use the inquisitorial system, which attempts to ascertain the truth of the matter. Both systems produce questionable results and have giant catalogues of miscarriages of justice to their names, which leads me to conclude that you either want a blend of the two or neither, but purely one or the other is inadequate. However, that's not the system used anywhere, as far as I know.
Do I think Hans Reiser is guilty or innocent? I don't think I know enough to say, for the above reason. I don't think the system exists yet to establish that with any certainty. I think he's guilty of stupidity - you don't ask a SQL database engineer to do assembly code programming, he knows that, so he should have been quite capable of inferring that you don't ask a software engineer to do lawyering. Beyond that, I don't know.
Sadly, his stupidity isn't grounds for appeal. He can't claim that he misrepresented himself. That doesn't work. We shall probably never know what really happened or why - again, the US system doesn't really try to establish such things. We shall also never really know to what extent Hans Reisers' autism affected the trial. In the legal system as it exists, criminal insanity (not knowing right from wrong) is only sometimes recogized, other forms of insanity or mental abnormality are neither recognized nor considered mitigating factors in a person's actions or a person's evidence. I don't like that either, but again we have the system we have.
This case proves only one thing to me, and that is that we'd almost be better off with no system at all. Not quite, but almost.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
In that 2 or 3 year period between the time she left Reiser and her death she dated that guy, right?
She THEN LEFT HIM and disappears...what..6, 9 months later?
How is this NOT relevant?
Seems to me that some bondage loving freak who admits to killing 9 people should be the first witness when the woman he was dumped by disappears.
As for is behavior, he sounds no different than Linus, Theo, Miguel and tons of other open source figures.
If he's innocent I'm sorry for the man.
If he's guilty I pity him and his sociopathy.
Either way, though, I'm glad that the geek version of the OJ Simpson Trial is finally behind us.
(rot13) rpbzbab@tznvy.pbz
*sigh* BOTH lawyers have to approve of the jury members, not just one side. What you suggest is that the prosecution picked twelve easily swayed jurors while the defense ate a peanut-butter sandwich, which is a funny thought but really wrong.
I've been reading through several of the coverage pages and wow...
You'd think that given all of the evidence was so circumstantial, that he'd just keep his mouth shut or say as little as possible, but instead, he just keeps digging himself a deeper and deeper hole.
Advice for hyperactive folks who lack social skills who are accused of a crime not committed:
1) take a chill pill. no, really, chill. now is NOT the time to expound on the intricacies of your one and only view of the world.
2) you've got a lawyer. Use the lawyer as a filter. If you don't like the lawyer, get another one. If you don't know how, find someone who can help you manage stuff. this is another example of where you really shouldn't try to learn how to do it yourself, just because you can.
3) you don't "argue" with judges. You argue with other lawyers. Arguing with a judge is... well, it's just not wise.
I would have said that the lawyer was incompetent, but it sounds like the lawyer got fed up with his client arguing with him. Who's the lawyer and who's the guy being accused of 1st degree murder? Right. Either listen to the lawyer or get one you can work with.
He had a good case where the defense stood on fairly firm ground. Then, he opened his mouth and tried to explain things according to his world view, to the point where he could easily be painted as someone who was just not reliable.
There's alot to take away from this case. And unfortunately, one of those things is that "just being you", or "just being an unsociable geek" is not a valid defense.
Hopefully, he can appeal and perhaps prove his innocence there.
Winged Power Photography
Confessed to killing 8 people, and she'd broken up with him before she disappeared.
I believe that tosses shit right back into the reasonable doubt category.
"oj is guilty" according to whites is to "oj is guilty" according to blacks
as
"reiser is guilty" according to average joes is to "reiser is guilty" according to _____
hint: rhymes with "gerds" or "neeks"
that was a joke, but seriously, this case reveals sociology going on here. if reiser didn't program a file system, not only would no one here care, but most everyone protesting his conviction here would probably agree with it
what does writing a file system have to do with first degree murder? absolutely nothing
except according to all the douchebags here protesting this murderer's innocence here on slashdot
prejudice according to clique. tribalism. its a powerful motivator. just look at all the comments here grandstanding on this murderer's innocence. as if they would know better than a jury
you don't
you present two sides of a case to a jury of your peers. they decide. there is no better of arbiter of justice. don't like the verdict. why do you think you know better?
you don't
deal with it. move on. the guy is murdering asshole. according to a jury. good enough for me. why isn't good enough for you?
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
These are felonies?!
So if you accidentally infect someone with an STD during oral sex, and that STD kills him or her, you are a murderer because you intentionally committed the "felony" of oral copulation?
Ba dum dum. Thank you. I'm here all week. Have the lobster!
There exists no way of exchanging information without making judgments. --Bene Gesserit Axiom
For those who haven't been following it, Henry Lee of the San Francisco Chronicle has a detailed blog of the entire trial. It is a really bizarre tale (the stuff of soap operas and mini-series). In my opinion, despite the lack of witness, body, or weapon, the circumstantial evidence is fairly compelling when taken as a whole. The defense did actually try to emphasize Hans' weirdness as a characteristic misleading some to assume guilt, but the behavior does not add up, even for an uber-geek.
being "weird" means you are automatically judged guilty for any crime you are changed with. They will use the Hans Reiser case as a basis to find you guilty even if there is reasonable doubt and a lack of evidence.
Your girlfriend or wife can leave the country, spill some of their blood on your stuff before they leave, and even if no body is found, because you are a Computer Geek any jury will find you guilty even if she did leave the country.
Your girlfriend or wife can pull a Reiser on you, as the ultimate form of revenge for all of those years you ignored her and spent it on a computer instead of time with her.
Remember, Slashdot does not have a -1 disagree moderation, and no, troll, flamebait, and overrated are not substitutes.
lol. that was actually my first thought when i saw the title. of course if this had been bill gates it would have actually happened.
Is the 'No Double Jeopardy' really enforceable enough so if she reappears, he can kill her? Just walk up and kill her in front of a bunch of witnesses, smiling, taking pictures. Maybe with a film crew.
"Kill her? Of course I just killed her... I've been dreaming of this for 15 years while being raped in prison after she set me up... I just wish I could do it again... What? Your arresting me? Sure, I'll confess that I killed a dead woman, because after all, she was officially murdered already"
fsck!
The evidence she is dead is that she has not contacted her children since her disappearance. If she were alive, would she really avoid contacting her children? Would she really go into hiding for THE REST OF HER LIFE so that Reiser would remain in jail and so that she herself could avoid jail?
This is not reasonable. She was going through a divorce, so what reason would cause her to want to leave her children behind and her life as a doctor? Remember, if her intent was to frame Reiser for her murder, she would have to remain underground for the rest of her life.
It seems like the easier solution is just divorce him and lead separate lives. Then, she could keep her kids, keep her job, and lead a normal life.
THIS is the reason why they presume she is dead. No reasonable person would do this just to escape something that could be solved with a simple divorce.
Taking this simple fact into account, and then taking all the circumstantial evidence, it is clear that she has been murdered by Reiser.
To everyone that says this is a miscarriage of justice, you are disgusting losers and I hope you lose a loved one to murder. Just because Reiser was an open source programmer doesn't make him above the law. Open your eyes and realize that open source programmers can do bad things as well. Look at Reiser, and look at what FreeBSD developer Kip Macy allegedly did:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/04/24/kip_macy_arrest/
I guess they didn't like my first suggestion...
At least it wasn't a guy who hacks Perl.
"And what is your profession?"
"Your honor, I am a Perl progr--"
"GUILTY GUILTY GUILTY"
Assume I was drunk when I posted this.
Captain, Road Prison 36: What we've got here is... failure to communicate. Some men you just can't reach. So you get what we had here last week, which is the way he wants it... well, he gets it. I don't like it any more than you men.
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
And I know that because I am banging her here in Russia. Everyone who thinks Hans is guilty is a douchebag.
...he created one killer file system!
The judge said that Reiser was rude and arrogant and other unstated (but obviously bad) things. I think the judge would have found him Guilty too.
Reiser fsck YOU!
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
You cannot prosecute for murder without a dead body period. Even if you have witnesses, it's not beyond a reasonable doubt that the witness isn't lying... as you don't have no fscking remains.
It's better to be the foot on the boot than the face on the pavement. ~~ tkx Kadin2048
I tried his reiserfs some years ago, and it murdered all my data!
>If his testimony were allowed ... It would have guaranteed a mistrial.
Nowhere is it established that Sturgeon killed anyone. And nobody called Sturgeon as a witness for any purpose whatsoever.
It would be very different, if there were any evidence that Sturgeon killed anyone (say, because he was testifying from prison or something.)
It's a pretty serious problem for this notion, that none of the people Sturgeon claimed to have killed, are dead.
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
1st. she embezzled a load of money from namesys.
2nd. there is no evidence that she is dead.
3rd. the children are in russia with nina's mother.
4th. her father is the doctor.
5th. there is no evidence that she has not contacted her children.
6th. there is no evidence that she is not alive and well in russia.
7th. the children's testimony was extremely conflictive. no coaching eh?
there is no evidence.
The prosecution has only proven they don't know where nina reiser is.
Let's face it. A programmer despite being german is not really the type to disappear someone.
His behavior though incriminating to the untrained eye, is really what most of us would do in his situation.
even if he really did do it, c'mon the bitch stole from his company. she destroyed his life. who can blame him?
They're using their grammar skills there.
Whether or not Sturgeon killed anyone is irrelevant. He admitted to killing eight people and that seriously calls his judgment, credibility, and sanity into question. Sturgeon wasn't called as a witness was because the judge already excluded his admission of eight murders. The prosecution would never call a prime suspect and the defense wouldn't do so if they can't peg him as a psycho because Sturgeon hates Reiser and would do anything to get him in jail.
A NYC lawyer blogs. http://www.chuangblog.com/
Thanks, Hans Reiser. Because of you, they're going to have to redesign the whole quiz.
"Live as if you'll die tomorrow." Ridiculous. You could die later today.
Read the fine article, sir. In fact, the summary may be enough. What is cited as a big part of this man's conviction? Is it not that he tried to overexplain himself and acted paranoid-delusional under oath? Is it not that he tried to take matters into his own hands in a setting where charisma and social interaction are key, while simultaneously admitting over and over that he is unable to interact with normal society? I hope that I'd not make the same mistake in his place. Maybe I'd even get off.
(rot13) rpbzbab@tznvy.pbz
The court system doesn't work like it does on TV, the defendant doesn't get away with something because of some sob story. When your lawyer tells you not to take the stand, you should actually listen to his advice. Why else are you paying the guy? (While there are some sleezy lawyers, this guy knew what he was doing)
While I hope this conviction if overturned on appeal (if he actually didn't do it), I can't help but feel the Reiser deserves the turmoil he's going through for being a moron. Maybe he'll learn a lesson here.
I don't know how jury selection goes in CA, I practice in WA, but I can tell you this about jury selection -- it's the most milk-toast people that usually get on. Imagine a pool for a 6 person jury. The people are numbered in order from 1-20. Often enough, several people will be excused because of hearing problems, medical problems, or knowing a witness/party/judge/lawyer. The first 6 people in line are considered to be on the jury, except that each lawyer gets three strikes. If a person in front of the line is booted, then everyone behind moves up a slot. There are always 6 people at the front of the line.
Anyway, you have to figure out who you're absolute least favorite people are in the first 12 people in line. Then one attorney strikes, and the other strikes and so on until you're out of strikes, or both sides accept the front 6 in line. Expand everything for a 12 person jury.
What you end up with, is a jury of candidates that both sides considered "least worst". Anyway, if you want to be booted from a jury pool, express a bias toward one side -- in a criminal case, say "all cops are liars" or "all cops have a god-like understanding of what went down". You'll be sent home fast.
What changed under Obama? Nothing Good
At least it wasn't a guy who hacks Perl.
Oh, they're not off the hook either. Randal Schwartz went to jail for for testing the security of systems he wasn't authorized to test at an employeer.
If he sits there for 11 days and repeatedly lies to you, I can see thinking he murdered his wife.
... How not to have to remove the front seat? ... How not to go on a suspicious road trip? Etc, etc.
But, how do you get First-Degree out of that? In fact, the circumstantial evidence seems to me to indicate it was NOT premeditated. He is smart and has a job that requires great organization. Wouldn't he plan how not to have blood in his car?
[[killer filesystem joke]]
The law is not an ass. No really.
Here in Brazil, to prosecute for any crime, the D.A. has to show that he has reasonable evidence that (1) the crime was committed ["materialidade"] __AND__ (2) that the accused committed the crime ["autoria"]. The prosecutor would be laughed out of court without (1) the body, (2) the murder weapon, (3) any _relevant_ evidence, (4) any witness... because not even the "materialidade" of the crime can be proven. It's reasonable to suppose Nina is in Russia with her kids... especially since nobody presented any evidence in contrary. /in dubio pro reu/ == "in doubt, for the defendant".
It's better to be the foot on the boot than the face on the pavement. ~~ tkx Kadin2048
as NTFS 2008 mysteriously comes out within the next few months which eerily resembles ReiserFS. Money can't buy you love, but it sure as hell can buy you justice.
This is a FAT32 partition, it comes from microsoft.
It has a 4GB limit, in the age of 5GB DVDs why would you ship a product with a 4GB limit?
It just doesn't make any sense!
If this is FAT32 partition, the jury must acquit!!
IranAir Flight 655 never forget!
Yet another reason NOT to get a mail order bride, especially from countries riddled with organized crime.
Appellate courts can second-guess the trial judge, but they don't have the power to second-guess the trial jury. The only way these sorts of factual determinations could be reviewed on an appeal is if the trial judge gave incorrect instructions to the jury (i.e. didn't properly explain to them what standards of evidence they should be looking for), or if the judge improperly put to the jury something that was a matter of law instead of fact (i.e. if the allegation, even if true, wouldn't support the charge due to not meeting the definitions in the statute).
But if the trial was run improperly, and the jury just convicted someone on weak evidence, appeals courts don't have much they can do about it. (They also can't do much about it if the jury acquitted someone despite very strong evidence.)
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
on Hans' part. He feels really broken up, and is hoping the prosecutor and jury feel pangs of guilt after his execution when the ex-wife shows up at the funeral.
...if only he'd had a glove (that didn't fit). Dummy.
Sheesh. Except maybe about the "GanstaFS" bit. But still. I'm just sayin.
Setting the car on fire cleans up all kinds of evidence, and doing so because of marital problems is an understandable excuse.
Had a friend who was going thru a divorce. His wife loaded his car (joint ownership) up with his clothes and set it on fire. The fire department showed up. Knocked on the door, the wife answered. They asked if she knew her car was on fire. She said "yes, and I want it on fire. Go away". Since it was her car and she wanted it on fire, the most they could do was issue her a fine for burning without a permit.
It was his stupidity combined with his arrogance. He obviously thought that the jury was so beneath him intellectually that they'd accept whatever explanation he gave.
SnarlSlayer
your clients probably consider you "least worst" too
It was odd, wish I could find the email. I had formatted one of my slack partitions for reiserfs. I remember writing to the author, saying something like, "wow, I saved X% by switching to your filesystem!". He writes back and wanted to quote me, I said, well, it's kinda inaccurate as I took my analysis from a "df -h" which kinda rounds the whole amounts, and would not be as accurate as plain ol' "df". The guy flipped out via email, he kept on insisting he quote my original "I saved X% with your filesystem". I eventually said no and we dropped it.
I can't remember if it was Hans, but I do remember it being a 15Gb hard drive and having problems with it after that. (Dunno maybe it was beta software at the time?). I started using jfs and ext3 shortly after that.
FLR
No evidence? No body? No murder weapon? Who cares! The prosecutor used Power Point in his closing.. The defendant is "weird".
The following is a bit beyond "weird".
When police eventually located Hans Reiser's Honda CRX a few miles from his home, they found the interior waterlogged, the passenger seat missing, and two books on police murder investigations inside. They also found a sleeping-bag cover stained with a 6-inch wide blotch of Nina's dried blood. Reiser later testified that the couple had sex in the sleeping bag on a camping trip prior to their 2004 separation
This is my sig.
"Use ReiserFS or I'll !@#$ing kill you"
...I'll fucking kill them!
If you haven't watched/listened to the video yet, *don't* listen to it through headphones. The sound level is really low, so you'll turn the sound up, and up, and then you'll hear various beeps and Windows sounds come through, really, stupidly loud.
a simple cut will do that if it does not clot nicely. And yes, any number of diseases impact the clotting mechanism. Heck, I have seen more menstrual blood spread more than a foot. But of course, it was shallow, not a soaking.
In the end, the CRX issue and his excuses and behavior were probably far more damning.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
...not with the verdict, necessarily. The jury heard more evidence in more detail then I did, and more than any of you did.
I'm disappointed in the majority of slashdotters who are are convinced he's innocent. Do you realize that is really stupid? Why is a group of people who are so rational about technology, say, or science, willing to believe something they just can flat out not know?
He might have been guilty, he might have been innocent. The devil lies in the details, which the jury knows better than you.
Obviously it's out of some feeling of kinship with the guy, but, you know, that is a really poor reason. I swear; the reasoning here is about on par with somebody convinced that vaccinations cause autism.
Here in Brazil, to prosecute for any crime, the D.A. has to show
So I guess if you want to kill your wife, you should move to Brazil...
This is my sig.
Reiser4Life!
Here, specifically, is where I think your "must choose acceptable false positive rate" premise strays from protecting the free back into punishing the wicket:
...the fact is that you do need to accept some error rate to live in a lawful society. No, you must not accept false positives. To accept false positives is to accept that law itself may harm society. Eroding the burden of proof and the threshold of evidence may serve to nail the bad guys, but they also serve to harm the innocent. Unfortunately, some "evil bastard" who "deserves" punishment will walk when we stand up for the rule of law and for the rights of human beings in order to avoid setting precedent that increases the incidence of false positives.Citizens at large, as your comment on the other jurors' response illustrates, are more concerned with punishment than with the protection of human beings. I believe that the same jury, given the same quality and quantity of evidence, would be less likely to convict on a less serious charge:
Manslaughter? "Well, this evidence is incriminating but shaky, and it's important to avoid convicting the wrong person since even if we accidentally let the killer off since this was not a crime of malice."
Murder 1? "Well, this evidence shaky but incriminating, and it's important to punish the person who did this if at all possible even if we accidentally convicting the wrong person since this was a crime of malice."
Your appraisal is of what happens in practice, but it should not be what we strive for as human beings. In practice, our system may find false positives, but we must strive to eliminate them, not merely be satisfied with them through some perverse obsession with punishment. Convictions are about protecting human beings from harm, whether at the hands of alley/corporate thugs or the hands of the law overzealously pursuing "justice".
For a lot of reasons, people will confess to crimes they didn't commit. There are mountains of literature on it so you can do research as to theories why and conditions that cause it and such. Suffice to say it happens. So the courts don't just take any random confession at face value. You'll notice that Sturgeon isn't in prison. If you confess to 8 murders, and the court believes you, you'd better believe you are going to be behind bars. That he isn't says that they don't find his confessions to be at all credible.
Now this is important, because otherwise, it would create a "Get out of murder free" situation more or less. As an example:
Suppose you and I conspire together. You are going to murder someone, but I agree that if you get caught I'll confess to it at your trial. This would of course create reasonable doubt for you. However, I'll make sure that there is plenty of evidence showing I didn't do it (for example be on camera somewhere at the time of the murder) so when they bring me to trial, I get off. Bingo, you got away with murder.
This isn't even to mention the problem of people with mental problems who confess to things they didn't do for any number of reasons.
A good judge isn't going to allow evidence, on either side, that is likely false. They also aren't going to allow in evidence that is highly prejudicial if it isn't relevant to the case, even if it is true. For example on the prosecution side prior bad acts are limited. They can be admitted to evidence if they relate to the case, for example if someone is accused of robbery and he has 5 robbery convictions, well that's relevant because it establishes a pattern of behaviour. However if you were on trial for tax evasion, they couldn't get in a domestic violence conviction, since all that would do is prejudice the jury and it isn't relevant.
... can easily make a 6-inch blot. If you don't know that, then you have never been punched in the nose or had a girlfriend. Or both.
I wonder how linux will be in 25 years when he gets out of prison. It'd be funny if his filesystem was still being used. Anyhow, ext3's better, so I don't really care.
Cannot the kingdom of salvation take me home?
it'd be the battle of the two weirdos and Hans, being the guy in a murder case who hasn't admitted to murdering, probably would have came out on top
So, since Sturgeon's confession is complete bullshit, it seems like a good thing that the judge didn't allow it, no?
sic transit gloria mundi
What you are missing is that what he did with his car was NOT done immediately after her disappearance. It was not mentioned in the article, but it was firmly established in court that he bought the books AFTER he found himself under investigation by the police, and (without knowing the full testimony) it appears he had plenty of time to read them before leaving them in his car. That is hardly "immediately after". The only thing mentioned in the article about that is that they "eventually" found the car somewhere. Again, far from immediate.
what makes no sense to me is why the jury was not told that her paramour has confessed to killing 8 people. Given two suspects, both whom are intimate with the deceased and one is a mass murderer, would this not sort of raise a reasonable doubt about the other? Given the the murders were also inspired by domestic issues (i.e. not robbery, etc...) surely this is even more relevant. Given the murder knew the defendant very well (best friend) and presumably would know how to get to his house and car. Know his habits. etc... Why was this not presented?
Given the evidence against resiser it seems pretty damning for him in the absence of a plausible alternative. But there was a very plausible one.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
People are not "innocent until proven guilty". They are presumed innocent until proven guilty. Big difference.
If I kill someone, I'm guilty from the moment I do it, whether or not it's ever proven in court.
Patrick Doyle
I mod down every jackass who puts his moderation policy in his sig. Oh, wait a sec....
You can't be convicted of the same crime twice. Killing a person in a different place on a different day is a different crime. The fact that it's the same person is only new evidence to overturn your prior conviction.
Patrick Doyle
I mod down every jackass who puts his moderation policy in his sig. Oh, wait a sec....
That's "Smartest Mother Fucker in the Universe" syndrome. From what I've read of him online, Hans was certainly one of these people. He's much smarter than the average person in a great number of things. This, combined with a social ineptitude, has lead to a self image where he believes he is smarter than, well, everyone and basically smart at everything.
So none of what went on surprises me. Like the fact that he testified, and fucked it up badly. Someone who was intelligent and educated in the law would probably realise that simply being silent was the best option, especially if they realised they weren't a good witness. However not someone like that, they are smarter than everyone! They have to explain to those retards on the jury how it all went down, and how because they were so smart they couldn't be guilty!
This is of course going to go over like a ton of bricks on the jury and come off as extremely arrogant, which it is.
all circumstantial evidence
Why do people keep harping on circumstantial evidence? It's a perfectly valid type of evidence, and most murder convictions rely on it. Seriously, how often do you expect people to see someone getting murdered?
sic transit gloria mundi
You know, I hate to sound like an elitist snob here, but if you are a native speaker of English, the world is better off without you anywhere near the judicial system.
seen silence of the lambs? i'd be looking at this sturgeon guy...
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
Check the two previous posts? They seem similar to me, yet one is off-topic and one is Insightful? wtf?
I don't know much about this case, yet, but appears to me that several traits of Asperger's Syndrome were mistaken for guilt. For example, it was stated that Reiser's ability to remember license plates but not remember where he slept etc. indicated his guilt.
Episodic Memory (memory of events, times, places & associated emotions) is affected in Asperger's, sometimes to the point of amnesia. But Semantic Memory, memory for facts is often greatly enhanced. This appears to have lead Reiser to forget relevant autobiographical information but recall irrelevant facts, causing those unfamiliar with Asperger's to interpret his testimony as evasive and false. From Gardiner (2001) DOI:0.1098/rstb.2001.0955:
"There is evidence that remembering is selectively impaired in various populations, including not only amnesic patients and older adults but also adults with Asperger's syndrome."
Have you been touched by his noodly appendage?
Sean Sturgeon openly admitted to eight murders & 1 attempt, including, IIRC, one he hadn't even been charged with yet. This makes his word that he had nothing to do with Nina Reiser's death pretty believable (at least if I was a juror).
Have you been touched by his noodly appendage?
If Nina isn't dead, where the hell is she? Even an estranged wife would come out to acquit her ex-husband of murder.
If your friend got a restraining order against you because of alleged assault, and then he went missing, it would be a little closer to what happened with Reiser.
Have you been touched by his noodly appendage?
Just to think,a man who creates a file system to reduce internal fragmentation,his own life is fragmented now.
Unexplained Actions explained unsatisfactorily can, and did, convict this genius! Moron took the stand and tried to explain some things that he had no business trying to.
Thought you were smarter than everyone didn't ya. "Check out the big brain on Hans". Douche.
For such a smart guy this should have been a no brainer. Hire the best team of lawyers you can possible afford. Listen to them. You have an intimate knowledge of computers but know DICK about anything else. Don't take the stand and let everyone see what a shit head you are. Acquittal.
He convicted himself...so while I agree that "Unexplained Actions" should leave a lot of room for reasonable doubt. This jackass sold himself out.
Have fun working in the prison library. "Hans... watch out for your cornhole, man!"
Have you been touched by his noodly appendage?
I wasn't saying in any way that the defense didn't participate in jury selection. It's as much to the defense's advantage as the prosecution's advantage to have a jury that is easily swayed by emotion. It is far harder to argue based solely on facts than if you can trot out the cute little kid who says how much he misses mommy and hates daddy, or the police officer who says with firm conviction, "No, I am certain that there was no blood on the seat." Such arguments are all fundamentally about credibility of witnesses, and in a case where there are precious few facts, all you can really do is argue about credibility of the "he-said-she-said" variety.
It still sucks---particularly if the person you are representing strikes the jury as being an asshole.... :-)
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
A typical jury is a group of 12 people hand-picked by the lawyers to be the most easily emotionally manipulated people possible. You were expecting them to come to a conclusion based on logic?
The jury is picked by both the defense AND the prosecution.SLASHdot
...don't journal wife killing evidence.
I've been reading this thread for the past 15 minutes, and it's all starting to look like a game of Phoenix Wright, Ace Attorney.
this is someone many of you folks know.
perhaps you all know the details of the case and that's why there's no outrage.
I've followed the case only obliquely.
it "sounds suspicious," but not like a Murder One conviction.
Is the general consensus here that he's guilty?
How much trial materials would I need to get through to have an "Ahh!" moment? (links)
I miss my CRX.
Have you been touched by his noodly appendage?
The old Slashdot, if you hit back on FireFox accidently, you would not lose your comment. The new one, you do.
This is my sig.
Check out some of the folks here who've been following this case for months.
Have you been touched by his noodly appendage?
Oh man, the issues go even deeper when you start considering memories and shit. Eyewitnesses are far from reliable. Give me circumstantial any day, I can spin a good tale. :)
Like what I said? You might like my music
You wrote it yourself: proof beyond a reasonable doubt. That is a very important point! What is supposed to be tested in court is not his veracity, but the evidence against him! The proof!
There was NO convincing, verifiable evidence that he committed a murder. None. Only evidence that he did weird things. Being a computer programmer, based on that kind of evidence a good percentage of the people I have worked with could be convicted of murder based on nothing more than a rumor started by an unfriendly neighbor.
If he lied, all that establishes is that he lied. If he is weird and unbelievable, all that establishes is that he is weird and unbelievable. Neither is evidence of murder!
That does NOT positively contribute to evidence of his guilt! If the jury felt that it did, either they were not instructed properly (quite likely), or they are a bunch of dumbshits (equally likely).
Oh well, maybe Hans will confess and reveal where he stashed the body now. Probably a blob, or maybe split under a well-balanced grove of trees. Even if he can't use the journal to recover the data, he should at least be able to get the last-modified date, right? (Why does it smell of sulfur all of a sudden, and what am I doing in this handbasket?)
College-Pages.com - Online Colleges, Degrees, and Programs
If a woman needs lots of blood to frame someone, they just need to take out their tampon at the right time of month.
Whether he did it or not, getting on the stand was a terrible idea. The day he spent talking about the condition of his car, for instance.
If he was telling the truth, he's horrible at explaining himself, and not very logical to begin with - the best place to sleep in a hatchback is in the back, with the seats folded forward.
If he was lying, he's an even bigger idiot - in that case, he should go down in history as one of it's most horrible liars.
It's something that seems pretty common among people with a certain mindset - just because they're good at one intellectual activity, they think they should be good at almost any. But that's obviously not the case, and you know what is said about pride...
Have you been touched by his noodly appendage?
According to the San Francisco Chronicle blog that was following Reiser's trial, Sean Sturgeon's testimony was not excluded: he was never called on to testify, by either the prosecution or the defense.
If you were the defense attorney and Sturgeon could provide testimony that would help exonerate your client, wouldn't you call him as a witness?
When about to be accused of murder, next time purchase the books on "murder trials" as well as those on "police murder investigations".
If I have seen further it is by stealing the Intellectual Property of giants.
What Reiser really should have been convicted of is felony Arrogance & Reckless Self-Absorption. The way he came across in his testimony, I would have felt the need to go outside & check if he said it was cloudy.
Have you been touched by his noodly appendage?
no body, no crime scene, no reliable eyewitness and virtually no physical evidence yet Hans was convicted.
There was a body, there was a crime scene, a reliable eyewitness, and a lot of physical evidence, yet OJ was NOT convicted!!
Amazing justice system
I find it interesting that in all the information published Hans is never quoted trying to reach his 'fugitive' wife. Don't you think Hans should have been showing himself upset about Nina's 'hiding' somewhere and focus on that point in his defense?
I would like to thank Mr. Reiser for testifying. I am so glad he gave the jury a chance to assess his truthfulness. Mr. Reiser made it so easy for the jury because he personally removed any reasonable doubt.
Reiser apparently thought that if he had a plausible explanation for his actions, that the jury would logically be compelled to acquit him. Unfortunately for him, he demonstrated one of the very best examples of consciousness of guilt that I have ever heard.
Now, the killer will sit in prison and devise logical constructs to prove that he made the right decision when he testified. But Hans, baby, I know you made the right decision! Justice is served! Thanks!
Without a body, it is at least plausible that Sturgeon and the wife were in cahoots to get the husband put away. Lacking any concrete evidence, it's certainly possible for what's being described on
Presented with a frame job as such, Reiser would've had only three options: plead guilty, plead it to be a frame job, or plead his case.
The fact that Sturgeon had motivation to see Reiser put away adds to that possibility, in my opinion.
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
The subject who is truly loyal to the Chief Magistrate will neither advise nor submit to arbitrary measures (Junius)
Because I'll bet that if you talk to the jurors, one or two, or maybe even all of them, thought he was guilty. However, based on the evidence presented in court, they found that there was reasonable doubt he was guilty, and thus let him walk.
The prosecution badly botched the case in many ways. I have to say, if I'd been on the jury, I almost certainly would have voted to acquit and I thought he was guilty as hell. Reason is the question you are being asked isn't "What do you think?" The question you are being asked is "Did the prosecution prove the charges beyond a reasonable doubt?" Those are two very different things. In OJ's case, I think there was reasonable doubt. Not "likely doubt" or "major doubt", but enough that it is reasonable to doubt he did it, even if I personally don't buy it.
I also agree that it is unlikely the GP worked at a law firm. He calls the prosecution the "persecution". Now I've known a good many lawyers, having done mock trail and been friends with some, roommates with law students and so on. I've never met a defense attorney that had it in for the state's attorneys. They'd argue in the courtroom, but there was respect for each other. That's not to say that everyone likes everyone, but I've never met a defense attorney who thinks all prosecutors are so bad that they'd call them "persecutors".
Imagine what Ballmer would make of that!
It's more likely that his work will be handed to someone else, or another group, to manage. Not because he isn't up to it, but because it would be really bad PR for the FOSS movement to have a major file system managed by a convicted murderer.
Not all prisoners are murderers, so it's likely that FOSS contribution would be a good idea for some, sort of a rehab thing.
A learning experience is one of those things that say, 'You know that thing you just did? Don't do that.' - D. Adams
And zealot mentality isn't necessary logical. To them, a major OSS figure being convicted of murder is a blow to OSS. Thus it is a bad thing and they don't want to believe it's real.
I mean look at the crap with the OLPC. When it was all OSS, all the time, the zealots had nothing but praise. They talked about how great it was not because of the software, but because of how it would help children and bridge the technology gap and such. Now they are hating on it, even though it still promises the same fundamental world-changing things, it isn't within their dogma anymore so they hate it.
It's the same sort of thing as religious zealotry. You can be a zealot about ideals other than a religion, but it leads to the same kind of attitude and though process. When something doesn't fit in your beliefs, you deny it and explain it away.
aww man.. does that mean I have to wait 25+ years for a decent update to the reiserFS ?!?
Where is the justice in that?
"Consider how lucky you are that life has been good to you so far. Alternatively, if life hasn't been good to you so far
That sounds like a lot of effort when you could just weigh them against a duck.
This must be the first time in weeks I don't get a Russian Brides ad.
How odd.
Watch this Heartland Institute video
Somehow I'm getting the impression that you've got no idea what you're talking about. Do you use examples from astrology to attack astronomy? Economy to attack ecology?
Psychology does try really hard to be a serious science. Its only real problem is its tendency to attract people who are really bad at math. That doesn't make it pseudoscience, that makes it a science with a lots of bad scientists.
It does establish that he is mentally disturbed and has murderous fantasies. If Sturgeon was the one on trial, it would count against him about as much as some of Reiser's behavior. But Sturgeon isn't the one on trial, and the US has an adversarial system where the accused is put on trial to see if the prosecutions case against them stacks up, not an inquisitorial system where other possibilities can be considered.
the missing wife is a friend of a MASS-MURDERER, and yet the police decide to not press charge against him and instead decide that the ex-husband is the more likely suspect ... I think there is a good chance they got the wrong guy.
That is too abstract advice. If person not really guilty he/she usually talk to police, any advice notwithstanding. Not talking put you in confrontational position, which is psychologically uncomfortable and stressful. And that wouldn't be end of the story. Police would proceed with harassment, threatening phone call and subpoenas. They would also have ground for obtaining warrant for search. And if they search your place they will take away your computer(s) whenever that reasonable or not.
Best course would be talk to lawyer, explain situation and take his advice, talk or not and what to talk about. But be warned - crappy lawyers happen too. And don't be guilty, that always help.
to keep innocent people _out_ far more than to keep the guilty _in_. So, yes, if you think you are capable of disposing completely of the body and kill your wife without leaving behind the murder weapon or any witnesses, by all means come to Brasil. You would never be prosecuted here without those things.
OTOH, if you (completely hypotetically) marry a Russian girl and she flies out of the country leaving a trail of suspicious (but ultimately irrelevant) evidence trying to frame you (*), you may also want to come here.
(*) I am not saying that this is what happened. I am saying that this is _plausible_ and if I were NR trying to skip town and wanting my mom to pick up the kids and bring them to Russia, _that_ is exactly what I would do. So, HR is not guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. But yes, as a lot of people pointed out, he talked himself into jail, because juries are _known_ to put oddballs away.
It's better to be the foot on the boot than the face on the pavement. ~~ tkx Kadin2048
Judge Hank "The Hangman" BMW: "Shut up! Shut up! Now, prosecutor, why you think he done it?"
Prosecutor: "Okay, number one, Your Honor, just look at him."
Frito: "He talks like a fag too."
Prosecutor: "And B, we got all this, like, evidence of how, like, this guy didn't even pay at the hospital. And I heard that he doesn't even have his tattoo. I know! And I'm all, 'You've gotta be shittin' me.' But check this out, man. Judge should be like, 'Guilty'. Peace."
is what I have read insofar. I had zits (and sex -- HR's explanation) that produced such stains. My point is exactly that this is not evidence "beyond a reasonable doubt" for any reasonable definition of "reasonable" :-)
It's better to be the foot on the boot than the face on the pavement. ~~ tkx Kadin2048
I think it was more likely Nina's blood in the CRX(which hans had been witnessed trying to hose out), the missing car seat, the heated divorce, and the custody dispute that got this guy convicted. He is guilty. Justice was served. I don't buy for a second that "traits of asperger's" caused all that.
FOXTROT UNIFORM CHARLIE KILO
Badass Resumes
Hans goes to prison, serves sentence, goes out free.
His wife is found healthy and alive.
He captures her and murders her in a very public and very gory way.
He goes free, can't be sentenced twice for the same crime.
45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
Jury of peers my ass!
Epic. Just epic.
I'm not commenting on whether or not he is innocent or guilty, I'm just stating my impression that allot of his behaviors in court that led the jurors to convict him were not related to guilt but are typical behaviors seen Asperger's - such as deficits in episodic memory. You would be surprised how many court cases hinge on jurors early impressions of the indited suspect rather then tangible evidence. Having read more about the case, I agree that it is very likely that he is guilty.
I can definitely see how Asperger's traits can be mistaken for acting guilty.
FOXTROT UNIFORM CHARLIE KILO
The books about murder investigations he ALLEGEDLY bought are proof enough. He's a genius engineer, are they seriously suggesting he would RTFM?
I've seen her body - on a card in a London phone booth. And for thirty quid, anyone can see it for real!
How many of the people that are falsely convicted are really innocent? Maybe they didn't commit the crime they are convicted of, but many are career criminals. As a school career advisor once told me: "Choose your career wisely". Juries will be less likely to believe a scumbag.
He is going against his ethics. Open source guy committing a closed source muder?
Based on what I've heard the case against him was weak.
There was more evidence of against OJ and he walked.
I just had a thought. The children have been sent to relatives in Russia, what if the wife worked out that if she "disappeared under suspicious circumstances" and went back to Russia then her husband would never get custody even if he was cleared. She gets the kids, he takes the fall, any life insurance she has gets paid to grandmother, she rejoins family and children in a few months after the press stop looking at the case.
Crack pot theory, yes,but its better than some of the ones that have turned out true.
AM i the only person that uses FAT32 and has 4GB,5GB,6GB,7GB,8GB single files on it.Granted these are ISO images not documents. Does it matter? I have burned DVDs from these files without issue.
I am an attorney. I try jury cases, civil litigation these days, but I worked for a short stint as a prosecutor. I have selected many jurors.
I can tell you first off that most attorneys do NOT want engineers on their juries. The reason is not at all that we don't want critical thinkers. Rather, it's because most engineers are a lot more like Hans Reiser than they would like to admit. Engineers have a tendency to glorify logic to the point that they ignore common sense. The law, and particularly criminal law, is not a science. No one can conclusively proove that a person committed a crime in the same way that a mathematician can prove his theorums. Engineers also tend to be arrogant, and tend to believe that they know more than everyone else about everything. I ought to know, my brother is one. And so the fear is that engineers will have a marked tendency to consider the evidence in an unfair way, to ignore what the lawyers say about the evidence, and to bully everyone else in the jury room into a point of view that does not give due credit to all of the circumstances and the evidence.
Take Reiser's case. The man is so obviously guilty it reeks. An Engineer might say, well they haven't even proved that she's dead. But somehow we are supposed to believe that she left a car full of groveries on the side of the road, failed to show up to her best friend's house, and left her kids in the hands of a man that she hates so that she could fly away to Russia? That's ridiculous. A lawyer would say that you don't have to prove something as absolutely true, but only beyond a *reasonable* doubt. It isn't reasonable to believe that this woman left her car, her groceries, her friends, and her kids to fly off to Russia, where nobody has heard from her since.
Think about it, if the prosecution had to have a body every time they tried someone for murder, than any murderer who found a good enough hiding spot for the body would get off. That may be scientifically sound, but it's not justice.
Now take the fact that they found Nina's blood in Reiser's house, and on his sleeping bag. He removed his car seat from his car, and flooded the compartment to try to wash it, and left an inch of water in there. Then he claims he was sleeping in his car. Is there any other reasonable explanation than that this car was used to transport a body? Sure, you can come up with other explanations, but none of them are *reasonable* The books on murder, the suspicious behavior, etc., are just icing on the cake.
But the reality is that a good attorney might have had a chance to get Reiser off, despite his glaring guilt. "Beyond a reasonable doubt" is a damn high burden to meet, and often times a good lawyer can inject enough uncertainty into a case to keep the jury from reaching that threshhold. But when Reiser took the stand, he basically removed all chance of that happening. He apparently gave some completely ridiculous explanations to some very important questions, like why in gods name would anyone use a hose to wash out their car and then leave an inch of standing water in there, when that is where they sleep. So basically, Reiser made what could have been reasonable doubts sound completely unreasonable. And that is why he was convicted, and not because of his arrogance or disdain towards humanity (although I'm sure that didn't help him either).
Er, hang an a minute
Only three things are certain; death, taxes, and apocryphal quotations - Ben Franklin.
He's going to have to be very very very very good in prison. Considering his eagerness to please authority figures, I doubt it.
>The fact that Sturgeon had motivation to see Reiser put away adds to that possibility, in my opinion.
If anyone feels strongly enough, they can have private detectives keep an eye on Sturgeon, and maybe try to find Nina.
There might be some money in it. Finding Nina would mean a big black eye to California. Good luck with that.
Maybe you can get Reiser to tell you, within say, a 50 mile radius, where the car seat was.
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
"Zen is total bullshit. When you realize that fact, you have mastered Zen."
Which is the master, which is the bullshit?
Play Command HQ online
Reiserfs is a killer file system.
I don't think Hans Reiser ever bothered to watch The Simpsons.
"Drunken hicks of the jury..." --> chain gang.
Seriously, what kind of a moronic idiot would blabbermouth to the jury when he doesn't need to?
Speaking in your own defense is a gesture both of defiance and panic. It says to the jury "Hey, my case is going so rotten that I have to open my big fat mouth to defend myself even though the constitution says I don't have to", as well as a smartassed "Woo hoo I'm such a hotshot I can defend myself even when I'm facing first degree murder charges".
The ONLY time you SHOULD speak up is if you are forced to, and legally, you can only be forced to if you have immunity. In the case where you are being detained as a terrorist or are otherwise being deprived of your constitutional rights, you should still keep your mouth shut.
Ordinarily, I'd stick up for him purely out of geek pride. However, IMHO his sheer stupidity is grounds for revoking his geek card, and with what I now hear of hash collisions in ReiserFS causing directory garbage (silent corruption, always a MAJOR no-no in ANY situation, especially a kernel based file system), I feel more at ease that his conviction will not ruin too many things even if ReiserFS were to go belly up.
I honestly do hope that, in the interests of pure justice, the final verdict will accurately reflect the facts. But he no longer has my sympathy as a fellow geek.
And his company is likely to be sold off anyway. Even if he does eventually beat the guilty verdict, he's liable for wrongful death. Simply being convicted of murder is prima facie evidence in a civil lawsuit. He'll probably go bankrupt even if he DOES avoid prison. Just like OJ.
Hans Reiser, if you want to keep your geek card, then please keep your goddamned mouth SHUT.
So your wife is missing, and the cops are asking questions; we're assuming that they're trying to find her and any clue would help. However, you ask if you're under arrest, you are told that you are not. Then you say nothing further, get up, and leave.
Don't you thus become the prime suspect in a jiffy?
At the very least you're not helping the cause, which might be to actually find your wife. So how does one navigate this one?
The prosecutor was also able to exclude the testimony of a guy called Sturgeon,
The prosecutor was unable to exclude the testimony. They prosecutor got the judge to rule that the confession couldn't be mentioned unless Sturgeon was called, something the defense was unwilling to do. If Sturgeon was called by either side to testify, the confessions would be fair game. The prosecutor didn't see any benefit to calling him, and the defense was probably unwilling to call a nut to the stand that had a non-zero chance of confessing to assassinating Lincoln, making the defense look stupid and desperate, not giving a credible new suspect.
Learn to love Alaska
The Wired article referenced in this /. story was remarkably poorly written. It did a poor job of showing why Reiser was found guilty beyond a reasonable doubt (the appropriate burden of proof in murder cases). Merely being "rude", "annoying", long-winded, and giving implausible explanations for the scant evidence provided shouldn't make someone guilty of murder. The article conveys no clear sense that this trial is an appropriate test of the prosecution: if the prosecution didn't make their case, the defendant is supposed to go free. The American system of justice is supposed to err on the side of letting murderers go free rather than convict the innocent. Toward the end of the article we get a gem in the same vein as how the judge found Reiser's attitude (the judge is quoted as saying "There are not enough words in the English language to describe the way you are.". Wired retorts "But the jurors found a word on Monday: guilty.").
Wired treats the reader to a series of highly suspicious bits of evidence (a waterlogged car, blood on a pedestal in Reiser's house, etc.) but no summary connecting the evidence into a cohesive argument with expert testimony. Nothing to show us readers that the prosecution's story is beyond reasonable doubt and no critical commentary to explain the apparent disparity between the lack of prosecutorial obligation and the end result. After reading the Wired article I'm left to conclude that the prosecution simply didn't meet their burden. Thus I'm compelled to ask: Was the jury so pissed off at Reiser's demeanor (which the judge was said to describe as "rude" and "arrogant") that they were allowed to forget their obligation to make the prosecution prove its case? Was the judge (who comes off in the Wired article as amazingly unprofessional) unwilling to set aside the jury's verdict and enter a not guilty verdict because the prosecution didn't do their job?
Perhaps this is just another instance of corporate media simply not doing their job.
Digital Citizen
A nerd that doesn't know when to shut up? WHY I NEVER
is my advice to Reiser when (and if) he manages to get out of jail.
I don't think it wasn't allowed. I think that neither lawyer called him. That's important. The defense lawyer didn't call him either (or I misunderstood the portion of the trial liveblog that I read)
I have a lot of opinions about Cyborgs and Architects
JFK, moon landing, 9/11, Paul is dead ....
So to you who utterly proclaim she is alive in Russia with her kids, why don't you hire a detective to put the kids or her mother under surveillance? She will show up, maybe she is already there. I know it would be expensive but if enough of you chip in it wouldn't be that bad. And if you TRULY believe he is innocent don't you have a moral requirement to at least chip in $50 or $100 to help out?
Is it possible that Hans' lawyers already did this and came up empty? I don't know, but that might have been money well spent by the defense. Or maybe the lawyers declined to waste the money this way since they believed this theory was a load of crap.
My conscience is clear, I think he is guilty as hell but those of you who are wringing your hands, perhaps put you could put together a "Free Hans" foundation investigate the location of the wife. First step would be for some TRUE BELIEVERS to step up and look at everything in the court transcripts and post it online, highlight interesting/important parts and post it online. I get the feeling once people calm down a bit in a week or so no one is going to do anything at all.
would that affect anything?
... the Feds
or a gun firm?
or was close to a senator
or worked at newscorp?
or someone at the rifle association
or someone in washington
or some high chief in the police force
or DOHS
or hehehehe
(complete list is longer)
I'm not saying the verdict would be the opposite.
I'm asking what other parameters would be required to convict him like this, without a decent amount of proof of *murder*?
It's real murder, as in *death* of a woman, not one of Hans' MMPORG or violence favs.
Hackers have long memories. It works both ways.
"If Nina ever shows up alive, she's in trouble."
Not only she. Many more.
"The argument relies on Russia being a lawless place where a person of international interest can simply disappear. That may be true to some degree, but she has to *remain* disappeared for *life* "
Not exactly.
"What's she getting out of this that would make such a difficult life worthwhile?"
New face after surgery. New life. New husband. New many things, if she so arranges.
Of course, all that is IF she is alive, which is the whole point.
Hackers have long memories. It works both ways.
99.9% of murderers get caught because there was a motive to the murder, and motive induces doubt. Hans did have a motive - and whether there was hard evidence linking him to the crime or not, it doesn't place Hans beyond reasonable doubt.
In other words, if 12 people (your peers) agree on their doubts of you, even without the hard evidence linking him to the crime scene, you can kiss your ass good bye.
So the question Hans should've been asking himself before he offed his wife, was "Am I/my story believeable enough to others?" - which he obviously hadn't....
'A lie if repeated often enough, becomes the truth.' - Goebbels
I certainly hope the would not find him guilty of murder because of his horrible demeanor.
So Skulldilocks threw acid on the schoolchildrens' faces, cause somebody from the bible told her to do it!
Asperger's (for those just tuning in) results in people not understanding, or picking up on people's social "cues". A lot of this may result in him giving answers to questions which are asinine - but to him - may seem quite logical - as he wouldn't understand why one would find them awkward. People with Asperger's understand things more literally, and can't "read between the lines" as others might.
This said - he may have believed his answers to be very logical - and not understand why someone else wouldn't think the same. Either way, regardless of what he thinks or feels about him - his answers were very out-to-lunch to the point of being unplausable.
If he answered "I don't know how that got there - I must have been framed" to so many of his questions, I'd probably be more apt to possibly believe there was a chance that that was true - but the ridiculous answers he gave - one after another - each one more rediculous than the next...
So maybe Asperger's would lead him to not understand why those answers were so unbelievable - but didn't change the fact that those were his answers. It didn't make him guilty - it just made him a less credible liar.
Hmmm - like the new Slashdot GUI... Anyway, as an old acquaintence of Hans, I've seen him at numerous parties in the Bay Area around early 90's. I think the last time I saw him was at the 1996 MacWorld Expo "Digital Be-in". As far as I know, he would be the LEAST likeley of killing Risa. Although I never Met Risa, because I lost contact with him sometime in 1995, and he had met her a few years after that.
I know he was a brilliant programmer, most of us were back in the 90's before outsourcing ruined THAT field.
I think his biggest mistake was to pressure his attorney to let him on the witness stand in the first place. Everytime he opened his mouth he dug another shovelfull for his grave.
his arrogance did nothing but piss off the jurers, most of whom didn't want to be there in the first place. Anyone who as ever done Jury duty before can certainly understand how delays totally suck.
I didn't think his attorney was that good in Allowing him on the witness stand in the first place. Things started to fall apart for him after that.
For me, I was so surprised he was being a jerk, I had never known him in that state of mind, but with being in the slammer, is sure to mess up anyones mind.
I must admit, although they didn't find her body, and it doesn't surprise me if I later learn she's somewhere in "Mother Russia", which is a very big place.
IMHO, her intentions were not noble either. Me thinks her ONLY goal was to get to the USA and start her career, and marrying a Yank is a sure way to do that. I mean, she was soliciting on a dating web site, so her intentions were pretty clear to me.
And this so called friend of his, Sean Stergion (Who I thankfully have never met) has never even been investigated. Shame on the defense by not persuing an investigation.
Hans has done some pretty stupid things, leading the prosecution to suspect him, and Han's paranoia also didn't help him.
He is obviously clueless on how the legal system works, but IMHO opinion, I don't think he killed her. Even finding her blood in the car does not mean he killed her, perhaps might have hurt her, but IMHO, she would have to get him so totally pissed of to act that way. It just doesn't sound like Hans.
I guess we won't hear much more about this story until the sentencing, whenever that's going to happen. I've been following the case once it was brought to my attention late last year. Horray for "Wired" for the gavel to gavel coverage.
I have removed my seats and occasionally hose out the interior as well. I own a Jeep and that is part of the joy of owning one. You can hose them out quite easily and the seats are easy to remove. Just saying!
Huh?
I realize this comment is 2 days late...
[Hans]...should never have been permitted, by his attorney, to take the stand.
According to the article, Hans' attorney DIDN'T want him to take the stand, but Hans did so anyway.
In addition (in the U.S.), the attorney simply couldn't keep Hans from taking the stand - it isn't up to the attorney. The attorney offers advice, which the client is free to disregard.
Criminal defendants can also represent themselves, and not even HAVE an attorney (although in those cases, the judge will often appoint a public defender to make sure the defedant gets some advice, mostly about court procedure and to advise on not making mistakes that will result in a totally skewed trial).
Just wanted to let you know that the attorney couldn't have prevented Hans from taking the stand.
I just had to make it 1337 comments.
And sickening. You disrespect the memory of Nina Reiser with every word that spills from your vile fingers.
No different from those who say the passengers on 9/11 faked their deaths and the "planes" were missiles. Then go on to speculate about what those people are doing. You people are disconnected from reality and it is disgusting.
I should point out that the argument I made about the passport is equally valid regarding her bank account and her cellphone. If she cleaned out her bank account, people would know she was running. If she accessed it remotely, she could be tracked. Same if she used her cellphone.
In fact, that takes care of EVERY ONE of your reasons for claiming you "doubt" she ran. All of them fall down under scrutiny. And the possibility that she did in fact leave voluntarily becomes that much more plausible.
If I wanted it to appear that I had died or disappeared, then I would definitely make my car look abandoned. That is Misdirection 101. And it would be incredibly stupid of me to use my passport, bank account, or cellphone. Those would be the FIRST things to be left behind.
No, because of his unbelievable testimony. I'm unable to comprehend why the GGP of this post thinks that a judge alone is likely to be more lenient than this jury was. The judge was clearly not impressed with Reiser's behaviour during the trial and there's no reason to believe that the judge found Reiser's evidence any more compelling than the jury did.
No text necessary.
They don't grade fathers, but if your daughter's a stripper, you fucked up. --Chris Rock
All they saw was a smart man telling them they were idiots. And that, they don't like. So they voted for the lynching.
Or they were simply convinced he killed her (i.e. doing their job). Probably only Hans and Nina know for sure, but I can see why he was convicted.
you had me at #!
n/t
you had me at #!
I know I'll be branded elitist for saying this, but if you think /. constitutes any kind of elite, you really need to look that word up.
Only in America is it pejorative. What's with that?
you had me at #!
Looks like we're regressing.
Somebody's been paying attention!!
you had me at #!
If one accepts the prosecution's case, then wilful, deliberate, and premeditated not to mention intent to inflict death would seem to fit pretty neatly.
you had me at #!
seen silence of the lambs
That's a MOVIE. This case is REAL LIFE. One has nothing to do with the other, despite popular belief.
you had me at #!
n / t
you had me at #!
Probably a lot of the youngsters here won't believe it, but particularly in the area he works in, you can do a hell of a lot with pen and paper.
He's internalised the design of R3 and R4, and probably has a roadmap in his head beyond that. If he's allowed to communicate code/designs with the outside world, he could get a great deal done during his sentence. And I hope that happens, because R3 is a fantastic piece of work and R4 pushed things in even more interesting directions.
Some people here can't separate the crime from the man's works. The work of Namesys stands separate from Hans' family's tragic implosion (whatever actually happened).
you had me at #!
no text at all
you had me at #!
All he had to do was locate Nina in Russia.
While I commented above that she should be able to "disappear" there, she did not seem to have a compelling reason to do so, unless she was already scared that Hans was crazy enough to kill her (and would follow her to Russia to do so).
Hans had a slightly better chance of tracking her down, and he would have been very, very, very motivated to do so, after being charged. But we never heard about any attempts (since he was already locked up, I imagine any attempts were formally through Russian authorities and doomed to failure).
you had me at #!
"We may not even bother to charge you, but even if we do, we'll certainly kick you around in Hotel Guantanamo for a few years first, You Filthy Enemy of Capitalism."
you had me at #!
customs agents on both sides of the border can make arbitrary decisions
Yes, been burned by such an "arbitrary", "instinctive" decision. Made in approximately 2 seconds by an agent to deny entry to the US at Toronto Airport, after approximately eight trips into the US at the same entry point for exactly the same reason (business meeting).
Well, it's no great loss for me, the US has nothing I want :)
you don't ask a SQL database engineer to do assembly code programming
I have no trouble doing both well. YMMV.
you had me at #!
the sudden revelation that any clueless jackhole can build a filesystem
Unfortunately for your ambitions, that's simply not true. :)
Whatever happened in his personal life, Reiser and his team did/are doing a beautiful design and engineering job on R3 and R4.
you had me at #!
Murder is not always 100% wrong all the time no exceptions.
Civilisation to CodyRazor: You've spent way too much time in Hollywood land.
you had me at #!
...Because it's well engineered, fast and rock solid.
I've seen ext3 lose a disk. I've never seen R3 lose anything, and that's after decades of runtime and many pull-plug tests on various colocated servers, desktops, laptops, etc.
Besides, the engineering of the filesystems has nothing to do with Hans' personal life. I am hoping he will be able to continue his filesystem work from prison even if it's just with pen and paper; at least society will gain some benefit.
you had me at #!
He wasn't rich.
As for "success" - even in /.-land, do you *really* think that being a filesystem genius with your product in the kernel is going to pull glamorous Russian chicks? Women turned on by success and money are looking for a nicer car than a CRX and a little more in the bank than Hans' overdrawn accounts and failing business.
Next theory?
you had me at #!
Don't ever serve on a jury.
you had me at #!
They're terrible (I guess they sent the intern). I prescribe 10 years of art school to whoever did these cartoons.
you had me at #!
If not, STFU. Your post is a string of non sequiturs.
you had me at #!
(Not that I've ever seen a bug in it.)
you had me at #!
You're not the first person to make that stupid string of words that you think is funny; but I sure hope you're the last. *PLONK*
you had me at #!
Life isn't a movie.
you had me at #!