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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.
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/
you should see the moron he has for counsel!
He didn't represent himself. He took the stand in his own defense.
Personally I am blown away by the incompetence of the defense attorney. Clearly he must have understood Reiser (guilty or not) would not help his case by testifying. He should never have been put on the stand.
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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.
No kidding. I would really like to see a poll of the jury members, and if they would change their votes if they had been told that Hans's ex-friend (the wife's new dude) had confessed to killing 8 people.
Some facts are prejudicial.
Some facts are prejudicial for a very good reason.
I'd like to see numbers on how that would have changed things.
Too bad ReiserFS will probably die. I'm going to guess that they won't be giving him his own computer in prison to continue development with. I wonder if someone else will effectively try to step up and take control of the project, or it will just lose all it's momentum (not that it didn't in the last few years anyway).
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
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.
It's written in his journal!
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.
RTFA, Reiser's defense attorney didn't want to put him on the stand, but Reiser insisted.
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.)"
>Too bad ReiserFS will probably die
I'm guessing it will disappear in the middle of the night, never to be heard from again. Police will arrest the xfs maintainer on chargest, the evidence being that neighbors saw him carry out what could have been a backup tape wrapped in a roll of carpet in the middle of the night.
Heh.
From the SFGate blog article: "After the verdict was read, the judge told deputies to remove Reiser from the courtroom. As he was led out, he asked, 'Can I talk to my attorney?'"
How about next time, Hans tries listening to his attorney?
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.
In all likelihood, Reiser's lawyer did not want to put Reiser on the stand. However, it is generally accepted "[i]n a criminal case, [a] lawyer shall abide by the client's decision, after consultation with the lawyer...whether the client will testify." It is assumed that the right of a client to testify in criminal cases is a constitutional right. See Nix v. Whiteside, 475 U.S. 157, para. 16. Even if the client's testimony can only hurt the defense, the lawyer must allow the client to testify if the client so insists. To do otherwise would be unethical and impair the client's rights.
For an interesting review of historical views on 'N' (and Blackstone's criteria in general), see http://www.law.ucla.edu/volokh/guilty.htm.
Reiser's case isn't a capital one. In California IIRC, first-degree murder is only a capital offense when specific aggravated circumstances are present, none of which really apply to this case (ie, killing a cop, felony murder, torture, etc).
Jesus is coming -- look busy!
Actually he's a shitty programmer and a megalomaniac. Anybody who had to endure his prolonged self-aggrandizement at the expense of the readers of the linux-kernel mailing list know that he was long on self-esteem and short on delivery. All that ever came out of his years of talking about how awesom he is were four versions of an unreliable filesystem with bad performance.
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?
Mod parent up. I recently was called for jury duty and was directly asked the question "Do you agree with the statement that is it better to have five guilty men go free then put one innocent man in jail?" by the defense attorney. I think my response was something like "of course," and I remember being shocked that a significant number of potential jurors did not agree. Afterwards, though, I realized that the question really breaks down to "what's an acceptable false positive rate?" 1 in 10? 1 in 100? It made me realize the situation is not as clear cut as I originally thought. Sure, I can barely imagine the horror of being an innocent man in prison, but the fact is that you do need to accept some error rate to live in a lawful society.
Uh.
Hans' friend didn't kill anyone. The police investigated him and cleared him. If he'd testified on the stand, he'd be committing perjury too. Besides, I've read the transcripts. Nobody had Sean Sturgeon on their witness lists. The defense could have called him but didn't.
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)
The defense attorney was fresh out of tranquilizer darts. Besides, Hans' mouth had journalled the transaction.
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)
Modding Trolls +1 inciteful since 1999
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
"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
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
The police investigated and concluded he's a nutcase because Sturgeon couldn't demonstrate that he'd actually killed eight people. And if putting Sturgeon in jail solves eight unsolved murders at the cost of freeing Reiser, well, if I were a cop I'd happily make that trade.
Given that Sturgeon's a fameseeking whackjob, it's certainly correct that his 'confession' should not have been allowed in court to affect Reiser's trial.
Anyone who loves or hates any language, platform, or manufacturer, doesn't know what they're talking about.
She wasn't a doctor, though. She was a "child physician", a title that lacks a counterpart in the US, and is often incorrectly translated to doctor. It doesn't give MD status, is a low-paid job in Russia, and is in reality closer to a midwife with prescription rights.
But no, it's pretty clear that she would not abandon her kids like that. And who, if planning to run away, would buy $140 worth of groceries and leave it in their car?
Let's hope the killer is man enough to now tell where the body was disposed of, so the family can find some closure.
I had that exact experience. ReiserFS is very unstable; any benefits that it could possibly have in terms of speed are far outweighed by the inherent danger to your files. I know that, yes, there may be some circumstances where someone would be willing to make that tradeoff. However, after seeing a ResierFS partition truly crash and burn, I would never consider using it in either a personal or professional application. And I would seriously laugh at anyone who really couldn't think of a better alternative.
The arrogant and abusive response thing is actually common to a lot of open source communities; Reiser wasn't the only one. I think it's more common (and more violent) where a criticism on the product could be interpreted as a personal attack on the author(s) (for instance, where one main author is largely responsible for the project or its main design), but it does happen quite a lot.
Oh, and the nagware/begware messages on all the Reiser package utilities were the most annoying things I've ever seen. Almost forgot about those.
I'd suspect that they'd remove one of the disks from the project's RAID array, write zeroes over the partition map, and claim that it's because they need the space for porn. Perfectly reasonable explanation, I suppose.
...he created one killer file system!
Reiser fsck YOU!
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
>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.
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/
they found non-trivial amounts of her blood in his car... they haven't needed a body for 20 years.
Actually, a defense attorney almost never wants his client to testify, because---to be frank---most of them are guilty as sin and lousy liars. But a lot of them are really arrogant and think they'll have the jury eating out of their hands. Those guys are a prosecutor's dream. You can have the toughest case in the world, and then the defendant gets on the stand, and makes your case for you (kind of like Hans Reiser did).
And just because I have to (yes, I really do)... Yes, IAAL, but I don't represent you, and this is not legal advice. If you are charged with a crime and you rely on this post as legal advice, you are a moron. Actually, if you rely on any post on Slashdot as legal advice for any reason, you are a moron. Also, I do patents, copyrights and trademark, not murder. So assume I don't know what I'm talking about.
Today's Sesame Street was brought to you by the number e.
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!
They have NEVER needed a body. Actually having a body has never been a requirement for bringing or convicting on a murder charge. It's too easy to dispose of a body--cremation, hell, simple burial if you're good at concealing where you dug the grave.
Habeas corpus? It's not just a legal term, it's a question in Latin. That's why they're saying you have to have a body; they don't understand that *habeas corpus* is a metaphor, and that having abundant physical evidence that a crime was committed (large quantities of blood, anyone?) is usually enough.
Habeas refers to the _defendant's_ body. You have bring the person to court, demonstrate that he hasn't been killed or tortured, and publicly announce the charges. Habeas corpus does not refer to victim's bodies. For a nice history of Habeas, see Habeas Schmabeas.
What changed under Obama? Nothing Good
Not quite -- At the most basic level, Habeas Corpus is the principle that the government must bring the accused to a public court and publicly let him know what the charges are. This is the whole problem with Guantanamo -- we never get to see the defendant (was he tortured? is he alive?) and nobody gets to hear the charges, not even the accused. Habeas was developed in England before the US even became a nation to prevent Government abuse. Looks like we're regressing.
What changed under Obama? Nothing Good
...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.
And just because I have to (yes, I really do)... Yes, IAAL, but I don't represent you, and this is not legal advice. If you are charged with a crime and you rely on this post as legal advice, you are a moron. Actually, if you rely on any post on Slashdot as legal advice for any reason, you are a moron. Also, I do patents, copyrights and trademark, not murder. So assume I don't know what I'm talking about.
New initialism: IANYL - I Am Not Your Lawyer.
You are right. Believe it or not, the "body" in question is that of the accused.
Breakfast served all day!
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.
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.
There was a famous murder case where the murderer dissolved people in acid because he misunderstood habeas corpus to mean it was impossible to convict someone of murder if the victim's body could not be found. He was completely wrong of course and got pwned by the noose.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_George_Haigh
There's a good film about him too
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0327392/
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
But no, it's pretty clear that she would not abandon her kids like that.
And if she is alive (I'm not convinced either way), she didn't. Her mom took her kids to Russia.
And who, if planning to run away, would buy $140 worth of groceries and leave it in their car?
Someone trying to frame their spouse.
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?
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.
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.
However, based on the evidence presented in court, they found that there was reasonable doubt he was guilty, and thus let him walk.
That's their duty. It's not to decide if someone's probably guilty, it's to decide whether the prosecution proved their case. The reason for this is that it's a far greater injustice to convict an innocent person than to let a guilty one go free.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
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).