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Hans Reiser Leads Police To Nina's Body
jlmcgraw was the first to alert us that Hans Reiser has led police to the location in the Oakland Hills where he buried the body of his wife Nina. (We discussed the rumor that he would do so last month.) SFGate.com reports that remains were recovered but have not yet been identified. Reiser is to be sentenced on Wednesday. CBS5 claims that Reiser made a deal for a reduced sentence, to 15 years, in exchange for revealing the body.
I feel bad for the kids - that is such a messed up situation.
It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
All you people who said "I still don't believe Hans did it" -- do you doubt it now?
My blog
I held out so much hope all during the trial process that Hans wasn't guilty. And even after he'd been convicted, I held onto the cynical thought that Nina was alive and well somewhere in Russia, laughing at all of this, and that someday it would all be revealed as a fraud.
Good luck, Hans.
Thanks to the War on Drugs, it's easier to buy meth than it is to buy cold medicine!
Even after the conviction, given the circumstantial case some doubts remained. This certainly removes all remaining doubts.
FINALLY
Does this whole situation affect your choice of file system? Personally, I would have to say so. This is a very sad story. There is something very morbid about using the work of a murderer.
It's unfortunate. A woman is dead, and the large majority of the tech community (myself included) has egg on their faces. We wanted to believe it wasn't true... well, the proof is in the pudding.
-Vendal Thornheart
There are two archetypes of nerds, which oddly parallel serial killer archetypes: disorganized and spontaneously creative vs organized and methodically calculating.
The M.O. he demonstrated in the crime indicates the disorganized type.
If he were the methodical type, his crime might not have even been noticed.
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
No matter how much we argue or try to make "programming jokes" about this incident the truth is these kids' mother is dead, their father is going away for a long time and they are going to be the ones bearing one of the heaviest burdens in this particular case.
How very Christian of you.
Jeremy
He duped a minority, methinks.
There were lots of us who thought he probably did it: the "she ran away" excuse just never floated, and there was too much stupid circumstantial excuses (I don't care HOW much of a geek you are, doing BOTh the seat AND flooding the car AND saying you slept in the wet sopping car is just ridiculous)
Test your net with Netalyzr
there is nothing more sad then the Truth
...then the Truth what?
Do it yourself, because no one else will do it yourself. [beta blockade 10-17 Feb]
Oh, come off it ... there was no reasonable doubt. Doubt that isn't reasonable isn't sufficient to let him walk, and the *jury* - not the prosecutor - got it right.
Bottom lne: Hans tried to bullshit them, and they saw through it. If he had shut his moutn, maybe he would have walked, but he thought he could "put one over" on a bunch of "dumb jurors."
He forgot that jurors don't have to be smarter than the accused - in his case, all they needed was a baloney-meter.
You're an ass, nobody deserves that. I know you're a troll, but you're also sadly indicative of a lot of people's attitudes towards prison rape.
Dealing with lawyers would be a lot less tedious if they all looked like Casey Novak.
Fixed that for you. Being a decent person has very little to do with religion.
I hope he gets his in prison.
As understandable as the sentiment is, that won't bring Nina Reiser back. I've lost a loved one to a drunk driver, and it isn't much comfort that the bastard went to prison. I hope his kids get a little bit of peace from the fact that at least they have a final answer on the matter, and that they'll be able to visit their mother's grave. This is just really sad; everybody involved loses.
512 MB RAM, 20 GB disk, 200 GB transfer, five datacenters. $19.95/month.
all the people from LA.
last time I saw that sort of hopeful thinking it was kobe and people saying he didnt cheat on his wife. And he did. We all love our heros, dont we?
Well, heros are usually only good at the one thing they are touted for... im not asking kobe to fix my car for sure.
With all the smart people around here, why would anyone think that a computer programmer is any less suceptible to violent acts than any other?
I mean, is it just because computer geeks are well known as the most well adjusted people on the planet? :)
There's nothing Intelligent about Intelligent Design.
He may have had knowledge of the murder, and use that to reduce the sentence.
I would be interested in your theories of how he could have had knowledge of the murder and not be guilty.
OK, here's a serious answer: his guilt or innocence does not, in any way, change the fact that he was convicted on scant evidence.
It's not the destination that matters, it's the journey. A broken system can send an innocent man to jail as easily as a guilty one.
How we know is more important than what we know.
You're asking the wrong question.
The question to ask is whether Reiser should have been convicted. At the time, I thought it was more likely than not that he had done it, but I also thought there wasn't enough physical evidence to convict him beyond a reasonable doubt.
Of course, one can't know what exactly went through the jury's minds, so we should give them the benefit of the doubt. However, I do find it worrisome that several jurors basically said that they convicted him because they didn't like him.
Maybe he was angry with her because she was having an affair. He bought a gun out of anger, but didn't want to kill her. He goes home, to find her with her lover. In a struggle with the lover, the lover the lover wrests the gun from Hans. He's got the gun pointed at Hans, who reveals that his wife has in fact ANOTHER lover. In anger, the lover shoots Nina and flees. Hans has no idea who he was, and Nina dies sadly in his arms. The only way he can avoid blame for the murder (having just legally purchased the gun) is to bury Nina himself. In the end, Hans feels responsible for her death, having driven her away from him due to his obsession with work, and of course, the foolish decision to buy the guy. He sees only too late that he should forgiven her for such a minor human flaw, and if he had, then he would still be with her.
Umm, I kinda doubt that's going to happen, can you imagine the response to his participating in discussion threads on kernel.org?
For similar reasons, I kinda doubt he'll be returning to Slashdot. Or at least, not with his current login.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
I don't want to sound like I'm defending murder here, but not I nor you nor anyone else know what Nina did to make him kill her.
Murder is illegal. That is a good thing. He got caught after killing someone, he pays the price. That is well and good.
But I don't think we should be saying things like "evil" and "I hope he dies of AIDS in jail" until you know the facts of the situation, and what she did to make him kill her. Sure, maybe it was nothing, and he's just a psychopath - but maybe it was years of abuse, in which case I have quite a lot of difficulty blaming him completely.
I've seen marriages so sick and dysfunctional I almost wish one of the parties would kill the other. Everyone's life would get better if one of them just did it. Some people lead such sick, disgraceful lives that I have little guilt in thinking the world would be better of without them in it.
Killing someone because you want their money, or you don't like the colour of their skin, is a crime against humanity itself and anyone who does that's life is forfeit, in my opinion. But killing someone after they inflict years of mental abuse? The matter is far less black and white. Illegal, yes. Wrong, too .. maybe. Certainly not optimal. But evil?
Some people have it coming. I'm not saying one way or the other here, OK. I don't know Mr Reiser, nor have I any emotional investment one way or the other. I just don't believe murder is always the heinous evil crime some might think. Sometimes, it's the wheel of karma turning. Sometimes, it's a public service.
Of course, we don't know, and will likely never know, what caused the murder. But have we all decided anyway?
Maybe Reiser is a sick psychopathic fuck who kills for kicks. Maybe Nina had it coming. Who knows? Not you or I. So let's lay off the fire and brimstone, what do you say?
"We'll become monsters too" is not at all based on Christian morality, although it doesn't contradict it either. It's entirely orthogonal (I'm an atheist).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Justice
Apparently you are a hardcore retributivist. I'm closest to a utilitarian by this scale.
Torturing him doesn't really help anything and is just an asshole manouevre. In my opinion, it's not that one becomes a monster by torturing another, it's that one already is a monster for wanting to torture.
I'm not happy for Hans Reiser's suffering. I'm happy to prevent him from causing any more suffering, and in all fairness, if somebody has to suffer it should be the one who forced the issue.
Was Fabio on the cover of this book?
As part of the deal that was discussed, CBS News learned that Reiser's mandated sentence of 25 years to life sentence could be cut to 15 years to life. Such an agreement would entail a judge allowing Reiser's conviction to be reduced to second-degree murder.
Emphasis is mine. It's not guaranteed that he'll get a reduced sentence.
512 MB RAM, 20 GB disk, 200 GB transfer, five datacenters. $19.95/month.
I think the conviction (first degree murder, i.e. preplanned) is still ridiculous. The evidence for preplanning was very weak. Part of it was that Hans bought a book about murder investigations--but he bought it AFTER Nina's disappearance. You'd think someone planning a murder and wanting to foil an investigation would buy the book BEFORE doing the deed. Another part was that he removed his cell phone battery to avoid being tracked--again AFTER the disappearance. I've been neutral about Hans's possible innocence (60% of Wired Magazine readers in a survey thought he was innocent) but I always thought the premeditation charge was ridiculous. If it was preplanned there are a million less crazy ways he could have done it, such as hiring professionals from Russia or at least making better arrangements to get rid of the body far away. I've felt it more plausible that he lost self-control in the heat of an argument, found himself with a dead wife and a potential giant heap of trouble, and then, after the fact, decided (unsuccessfully) to try to outrun/outsmart the police. That would be second degree murder rather than first, if I remember my Perry Mason reruns.
If I were separated from my wife and bound by a restraining order, and she was having sex with her new lover IN MY HOUSE, I would probably kill her, too.
"You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows." - Bob Dylan
After being out-of-order in court, he spilled the encryptic details about where his wife was stored and from there on, the jury knew he was corrupted. Strangely enough, due to his cooperation, officials didn't even have to raid his home...
You know what though...? inode he was a criminal all along.
There, I'm glad to have gotten that out of my system.
Fact: Everything I say is fiction.
I just thought of something. Maybe he thought his nerd fame carried some weight "on the street." To put it as nerdily as I can, the union of the set of people who care about a filesystem and the legal system is an empty set.
I'm a pro-slavery nazi, you insensitive clod!
What's interesting is comparing the comments in this thread with pre-body, both pre and post conviction. The vast majority here felt that the murderer Reiser was being "railroaded" and there was reasonable explanations for everything and that it was perfectly believable that his wife had fled to Russia, and so on... Now it seems the majority have always thought he was guilty as Hell? Good grief!
Also, I keep hearing he made a deal for 15 years? Not so. It's 15 years to life . What this means is that MAYBE he gets out in 15, but he'll spend AT LEAST 15.
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
The urge to divide everything into two -- black or white, friend or enemy, capitalism or communism, christian or heathen, disorganized or organized -- is a recognized mental oddity.
In most cases, there is not only a sliding scale (or shades of grey, if you like), but multiple axes.
That we so easily try place things in a two-bin system might be because it makes it easier for us to make decisions.
Hans Reiser is an odd man out in many ways, but can't be explained this easily. He's not just a disorganized person. He's a complex person. And if you'd ever talked to him, you'd know that in some things he is meticulously organized, while in others, not. Binning him like you did seems silly, but if it makes it easier for you to deal with, hey, whatever sinks your bathyscaphe.
Well crap, I meant intersection. I fail at discrete math. Note to self - don't kill ppl with plans based on set theory or discrete branching algorithms.
You can always ask Hans to dig one up for you ...
None of that justifies killing her. Only someone with an over-inflated ego would think otherwise.
Also, she had gone out and gotten herself a decent job to support herself and their children. Sounds like a responsible mother to most of us.
Plus in the end, his filesystem ends up a dead end because it's now unsupported.
Remember to enable soft updates before executing this plan.
While there ARE certainly plausible ways that he could have been not guilty AND known where the body is, I would imagine that if he was innocent and knew where the body was that he would, oh, I don't know.... maybe.... CALL THE POLICE AS SOON AS HE KNEW WHERE THE BODY OF HIS DEAD WIFE WAS.
I mean, if it was me, I'd be trying to find all of the evidence to clear my name that I could - and if I hadn't done the killing, you better believe I'd be demanding the police go all CSI on her body and the crime scene before we even get to the point of me being arrested. The fact that he knew where the body was and kept quiet is an indicator to me of intent.
And while indicative of intent, it is not further proof of his guilt. At least it DOES bring closure to the family of the deceased.
--endcycle--
This AC is spot-on. I wouldn't go so far as say we need to raise money, but I do think Slashdotters should be aware that if they ever stumble across Hans and Nina's kids, they deserve a little extra consideration.
What if I do the same thing, and I do get different results?
Why doesn't he deserve that?
Gandhi? "An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind"? We are not barbarians.
The punishment is the prison time, not rape, let along the long, drawn-out suffering that is an AIDS death. Yes he's a terrible person for having killed his wife, yes he should be punished and no the 15 years he's getting probably isn't enough for someone who can kill their wife and then calculatingly lie to the police and a jury about it for so long. That doesn't mean he deserves to be raped. At the very least it's mob justice, and the reason we have courts to hand out punishment instead.
The sick individuals gloating at the idea of anyone being raped are no better than the people they wish it upon.
Dealing with lawyers would be a lot less tedious if they all looked like Casey Novak.
Don't be so hard on the man, until you yourself go through a bitter divorce! Believe me, he already got his...which is why he probably did it.
Ruby Neural Evolution of Augmenting Topologies
From the article, the location where he dumped Nina must be approximately here:
http://maps.google.com/maps?q=37.833531,-122.182109
~Ben
If I were separated from my wife and bound by a restraining order, and she was having sex with her new lover IN MY HOUSE, I would probably kill her, too.
And if you admitted as much to the cops, and testified to such in court, the district attorney would likely seek no more than manslaughter.
Crimes committed in the heat of passion, when the murderer is truthful with the police and penitent, aren't always prosecuted as a capital crime. To do so costs the state much more.
Hans Reiser insisted on lying about every aspect of the disappearance of Nina Reiser from the moment he was questioned by police. The DA had no choice but to prosecute it as a murder case - and given the facts in evidence, he was convicted because he made a lot of stupid mistakes - typical for someone who commits a crime of passion and then thinks they can cover it up because they're so much smarter than the 'average bear'.
If Reiser had even pled guilty and recanted his story after lying to the police and being arraigned for murder, he might have gotten off with a much lighter sentence for murder. But he waited until the sentencing phase, after he'd lied to the court.
No, Hans was so much smarter than everyone else. Now he's going to go to prison for 15-to-life - and lying to the court as Reiser did means his parole hearings aren't going to go well for him, if he even survives 15 years in prison.
Yes, I remember it well... particularly when he jumped up and shouted:
"It's chowdah! CHOWDAH!! Say it RIGHT!!!"
"I'll kill you-- I'll kill all of you, especially those of you in the jury!!!"
"Slow down, Cowboy! It has been 3 years, 7 months and 26 days since you last successfully posted a comment."
Only on fucking slashdot does the one guy who offers a rational opinion NOT get modded up. So far the first page of comments is mostly jokes and inane - "I'd murder the bitch too" remarks - all getting modded up.
Assholes, this is a real person with a real family, not some fucking Manga or Anime or video game.
This doesn't prove he's guilty. He may have had knowledge of the murder, and use that to reduce the sentence. I still have faith that the real story will come out.
He is the O .J. Simpson of nerds. We can't believe he's guilty because he's one of us.
I'm not a Christian. I don't believe in forgiveness nor do I believe in rebirth. But I do believe in revenge.
Can you give one reason outside of Christian morality that this man shouldn't be tortured? Please note that the "he might be innocent" excuse just walked out of the door. And don't use the "we'll become monsters too" excuse because it is based on Christian morality (because there is nothing special about humanity).
The concept of justice requires him to be tortured and executed.
I'm an atheist, but I can give you some excellent reasons.
You will debase the people who carry out the punishment. It's lovely that *you* want someone tortured and executed. What about the person who has to carry out that act? What happens to them, year after year as they carry out revenge killings to make people like you happy?
You know what happens to them. They go insane and are themselves tortured. You commit a further crime by making someone torture another person. Do you know what most societies do to those who order the torturing?
Another excellent reason is that making this person suffer isn't impartial justice, it's emotional retribution. It has nothing to do with *why* we have a legal system. In fact, the legal system is partly created to stop this sort of thing happening. We don't want revenge killings and mob justice. We want fairness and impartiality in punishment. And why is that?
Well, sometimes the courts get it wrong. It happened a lot before blood typing and DNA evidence, and still happens today.
How do you recompense someone you tortured and killed when you made a mistake, or when people in the system manipulate evidence to ensure a guilty verdict?
In your retributive world, you'd have to torture and kill members of the bar, the police, the DA and maybe even the jury.
No, I'll stick with a world where there's an impartial, rational legal system, thanks very much. You can keep your torture fantasies to yourself.
I have no idea why you were marked Troll. In Italy, this is called "a crime of passion", and permitted in certain circumstances (not that I condone it).
Ohyes oh yes oh yes oh yes
They both reached for the gun!
Tsunami -- You can't bring a good wave down!
Or worse, we don't care if he's guilty because he's one of us.
I'm all for innocent-until-proven, believe me - but he's been PROVEN guilty at this point. Clinging to an idea of his innocence is a weird sort of cognitive dissonance I can't get behind.
--endcycle--
The urge to divide everything into two -- black or white, friend or enemy, capitalism or communism, christian or heathen, disorganized or organized -- is a recognized mental oddity.
In most cases, there is not only a sliding scale (or shades of grey, if you like), but multiple axes.
So there are people who divide everything into two, and those who do not?
Instead of that, try making ReiserFS NOT a total piece of crap. It sucked, and it always has. Reiser was a huge abusive turd, and so are his fans.
Now THAT's how to start a flamewar. Amateur.
Fascism trolls keeping me up every night. When I starts a preachin', he HITS ME WITH HIS REICH!
Only if that's how the prosecutor decides to handle it, usually because they aren't confident that they have convinced the jury of premeditation, for example. Then they get the judge to instruct the jury that they may find the defendant guilty of the lesser charge if they think it is applicable, but the stronger charge is not.
The prosecutor can also decide to only attempt to prove manslaughter, whether as part of a plea bargain or for any other reason.
Random and weird software I've written.
(by the way, I am a divorcee. Just for the record.)
I have never understood, and as time goes by, I become aware of how alien the mind of a murderer is to me. I am almost 40 and have seen and experienced many things in my life. I still don't get how can someone cross that red line - and take someone's life.
But apparently, I am a minority. You, for instance, seem to be able to cross that line? Or maybe you were just very cavalier in your wording?
Anyhow, the mind of a murderer is something I can not understand. I can get angry, sure, but to resort to violence, or worse, to have someone's life on my conscience, that's just unfathomable for me.
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
There are only two types of people in the world: Those who see gray areas and those who only see black and white.
The punishment is the prison time, not rape, let along the long, drawn-out suffering that is an AIDS death. Yes he's a terrible person for having killed his wife, yes he should be punished and no the 15 years he's getting probably isn't enough for someone who can kill their wife and then calculatingly lie to the police and a jury about it for so long. That doesn't mean he deserves to be raped.
No one "deserves" to suffer at all as payback for committing a crime. Punishment for punishment's sake is barbaric and has no place in a civilized legal system.
That doesn't mean no one should be sentenced, of course. But the purpose of any sentence should be to prevent the criminal from reoffending (either by rehabilitating him or just by keeping him off the street), to make him compensate the victim (when possible, which it isn't in this case), and to provide a deterrent to other would-be criminals, not to take revenge on him for being a bad boy.
Now, it's true that the sentence has to be undesirable for it to work as an effective deterrent, but really, prison is undesirable enough on its own. You don't need to throw in the threat of prison rape or violence; the thought of being locked up for a few decades is enough to deter any rational person, and an irrational one won't be deterred by anything.
Visual IRC: Fast. Powerful. Free.
Hans has a black belt in judo, he'll survive better than another nerd might.
"Don't be so hard on the man, until you yourself go through a bitter divorce!"
Yeah, because bitter divorces overwhelmingly lead to murder.
Wait...they don't? The vast majority of people involved in bitter divorces simply go on with their lives with some varying degree of contact with their ex spouse? That's impossible! That would mean that Hans Reiser is simply a murderer! That just can't be!
"As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly." A. Carlson
Hold the innocent with standards longer than the guilty with nothing other than wanting to save their own ass.
No, the idea is that the innocent are acquitted at trial, and are not held at all. The moment the judge reads the guilty verdict, the system switches from a presumption of innocence to a presumption of guilt. The penal system is concerned only with your punishment and correction. It has to be this way: if we treated every prisoner as a possible innocent, we'd have to let 'em all go free, or give them an endless series of new trials on demand. Unlike the *court* system, the *penal* system must proceed from a presumption of guilt, or it's useless. Useless as a deterrent, useless as rehabilitation, useless as incarceration.
Of course, there *are* innocent people in jail. But your problem is not with the penal system, it's with a trial system that occasionally imprisons innocents. No doubt that's a problem, but you're shooting at the wrong target.
This doesn't prove he's guilty. He may have had knowledge of the murder, and use that to reduce the sentence. I still have faith that the real story will come out.
Yeah, because the "I didn't do it but I know where the body is buried" argument will look so good on appeal.
I will refrain from calling you "Jackass" on the basis that you are taking the piss.
In a US Criminal court the answer would be: Rarely. Like maybe if the judge and defense attorney were both asleep kind of Rarely.
A jury given the choice between a greater charge and a lesser charge will almost always convict on the lesser charge. Both when conviction on the greater charge may be more appropriate AND when returning a not guilty verdict may be more appropriate. To the point where a DA with a weak case would LOVE to be able to give the jury a 'middle ground' to compromise on. This is clearly prejudicial to the cause of justice.
Not to say it doesn't happen but usually a lesser charge will be dismissed in pretrial motions.
No, Hans was so much smarter than everyone else. Now he's going to go to prison for 15-to-life - and lying to the court as Reiser did means his parole hearings aren't going to go well for him, if he even survives 15 years in prison.
So sad. I wonder if they'll make him serve his time in the superblock?
You might be wanting the "Post Anonymously" button there, dude...
>>I'm all for innocent-until-proven, believe me - but he's been PROVEN guilty at this point. Clinging to an idea of his innocence is a weird sort of cognitive dissonance I can't get behind.
Yeah, in the previous Slashdot articles on this case, it was bizarre watching people defend him simply because he wrote a filesystem that some of us use. You're right, it is cognitive dissonance, as the human brain has trouble putting a person in two different boxes for Good and Bad.
Of course, now that he's admittedly guilty, a different mental mechanism will come into play, and half his defenders will post on here that they thought he was guilty all along, and what's weirder, they will actually believe it. Dunno what that phenomena is called - maybe it could be called a false memory.
Hans has a black belt in judo, he'll survive better than another nerd might.
I'm sure a black belt in judo is the surest way to a gang raping in prison. Come on, it's judo. We're talking about prison.
Note: I have not been keeping up on the Hans Reiser case, nor have I read the attached articles nor comments.
So, this kind of brings up a question on how the FLOSS community will handle things in a different situation.
Let's say Hans gets out in 7 years (Good behavior and all that), and returns to write code, and begins working on Reiser FS version 5. His code is tight, the file system performs fantastically, self heals, does not fragment files, washes the dishes, cleans the clothes, makes coffee... but it's code from a known felon.
The question is, can the FLOSS community recognize good code from a person who has done bad things? Or will his previous actions dictate what we think of him and any product he creates?
I hope we can accept the good with the bad. Some people probably will hate Hans forever, and will never accept anything which has his code (let alone anything with his name on it). Others will not care, and will use the code if it fits their needs.
We shall see.
What people seem to forget is that while any one of these things doesn't mean anything by itself, they add up to a bigger picture. People keep trying to deconstruct individual facts. That's not how it works at trial. It isn't a case of "every fact must prove, on it's own, that this happened." They are all considered together. So while there is reasonable doubt for a given fact, there's not when they are all presented together. For example, suppose that someone claims I stole their laptop. They didn't actually see me take it and I don't currently have it, however the following is known:
--I was the last person seen in the area of the laptop before it was discovered missing.
--I had no reason to be in that area, and can offer no plausible reason as to why I was.
--There were security cameras in the area, however I moved in such a way to always avoid their lines of sight.
--My fingerprints were found around the area where the laptop was prior to going missing.
--I was was observed carrying a small box, that would hold a laptop from my car back to my house, after leaving the area.
--I suddenly have an amount of cash consistent with the sale of such a laptop that I can provide no plausible way for getting.
--I am discovered to have books on the topic of security systems, and removing tracking software from a laptop.
--Several pawn shop owners said I inquired about the discretion they exercise in relation to goods they buy.
At some point in there, it becomes pretty clear that I am the guy who stole the laptop. Any given fact on it's own isn't a big deal. Like getting extra money without a good explanation isn't indicative of theft, maybe I just got it in a way I'm not proud of. However taken all together and with no plausible alternative explanation, it really isn't reasonable to doubt that I stole the laptop. Just because I don't have the laptop itself, doesn't mean a jury can't find beyond a reasonable doubt that I did steal it.
Same deal in the Reiser case. You take all the evidence together and there is very little doubt. Any that remained he did a good job of erasing with his testimony. One of the things juries can certainly weigh is how ceredable the alternative explanations the defense and defendant offer are. If they offer a very credible, plausible explanation, well then that can make reasonable doubt, even in the light of strong evidence. However if they offer extremely unbelievable stories, well then the jury can infer they are lying.
Part of the problem is people here do the geek extremist thing and start taking ANY amount of doubt to be reasonable. No, that's not how it works. You don't have to prove a case beyond any doubt, because there's always some doubt. I mean there is some doubt that the sun will come up tomorrow. Very, very little, but still some. Just because it has always happened in the past, doesn't mean it will for sure, beyond any doubt, happen in the future.
So the proof in court isn't about absolutes, it is about reasonable doubt. That means is it REASONABLE to doubt that someone did it. The jury said no, it isn't, and it looks as though they are correct, it wasn't.
There were some posts that contained it outright, others that you could see it in the subtext. It is something not surprising since there are an above normal amount of people here who have trouble dealing with women. It leads some of those people to dislike and distrust women. They believe Hans simply because they find it more likely that a woman would screw over a man than vice versa. Now combine that with the OSS hero status and you really have a situation that blinds them to the facts.
I think you'd find that had the situation been reversed (Nina killing Hans) that there would have been no doubt in their minds she was guilty, in no small part because of her gender.
A lot of people probably wanted Hans to be innocent because he's part of the "tribe", but if you look back, the evidence against him was a bit shakyâ"mostly circumstantial, plus the testimony of a nutcase who said he murdered eight other people. And let's not forget the procession of other men Nina had been in contact with, any one of whom could have been an internet stalker.
He was found guilty anyway, and now he's come clean, so I guess it was the right verdict. But that doesn't mean everyone who thought he was innocent in the past was experiencing cognitive dissonance, only that they weren't on the jury.
"In Italy, this is permitted in certain circumstances"
IANAL, but as an italian this is what i know:
up to the seventies there was a law (number 587) on "honour killing", where you could kill your wife if they were having an affair and you would get a much reduced sentence because you were defending the honour of your family.
for the same reason you could somewhat get away with killing your wife if she just was behaving in an unappropriate way, or your sister if she was dating an undesirable man or if she lost her virginity before the wedding.
but it was even worse than that: when divorce was socially unacceptable (and legally forbidden) this law was used by some also to just get rid of their wife (as depicted in the movie "divorzio all'italiana").
this law was more popular in southern italy and in rural areas, but it was not the only one:
you could also beat your wife to "educate" her (ius corrigendi).
a raped woman could be forced to marry their raper (as depicted in the movie "sedotta e abbandonata)"
contraception was strictly forbidden.
and so on.
but NOW the italian law, while still lacking, is not as bad as some decades ago. if you commit a crime of passion you get a sentence for manslaughter or something like that.
Part of it is the feeling that someone with asperger's may not be treated fairly by the court system. Something that seems rational to an aspergers sufferer, such as buying a book on police investigations when you're under police investigation, makes you look guilty.
In this case Hans is guilty - but up until now, I wasn't *certain* he hadn't been railroaded by a justice system ill suited to dealing with those who think differently to the majority.
Remember kids, it's all fun and games until someone commits wholesale galactic genocide.
We can't believe he's guilty because he's one of us.
No he's not one of us, he had a wife. Hand in your geek card on the way out.
(sigh) When will people learn? You should NEVER mount something you don't trust anymore. It can really mess up your whole system.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
If the glove isn't 64-bit, you must acquit.
If his ego was worth a damn, it wouldn't have bought a wife from a russian agency.
I hope he is brutalized in prison. Brutalized and savaged.
I was with you up to this point.
There's this little part of the Constitution you are ignoring that forbids "cruel and unusual punishment". 15 to life in prison is not cruel and unusual punishment. Being brutalized and savaged is cruel and unusual punishment.
Why not just hand him to the mob to string him up and teach him a lesson?
Your comment makes me think that you (and whoever modded you insightful) are a bit of a sociopath who is willing to shred the Constitution and pull out that old canard, "think of the children!".
"Oh fuck off", indeed...
A house divided against itself cannot stand.
While there ARE certainly plausible ways that he could have been not guilty AND known where the body is, I would imagine that if he was innocent and knew where the body was that he would, oh, I don't know.... maybe.... CALL THE POLICE AS SOON AS HE KNEW WHERE THE BODY OF HIS DEAD WIFE WAS.
Because of course the police wouldn't think it's you, they're all very nice and rational people. They haven't the slightest desire of pinning murder cases on someone who might be innocent, I mean it's not like their job isn't about locking people away and making examples out of them.
This is pretty much a ridiculous conspiracy theory.
Reiser's attorney flat out denied that he had Aspberger's, and Reiser never once raised any sort of mental illness defense.
Furthermore, his speech skills were fine, he is actually very articulate. I find it hard to believe that he had any sort of autism-related mental illness.
The myth that every nerd who programs computers has some sort of "cool" mental defect really needs to die. A lot of you are just poorly socialized and stupid, that is all. Like Hans Reiser.
Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
Then why did he bring multiple witnesses to suggest otherwise?
Thanks for the correction. Yes, only after Reiser's testimony had totally backfired, they brought in some shrinks to suggest he "may have" aspergers, based on tangential evidence. If he clearly had a mental illness, why wasn't he directly evaluated, and why wasn't this brought up before hand? Hmmm.
Shows what you know about Asperger's Syndrome. Being articulate does not rule you out. Those with Asperger's are often highly articulate when talking about their particular areas of focus.
Did Reiser have a particular focus on wife murdering? Because he seems pretty bad at it to me.
He wasn't talking about his filesystem on the stand for weeks you know.
Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
There is no excuse for murder. Initially my take on this case was that maybe he did it, or maybe he didn't - we just don't know. And now I'm pissed I even gave Hans that much.
What dissapoints me about Hans Reiser is that he didn't do the right thing. He didn't confess and in an attempt to avoid taking responsibility he tried to get away with it. A remorseful, intelligent man would've realized that a life with a murder on your conscience i just as bad as prison, maybe even worse. It suggests to me that he didn't feel guilt for what he had done, and I think it's a testament of poor charachter. He only confessed when he had nothing more to loose.
To further your point - I appreciate humor, but when the reality of what happened to Nina sinks in jokes seems to be of very poor taste. Nina was strangled by the father of her children and then buried to rot in a 4x4 foot grave, nearly upside down. Conjure up an image of what she looked like when they dug her up after all those months and then crack a joke. What - not funny anymore? Assholes indeed.
I think you misunderstand something about the Right to Remain Silent. The warning from the police when you are arrested is "anything that you say can and will be used against you" not "anything you say may help exonerate you". It is NEVER helpful to talk to the police when you are a suspect, even if you are innocent. You can say things that are truthful when you are innocent and still make you look like a murderer. Always talk to a lawyer first. Always. No matter what your circumstances are.
Burn Hollywood Burn
Surely the time to decide to do the right thing would have been just before he murdered his wife, not during the aftermath, when clearly no amount of "right things" would rectify anything but the most comparatively trivial aspects of this situation.
(1.21 gigawatts) / (88 miles per hour) = 30 757 874 newtons
Maybe he was angry with her because she was having an affair. He bought a gun out of anger, but didn't want to kill her. He goes home, to find her with her lover. In a struggle with the lover, the lover the lover wrests the gun from Hans. He's got the gun pointed at Hans, who reveals that his wife has in fact ANOTHER lover. In anger, the lover shoots Nina and flees. Hans has no idea who he was, and Nina dies sadly in his arms. The only way he can avoid blame for the murder (having just legally purchased the gun) is to bury Nina himself. In the end, Hans feels responsible for her death, having driven her away from him due to his obsession with work, and of course, the foolish decision to buy the guy. He sees only too late that he should forgiven her for such a minor human flaw, and if he had, then he would still be with her.
You left out the part where he's tutoring a small-time crook in prison and that crook says he shared a cell with another con who claimed he murdered some computer geek's wife and now the geek is doing time for the murder. Hans would have started helping out the guards with their computer problems, then the warden gets him involved in a lucrative spamming operation that rakes in millions under the table. And after the warden has the tutored con killed, Hans plots his escape through a storm sewer, withdrawing all the profits from the bank and mailing a package to the papers implicating the warden in spam and murder.
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
We didn't get it because we don't know what the fuck you're talking about. Most likely because we aren't the kind of guys that go to musicals. You might have better luck in the Apple section.
"And if you then think, you are morally justified in killing them when they don't comply, I'm glad that capital punishment is still available."
Do you want to examine this statement for a circular hipocrisy?
Capital punishment is the acme of "being morally justified in killing someone when they don't comply".
Note: I am NOT saying I oppose capital punishment. Merely that this nose-in-the-air pseudo-moralization is WAAAY out of place.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Mod parent down - wrong.
http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/04/reiser-defense.html
"Hans and Nina met in 1998, in Russia, when he was overseas hiring programmers. He picked her out of a mail-order bride catalog, where she was advertised as "5279 Nina.""
Wheel in the sky keeps on turnin'.
Hm. I thought I had read that differently.
Actually, it seems to that both may be true:
> "No, that's not true," answered Sharanova, who had
> testified earlier Reiser and her daughter met when
> Nina went with a friend who was to meet Reiser at
> a cafe to act as a translator.
From: http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4176/is_20080214/ai_n21416688
Unfortunately, I can't post and moderate ;-)
Windows 2000 - from the guys who brought us edlin
Don't forget that investigators will most likely lie to you, in an attempt to "trick" you into saying something to incriminate yourself. Its all ok for them them to lie to you, but you can't lie to them. Strange isn't that?
Way to paint the victim as the villain.
Sorry, but there are enough broken marriages that dont end in a psychopatic idiot murdering somebody.
If you donate something, than help his children and not the scumbag.
HI O WISE PRINCE. WHT TOOK U SO DAM LONG?
...he'll be overconfident and at a disadvantage.
Hans Reiser, overconfident? Nooooo.
God invented whiskey so the Irish would not rule the world.
Oh well, this is sad on so many fronts, and now the "justice" system will feel more empowered to convict on flimsy evidence, which will result in more harm to innocents.
Ruby Neural Evolution of Augmenting Topologies