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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.
fucking hippies
And remember that both the conviction and the sentence were handed down by people who know far more about the case than any of us. And 'reasonable doubt' is different than 'complete mathematical certainty.'
I mean, not only he shortened his potential jail time by producing his dead wife, he also lengthened his life expectancy by producing a dead wife.
I'm not trying to defend my actions; but I honestly don't feel I was in the wrong here. After my mother posted bail ($35,000!) I have a few months before any more tough shit happens, and my public defender said I can talk about it as long as I change the names.
Anywho, I was driving down 495 to Providence when an Asian-American Woman driver cut me off. Now, I'm not racist, but my blood did boil a tad when I saw exactly what kind of person it was. Like fulfilling a stereotype that is obviously wrong, but I was angry that they fulfilled the stereotype. I wasn't seeing red or anything but I was deffinitely not happy.
I blame my father. He taught me the code of Massachusetts drivers: 1. Defend your honor. This means tailing those flip you off, act like an asshole, etc. 2. Drive fast. This is vital and ensures you get to your location quick. 3. NEVER let someone cut you off.
Naturally the way I was raised had an immediate affect on this greivous error by the Asian-American lady driver. I turned on Deffcon 3 and tailed them in the standard way; aka getting right on their ass and flashing my brights on-off for 30 or 45 seconds. This is where things go wrong.
The car SLAMMED ON IT'S BRAKES. I am not kidding. I swerved to the right and just barely avoided contact. The driver then sped off and THREW A COFFEE CUP OUT THE WINDOW. It didn't come near my car but I know the intent, and I'm pretty sure it will aid in my upcoming defense trial.
Anywho, I bring it up to Deffcon 5. I slam the gas and pass the woman, then cut her off. I then throw the car in neutral so I slow down without break lights, ensuring they have no warning. The lady hits the back of my car and her airbag deploys. Apparantly she broke both her wrists and fractured a rib, but her airbag naturally saved her life.
I keep driving because my car is fine and I was certain I did not have the obligation to stop. 10 or so miles later I'm pulled over by the Rhode Island state tropper and cuffed, and they tell me several other drivers witnessed the whole thing and I'm screwed. They take me to the station, mugshots, pictures, some bullshit reporter for some local daily even asked me a few questions and I basically told him to fuck off. They try to interrorgate me and I keep my mouth shut, even using that famous Goodfellas line and saying "what, you gonna bing bang boom me?" and moved my arms around, but they didn't laugh (lol). A few hours later my mom picks me up and says "you're moving with your aunti and uncle in bel air" I whistled for a cab and when it came near, the license plate said "fresh" and had dice in the mirror. If anything I could say that this cab was rare, but I thought now forget it, yo home to bel-air! I pulled up to a house about seven or eight, And I yelled to the cabby "yo home, smell ya later!". Looked at my kingdom I was finally there, to settle my throne as the prince of bel-air.
Now let's hope some fellow inmate does what needs to be done, and puts an end to this vile piece of garbage.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
And this is "news for nerds" because...?
OK we've all wanted to kill our wives at some point (at least those of us that made it out of the basement), but I fail to see why it's on slashdot.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
I understand that it was probably in everyone's best interest to produce Nina's body, but I can't help but feel that Hans was essentially rewarded for hiding it so well. His sentence was reduced from 25-to-live to 15-to-life just for leading police to where he buried her.
Still, glad to see this soap opera is over.
To bad it wasn't 99 to life. Could have played some kick-ass Social Distortion in honor of the sentence.
Backroom-Deal! Backroom-Deal! (on the air of Ballroom Blitz)
http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/file/confession.pdf
Unpleasant, to say the least.
Most interesting to the geek community is this: What are the terms of his imprisonment? 1) Will he have fairly regular internet access? 2) Will he be allowed to type...perhaps code some? 3) Inmates are regularly allowed to read all they want and take skills courses and learn new crafts...does this extend to a geek's leanings? With one's wife already gone...one would have a great deal of peace coding...especially if all your meals were provided at regular times and you were guaranteed a fairly clean set of sheets to sleep on. While I do not advocate killing anybody...it does have advantages if you were a hardcore geek. It would be like college, except without all that silly dating and learning. Just sit in your new 'dorm' room and code.
Who is this that even the wind and the waves obey Him? Surely this computer must submit also!
I just don't know what to say about this. It's sad, upsetting, and yet just at the same time. On one hand I'm happy (can that even be the right word?) to see that he repented. On the other hand, I'm frightened by the thought that he killed her over a flippant remark about taking the kids to the doctor. On one hand it's also good that he didn't get off with a 3 year sentence, yet you can't help but feel for the fact that his own arrogance got him into this trouble.
Worst of all, events like this always create ugly questions in one's mind. e.g. It's a natural reaction to assume that murders are people who would stand out as a societal misfit. Someone who you would never place trust in or respect. Yet here we have an instance of someone that I had previously respected and was even considering contacting (partly because of several pushes from acquaintances) to work out new possible uses for Reiser's filesystem.
That's a very unsettling thought. If we cannot trust even the basic morality of people who have worked hard for their measures of respect in today's global community, who can we trust?
The whole thing is just... sad.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
he deserves the death penalty if he worked at Microsoft...
Come on editors.
I know, I know. It's redundant.
Uhhh, I'm guessing that my UnRaid will be needing a new filesystem pretty soon then!
ffs cant we lock up the real criminals??
He's still a hero in my book!
What if one death was a worthy price to pay for ReiserFS, and that more people will benefit from having it continue to be developed than were harmed by Reiser's alleged murder of his wife?
Ah, situational amorality, I love thee dearly.
Didn't he prove himself to be the culprit by revealing the location of the corpse? There's no reasonable doubt here, it's certain he did it?
"this is the kind of choke that people who have no martial skills at all would employ and uhm, and yet it uh, uh, was completely painless for her. It's the least painful way to die"
"uh, she was leaking blood from the nose. I think that people, when they die, leak blood from the nose."
to get Nina out of the way, Hans had "to come up with something better than these two garbage bags that weren't working. And I put her in the duffel bag before uhm, carrying her up the stairs but it was kind of obvious the duffel bag wasn't suitable either because it wasn't waterproof"
Seriously, what was the logic behind filing it under YRO?
Good. Now we can get down to work.
Filesystems don't write themselves you know.
He subjected his wife and the mother of his children to systematic verbal and emotional abuse, and then topped it off by topping her off.
His children will now grow up without their mother.
He should have gotten the chair.
At least he isn't going to be having an easy time of it. All those beatings he got on the playground as a youngster are about to seem like the happiest times of his life.
Not only will he surely become the whiniest prison bitch to ever set foot on the block (Pee-Wee Herman goes inside), he'll also be the favorite punching bag in the yard and a human ashtray (Cigarettes burn at 580 C). This will be ample payback for the abuse he subjected his wife to before he killed her, though still not punishment enough.
The taxpayers are going to spend at least 15 years keeping him alive when a bullet to the back of the head would be virtually free, especially if you make him dig is own grave beforehand.
Remember kids, murdering the woman you promised to love and cherish and who gave you two children is EVIL.
nearly all the jurors from his trial earlier this year were seated in the front row of the gallery. When they saw one another, they exchanged hugs.
No hugs for Hans? That's just rude.
simply because he wrote a file system
are you ready to examine prejudice at work in your mind?
many scowl at black people who defend oj simpson simply out of racial affinity
well now you know, in your mind, is the same process at work
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
The "Fresh Prince" reference was good.
It was OffTopic, but no Troll
At least he'll have a lot of time to work on Reiser FS v5. :D
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
He can't appeal. That is part of pretty much any plea: You have to allocute to the crime (testify as to the details under oath) and wave the right to appeal.
Even if he had no real chance at winning an appeal, he could cost the government a lot of time and money by filing appeals.
That another reason that prosecutors like getting plea bargains. When you admit you did it, you generally have to accept the consequences and don't get to appeal later. Thus even in the case of some courtroom convictions, they are willing to make a deal similar to this. You don't get away with it, but if you'll own up to what you did and relinquish the right to contest your conviction, you get a lighter sentence.
Plus, of course, closure is important to the family and friends. I'm sure there are people out there who loved Nina Reiser. Knowing for sure what happened and being able to have a funeral goes a long way.
Frankly, while it's sad that people hurt each other, personally the loss of a (to me) random life among billions is not something I have time to worry about. I offering my condolences to the family of the deceased and leave it at that.
On the other hand, the ReiserFS / Reiser4 code is something I feel could be worth saving still. But will the stigma of the Reiser name hamper any efforts to keep the project alive?
Maybe it could be worthwhile to rename / fork the project under a totally new name, as to disassociate the code from this unfortunate event.
And frankly, the MurderFS joke is old by now...
.: Max Romantschuk
Hey, I know! Maybe we could recycle all the journal jokes from the last 8 threads about Reiser!
After those 15 years are up, you'll know that another ten years would make no difference in what you've become.
Is it just me, or did anyone else want to know where he hid the body?!
Finally, the end to a tragic tale. Nobody won.
The kids lost their parents.
Two sets of parents also lost their kids.
A bunch of people lost one of their best friends.
The local community, particularly Russian immigrants, lost a potential doctor.
The Linux community lost a dedicated developer of innovative free software.
The DA's office lost a lot of time and money over the last two years prosecuting this case.
Everyone loses.
it says that the deal included reducing the sentence to second degree murder. Is that what the 15-life is, or what happened to it?
I wonder what kind of service Namesys gave to any of its customers and users. Reiser was arrogant and annoying, and that is toward the people with the power to send you to jail forever.
His attonery also says "Hans killed Nina for making a 'cavalier' remark", but he killed her painlessly.
Are anyone that reported defects in the Reiser FS still alive?
Was the level of customer service that you would be killed painlessly as opposed to really bad customer service where customers are tortured before they succumb?
don't cut it off www.mgmbill.org
Well, I always did think ReiserFS was a killer filesystem. ;-)
I'm still using Reiser3 on this machine, in fact. Though I gather the poor guy hasn't contributed much code lately...
http://wikimapia.org/#lat=37.8347044&lon=-122.1835095&z=19&l=0&m=a&v=2
A location which I visited with sadness.
-CS
Something that has been overlooked in the majority of posts here is that the legal consequence of a crime is to be sent to jail AS punishment, rather than being sent there FOR punishment.
Anal rape and beatings are not part of the sentence handed down by the judge, but deprivation of liberty is.
Bearing this in mind, it isn't inconsistent to design these institutions with rehabilitation in mind.
Linux: It's making a KILLING
Linux: It's to DIE for
Linux: When the going gets tough, the tough get Linux, and REDRUM ensues
Linux: When you know your wife is cheating, KILL her, cut her up into little pieces, then claim INSANTITY, for you must be so to use Linux, the MURDERING kind of OS
Linux: Honest detective, she wanted me to sacrifice her to our lord and savior, the chopping up into little pieces was only so our lord, Jesus "RMS" Christ, could eat her more readily
Linux: When you need an excuse for chopping your wife into little pieces
Linux: Because you are a crazy motherfucker, and you know it
We judge others as how we want to see ourselves. If he is a geek then he must be nice for I am a geek and surely I am nice?
Those of us who defended him simply could not believe that anybody with a brain could be that stupid/arrogant to commit a murder in such a stupid way. Yes stupid, he left WAAAY to many clues, had clear motives and his attempts to make it appear she was still alive were pathetic.
So we are watching a "who-dunnit" and see some clues that he is the killer that are obvious EXCEPT for that tiny clue that he should be smarter then to leave such obvious clues. AHA our TV-detective mind goes, then the obvious is a diversion, so who is setting this guy up? Lets face it, if you followed the trial, the motive of the wife setting him up for murder while she left him, possibly back to russia are obvious. Well, obvious to anyone spoonfed on tv-detectives.
Basically, as geeks we either had to accept that one of us is just another wife-beating killer OR go for conspiracy. Lets face it, slashdot LOVES conspiracies.
But no, sadly the system works, the goverment got it right and a geek is just as likely to be a cowardly killer as anyone else.
The OJ trial was indeed much the same. Black people really didn't want to consider that one of them, an example, had done something like this. Small difference, geeks right now are accepting Reiser is guilty, I don't see black people admit that OJ was guilty as hell.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
He killed her, that's the bottom line. He took her life.
He basically took away her power of choice.
She's dead.
He confessed, he knew where the body was, and yet some of you are still thinking he's innocent? uh.. I don't get it.
As far as I'm concerned, he's very lucky he's not getting the death penalty.
All murderers who, can be proven without a doubt that they killed in a premeditated state, should be killed in return. These murderers planned and executed their murder, these are NOT accident folks. There was method and intent.
Right now, this guy is getting prison for 15 yrs to life.
Club Fed!
Wow. That's a vacation. He will be fed, lodge and sheltered. Much better than being dead in my book.
A bad example for many sick minds out there, who can plan a murder, execute it and if caught, heck, life in prison! Sick female groupies, etc.. oye vay! It's scary to see that we, as a society are not tough enough to deal with this the way it should be dealt it. You plan to kill, you perform the act, it is proven without a doubt, then you die.
There should have been no deal. You don't deal with murderers. Our society is too lenient when it comes to murderers, pedophiles and predators.
I can't wait for technology to improve to the point where we should be able to coerce confessions our the guilty without their consent.
I must have a slow morning, I only just now "got" the storage tag... many thanks to the anonymous wit for a screenful of cornflakes.
"Be nice, veer left, and never stop thinking" Iain Banks - Walking On Glass
Chill.
You may haven't noticed yet, but crime procecution and punishment allways kicks in when there is a loss that can't be recovered. Nobody can bring Nina Reiser back to life. And, no, justice *can't* be served, especially in such aggravated things as murder (allthough fans of death penalty might argue otherwise). That's the big downside. That's why we punish. When damage is done beyond repair, then punishment jumps in to offer at least some sort of reckoning and - in this case - remove the wrongdoer from society.
True justice would be if one could successfully force Reiser to undo his wrongdoing.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
The same people can be disgusting and nice too. We might deny it, but vengeance is ours. I
think it is important to think about the chances
that a similar crime will be repeated by a person
before handing out a sentence. If the chances are that this person will do something like this again, the sentence should be more severe, otherwise it
needn't.
I didn't care if he was guilty or innocent, I just didn't want to see anyone convicted on such flimsy evidence.
The next person who comes along will be judged to the same standard and they could be innocent.
How we know is more important than what we know.
luckily there are countries where this kind of barbarism is not done anymore. It is not helping to defeat violence in a society if the state itself is conducting violence and killings in the name of revenge.
How about some extra torture before killing the delinquent?
I wonder if the US will ever get out of the dark ages and ban the death penalty or if their citizens will go on to demand that this barbaric ritual of revenge can be carried out so that their low instincts can be satisfied.
Personally, I would prefer a less severe penalty for people who plan a murder, having clearly thought out their reasons for doing so, than for people who are likely to lash out and kill someone at a momentary whim. The former, at least, can be reasoned with.
I can't wait for technology to improve to the point where we should be able to coerce confessions our the guilty without their consent.
Sure. Let's make another machine that can be hacked for political purposes. It's not enough that "the computer says so" is already an argument to abandon common sense. Remember how wonderfully safe that other state instrument is, the voting machine..
Dumb idea.
Might have been pointed out before, but if you look at his user account here on slashdot
http://yro.slashdot.org/~hansreiser/
You'll notice he was posting with frequency until a month before he killed the lass. Wonder if that was used as circumstantial evidence at court?
complete mathematical certainty?
1. Someone framed him then told him about the location of the body. (Aliens, Dick Cheney, etc)
2. Hans is actually a genius, he built an interdimensional gateway like in Sliders and his evil otherself killed his wife. Consumed with guilt he decided to confess because it was easier than explaining the interdimensional gateway.
3. He was drugged by the CIA to do it as a way to silence him. Now any secrets he tries to reveal will not be taken seriously.
4. Hans's wife was actually an alien spy here to help start the invasion process. If the other alien spys find out what Hans knows then the invasion cannot be stopped.
5. Mass hallucination. Hans didn't kill his wife and he never confessed.
6. Dick Cheney did it during a hunting accident
7. Hans' car is intelligent like Herbie, but in a fit of jealous rage his car kills Hans' wife. To protect his friend, a car, from dissection, he tries to cover up the murder and ends up getting caught.
8. Nina was an android that Hans built, therefor no murder was committed
9. It was a suicide pact and Hans backed out. Consumed with guilt and shame he confesses to murder rather than admit the truth.
10. There is no Hans Reiser
(by no means does this post mean I condone murdering spouse, family, friends, neighbors, acquaintances, stranges you talk to at the check-out, or aliens that later turn out to be people due to hallucinations)
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
Actually, there is.
1) It is mathematically proven that you can not prove every true statement that is allowed by the basic axioms. Sometimes, you _have_ to just introduce new axioms. Which then widens the space of true statements, some of which can not be proven using the existing axioms, rinse, repeat.
2) Some things have been accepted as 'most likely true' and are used in proofs and 'everyday' maths without anyone being able to say for certain if they are true. Or if they _can_ be proved (see #1).
Is there any chance I can get a Russian translation for the next ReiserFS?
On a serious note, though, since he's going to the big house, can they give him a computer in there? I can think of tons of FOSS projects that could benefit from his boredom. For instance, can we finally get voice and video in Pidgin? I mean, I think five years is long enough to wait, and since he's got at least 15.... He will even know how we feel!
I hold very few opinions. I hold information based on observation and fact. If you wish to disagree, please use facts.
That is how our legal system works almost every time. And THAT is why we have such ludicrous insurance laws, safety laws, and a complete erosion of civil liberties.
I'm sure at least one of the lawyers did well though, in this process.
I hold very few opinions. I hold information based on observation and fact. If you wish to disagree, please use facts.
and in 15 years I think the public will finally be ready for a replacement of fat32.
I hold very few opinions. I hold information based on observation and fact. If you wish to disagree, please use facts.
All particulars of the case aside, I find it alarming that part of his plea bargain is to waive the right to appeal. I would have thought that the right to appeal - like some rights you have under employment and contract law - would not be a right you could surrender. Can any of the legal slashdotters tell me if this is more nuanced than simply 'you cannot appeal'? I would certainly expect that appeals based on, say, court misconduct would be allowed even after this.
To elaborate my point, a plea bargain is pretty much the definition of an agreement made under duress. Agree to this or we'll lock you up for (an additional) ten years? This is the kind of option that even an innocent man must be tempted by if he thinks the trial will go against him. A plea bargain to be sent to a minimum security prison would also be a temptation even for the innocent. Could you do that and then still appeal based on the fact that your life would have been at hugely increased risk if you had not made the plea?
.evom ton seod gis eht
The way most court system function (western world) with minor kids and a divorce, barring really bad defect on the woman side, is to give the main custody on the woman. And try to enforce that if a woman goes in a country which won#t extradicte her for breaking a divorce agreement. In this case since she was going to russia, his possibility to see his kids would have been next to nil.
I'm not going to be a kiss ass and be all like "aww poor hans" No, the guy was an egotistical jackass, and because of his ego and and off color comment from his wife, he killed her. People keep hailing this man as a martyr in opensource, he isnt, he happened to be a programmer who liked to use the GPL license, nothing more.
Also, not to troll, but honestly, reiserfs was only the best FS and the fastest because Hans said so, and so did anyone who bought into his egotistical bullshit mailing list submissions. It's a joke, I used it for about 6 months before my data got hosed when permissions decided to stop working one day, luckily for me, I had 90% of my data on a separate partition and hard disk with ext3.
I also never noticed any speed gain. This isnt the first time I've said this, either.
if the project dies because of this, nothing of value was lost. Sorry, but honestly, it was never the best, and is already being trounced by newer filesystems. It was fast and advanced in 2002, but nowadays? ext3 handles just fine and it's STABLE.
That sound a bit too harsh doesn't it... after all it was just another free File System. DCMA must be getting pretty antsy these days ;-) or did the jury think it was really that bad?
Was this for killing his wife or for writing the Riser FS? ooohh, never mind.
15 to life, so that means he will be out in 3 years with good behavior
From reading the transcript of the confession conference, and reading pretty fully the other press reports, it seems to me that Hans is guilty of the crime of passion to which the D.A. suggested he should plead guilty at the start of the trial. Voluntary manslaughter, and a three year sentence. Thus by forcing a murder conviction, are not the People of California forcing a miscarriage of justice here? A comment form a real lawyer would be appreciated. Being forced to abandon your appellate rights seems to me to be a real injustice too. I'm just so thankful that the circumstances of my birth means I do not find myself in the jurisdiction of the State of California.
This is what bothers me, how could he let his ex-wife and kids get in the way of his passion for file systems. Why didn't he keep that in mind instead of killing her?
well, she did.
Windows is for thieves and liars.
If you want to talk about criminality: Gates has made an art form of extorting money and getting away with it. By his design, lies, lock-in and greed are the underpinnings of the Microsoft business model.
However, your logic is bogus. Windows is for victims, and Linux is for those who want to be free.
you had me at #!
I see that people tagging have still not learned to differentiate the code and the man.
you had me at #!
Has long seemed surreal and bizarre to many of us outside the US.
This case is one example. "I'm innocent... but what will I get if I show you the body?"
As for the truly innocent who are offered "Plead guilty [or turn in somebody else] for less punishment," isn't that exactly what happens in a Stalinist trial?
IANAL but isn't all this against the spirit of the British system?
you had me at #!
If he could keep working on his ideas, he could still be socially useful. Apart from anything else, he's a very smart guy, reiser3 is a really solid product, and reiser4 was getting interesting. (It is still being worked on, btw.)
you had me at #!
Murdered hundreds in Texas, and father and son, have now racked up literally millions of civilian deaths in the Middle East. Karma's going to be a bitch.
you had me at #!
The customers and the filesystems are still around. Please learn to separate Reiser's personal life from the code his company wrote, confusing the two just makes you look stupid.
you had me at #!
crime procecution and punishment allways kicks in when there is a loss that can't be recovered
So who's going after the Bush-Cheney cabal? The American public can't even get organised to impeach, let alone give them the comprehensive Nuremberg treatment they've earned.
Meanwhile we bicker over the case of a murderer who was actually caught and punished...
you had me at #!
Actually they're the locked-up-est - about six times as many prisoners per capita than comparable developed nations (the UK, Canada). TEN times more than some countries. What a sick society: Either you're breeding more criminals, or you're locking up more innocent people.
And what's with the 24/7 obsession with crime and violence in all your media? Is there an American movie ever made that doesn't have a gun, a car chase, a beating in it? This is not civilisation. It's the exact opposite.
you had me at #!
It seems that to most people [here] the fact that he wrote a good piece of software is enough reason to discharge him of any thing horrible he could ever commit during his life. He might be a bright and decent programmer, no one is questioning his competence on this area, but he _did_ murdered mercilessly the mother of his two children and now he have to atone for that. Justice is flaw, but fortunately in this case it worked. I for one am glad he couldn't get away with it.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
On how many prisoners it "creates". (In the US, six times as many per capita than typical developed countries!)
Yes, I posted this elsewhere in the thread, but I'm not sure most people are even aware of this telling disparity.
you had me at #!
that they will allow him to write code during all his prison time, perhaps even giving him some extra level of isolation so he's not distracted by other inmates who do not write code.
He's failed, but he can still be a huge contribution in the area where he did not fail.
Reasoned with? if someone goes out of their way to plan and execute a murder, this means it's premeditated. It's not in the "heat" of passion, but done in cold blood, thus, done with intent to kill.
The survival of the human race, clearly does not depend upon the life of every of its individuals.
I may find life sacred, but, if you were to compare humanity to a lawn for example, in a lawn, you kill the bad weeds.
A person that takes it upon itself to kill another has taken away the power of choice of the victim. The victim may have been a father, a mother, a friend, etc... This victim is dead, gone, no more. This victim was a potential for everything and anything, except, no more, dead. Why should the murderer live?
Why should WE as a society reason with a murderer? Makes no sense to me.
The Death Penalty isn't something you jump for joy for, but it is, in my opinion, necessary because, so many people use the law and twist it, to get away "with murder" literally.
If murder with intent is proven beyond a doubt, the death penalty should be the sentence.
It would make a lot of folks think twice about committing murder.
Certainly, it would also be better than having to support these freeloaders in prison, yours and my tax money at work, no less too!
There are ALWAYS exception, for example to kill someone who is abusive, destructive, etc..., there are men out there who hit their woman and children, hurt them, so, there are exceptions, but overall, the death penalty is the way to go.
Barbaric is when you let the murderers roam free to enjoy the precious gift of life, they took away from their victim(s).
I don't know about the rest of the country but where I live the difference in sentences between a plea and a jury conviction is enough to make you plea guilty for a crime you didn't commit. For example, you get charged with manufacturing drugs. You make a plea deal with the prosecutor and you get a year. You get convicted in a jury trial and the judge hands you a 20 year sentence. The other problem is that even if you're innocent the prosecutor can make a deal with a convict where he gets years off his prison term to testify against you. The smart guy takes the deal.
No need to offend or feel offended. My experience anyway is quite the opposite. The owner/manager's attitude and is invariably mirrored in the organization underneath him. Often for better, sometimes for worse. Even if it is not intended.
I was actually hoping for someone with real insight would reply.
don't cut it off www.mgmbill.org
That's long enough to run a lot of fsck's.
Really, Club Fed...
You obviously have never spent any time in prison, because for scrawny white boys like me there are things far worse than death.
Sorry, teleporters just kill you and then make a copy. A perfect, soul-less copy.
...who saw this marriage ending well?
Lesson here is: don't marry the first pretty face that will spread her legs for you.
Without plea bargaining, there's no incentive for the guilty to do anything but fight, fight, fight. Especially in cases with more than one defendant, they're a good incentive to get confessions, and therefore bring down larger criminal conspiracies. Because every American (and it's the US justice system we're talking about) has the right to a fair trial, American trials are necessarily long, expensive and complex. Plea bargains make the system workable from a practical perspective.
Pleas are a huge problem in things like drug-related crime, where circumstantial and physical evidence can point to a number of individuals, who may have varying levels of involvement in the drug trade. Then the plea incentives tend to push guilty defendants to implicate otherwise tangential or unrelated people, on the theory that the more people you link to the crime, the lighter your own sentence will be. A lot of women are in prison right now for having drug-dealing boyfriends, and a lot of addicts are in prison as dealers because they were at the scene of a drug raid.
It's also a problem in death-penalty cases, where the choice between fighting, losing and dying, and cooperating and living, can push innocent people into confessing to crimes they didn't commit. Particularly if you're African-American, you stand a great chance of being convicted, wrongfully or not, once you've been charged with murder. Under the circumstances, plea bargains become coercive and wrong, and does rise to the level of witch-burning.
Part of the solution to the problem is to beef up the very inadequate system of public defense. Having adequate representation will usually mean, as in Reiser's case, that you'll be able to give something of value (the body) to the police in return for getting a lighter sentence, if you are indeed guilty, but also having the option of going to open court to defend your innocence. Having a shoddy lawyer means that you never really get to consider fighting it out in open court, and you might not even get the best deal from the police.
Another part is getting rid of the death penalty. And then there's entrenched American racism, which is a tough nut to crack. In Rieser's case, I think the system worked well.
I have never heard of "cooperating with police" to mean anything other than the suspect establishing guilt or at least providing fresh evidence that is in some way relevant. If he had told a bunch of lies to get off easier, that would be the opposite of cooperating, because they would run around chasing things that aren't there. In this case, he knew a lot about the murder because he knew where her body was, and no one else seemed to. That's cooperating. Saying you killed her but producing no evidence to support it is pleading guilty, not being cooperative.
If you know a lot more than everyone else, you can cooperate with police but still plead innocent. Like saying I don't know who did it, but here's everything I know maybe you can figure it out.
There are probably gaps which might allow the types of abuse you mention, but I cannot think of one example that I have ever read. It is usually pleading guilty to a lesser offense which is the type you describe, and which is highlighted on the "cop shows". That is the type where the prosecutor seems to have a 50/50 chance of winning and offers a reduced sentence. Then the defense advises the suspect to take it because their defense is pants. Cases like these mirror what you bring up, not as a rule the cooperation part.
Also keep in mind if someone murders someone else, the reduction would probably be from intentional murder to unintentional murder. They would never reduce from murder to jaywalking, unless they clearly didn't have enough evidence to win at trial. If I know you did something, you might not know how much I know. So I say I'll reduce the sentence if you cooperate. Then you provide the evidence I need for me to prove that you are guilty of the reduced crime. Some will provide more, some less, and sometimes I have what I need, but there are probably many complications in there. Shortly, a prosecutor will do what needs done to get an appropriate punishment, and not waste more time to make sure the punishment is perfect.
When did prison go from rehabilitation to punishment?
College-Pages.com - Online Colleges, Degrees, and Programs
15 years was ok in these circumstances?
What circumstances?
"Nerd hero butchers wife" circumstances?
Sheesh.
If you wouldn't convict on what we knew about Hans murdering his wife you wouldn't convict on anything. Fortunately, the American justice system has a process to filter the truly mindless people from juries.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DEFCON
I don't read him as sociopathic. Like any other good engineer he saw a technological solution (murder) to a sociological problem (faithless gold-digger wife). It is only a pity he didn't do a better job of it.
Hans, you'll be missed.
nO access to computers. No access to the internet. access to a (paper) law library & confinement to an overpopulated dorm where he can either be one of the woods or a victim. Geeks don't prosper in prison & stay geek. Forget anything you've ever seen at the movies or on tv.
Let's not over dramatize this:
True, Reiser was a valuable contributor. Also true that the kids lost their parents, but in Reiser's case that is academic since his whore of a wife already managed to kidnap them away to her family in Russia. Think of the positives: Nina, the gold digging harlot i dead. Their children will at least be free from her poisonous influence. Also, Reiserfs wasn't as much of a boon as some make it out to be, it was unstable at best. It's not as though Volkerding died.
...can mean anything you want it to mean. In this case it meant that the prosecution & justices were annoyed by something the couldn't understand ( i.e. the whole context of Your, Mine & Reiser's existance).
THis is actually quite common - i.e the outrageous sentences handed out to ten hackers, radiculous awards in software piracy cases - that which is incomprehensible is to be destroyed or at least repressed.
That's right, Hans killed the bitch. If he were a drunken jelous redneck or coked-up paranoid lawyer in a jelous rage, he'd have gotten off with a 3-5 years involuntary manslaughter & substance abuse cunseling. Reiser's real crime, the one that earned him the difference between 3-5 year and 15-life was that he Is a Geek.
I never believed Hans would have done it.
In my mind, advanced concepts and nobility of character went hand-in-hand; they would be, in my distorted view, two manifestations of the same high spirit.
Obviously, after he could produce the body, it was shown I was too naïve. Tsk.
Now, posts like yours make me worried about mankind. Just like thinking about how we can *self-censored* a *self-censored* in a second, and how we can afterwards think: "Oh, we're so nice!".
"I find your lack of faith rather disturbing".
Since becoming the Governor of California Arnold has murdered-killed-terminated a number of prisoners with so called State Execution when he could have stopped himself from becoming a murderer and saved some lives. It's ironic that a murderer like Arnold "The Govenator" Schwarzenegger decides the release of other murderers, such as Hans Reiser. I guess it takes one to know one...
I used to be a fan of Arnie until I learned about his excessive steroid use and his eagerness to actually kill people.
I'm wondering if the prison system in California will allow Hans Reiser access to a computer to continue his work on the ReiserFS if he so chooses?
You are incredibly deluded.
It's incredibly easy for police to create circumstances to prosecute you and imprison you.
The cops can and do lie -- OFTEN to get convictions, but you, under the principles of "free speech" are not allowed to lie to them. Two very good videos:
Don't Talk to Cops, Part 1 and
Don't Talk to Cops, Part 2.
The cop admits it -- he can follow anyone driving around and find something to arrest them for.
It's the same throughout the U.S. Our laws are crafted to make *everyone* a law breaker -- this enables the police to selectively enforce laws against anyone they don't like for any reason. Of course, they don't go hog wild -- prosecutions take time & paperwork. But the police get to selectively choose who to arrest -- where to focus efforts, and even whether or not to prosecute. With "consensual crimes" (activity you engage in by yourself or with consenting adults), they have turned to using "asset seizure" as a tool that they rely on to fund their departments and budgets. As an example -- the DEA has almost exclusively been using cash & property seizures against medical marijuana co-ops -- and NOT prosecuting the people. If they prosecute the people, they would potentially have to make a case in front of a non-sympathetic California jury, but if they just take the cash, product and easily disposed of assets, they can get large amounts of cash added to their budgets -- and little that the victims can do to get the money back (since, unlike laws regarding people, the current courts have ruled that property doesn't have to be assumed innocent until proven guilty -- it only takes a lesser "preponderance of evidence", instead of the "beyond a reasonable doubt". Any Cannabis defenders that become too public -- they'll try to take them down -- but they really only want to go for the ones that are causing the most problems (politically). A recent case where the feds prosecuted a grower had him only get a few months (he was growing as a medical provider) -- so then they called in the IRS to have them examine his operation -- and they are trying to go for tax evasion now. Of course if you pay income tax on drug proceeds, the IRS will turn you into the feds. Not sure why that doesn't count as self-incrimination.
The police and judicial system in the US is very corrupt -- with 5% of the population and 66% of the illegal drug consumption in the world --- and the US leading in pressuring other countries to crack down, the absurdity is hard to miss.
The claims are we are having problems affording prisons because of all the prisoners -- but the fact is, if we turned out all the non-violent Cannabis offenders, we'd cut the prison population by 60-66% (its about 450-500 thousand out of 750,000 in the federal system that are in for drug-related offenses -- often with mandatory sentencing being used to ensure the prisons stay full. Treatment programs are another big and growing business (as well as drug testing) -- with the biggest increase coming from those needing "treatment" programs for marijuana -- not because of a problem with marijuana -- but because they can trade prison time for taking a rehab program instead on 1st offenses. So the stats for those in rehab for "marijuana addiction" are used to fuel the myth that it's a "growing problem". The growing problem is that our screwed up legal system has turned everyone into criminals -- with selective enforcement used as a tool to strike at political undesirables.
Unfortunately, prohibition was proven not to work and was theoretically repealed, but the joke was they just moved onto finding a new substance to prohibit. Marijuana criminalization was lead by ex-anti-alcohol FBI enforcers (Anslinger, primarily) who were out of a job after prohibition was repealed -- but they needed to create a crime to stay on the "public dole"...so they did. Since Cannabis was made illegal, consumption has
I've always been a sleep walker/talker
I remember reading a long article about people who were prone to violence in their sleep, or when on the weird twilight edge between consciousness and unconsciousness. Perfectly normal people have done some scary stuff in these situations.
I remember that I once had a bad dream and then ended up somehow socking my GF in the arm, but actually attacking somebody or smothering them is scary stuff.
Recommendation: people should not approach you when you're sleep-walking...
The fact that you still want him to contribute to "the community", despite the fact that he brutally murdered his wife, the mother of his children... then hid her body, lied to investigators and the court...
Wow. There are just no words for how disgusting that is.
Yes, nowadays there is no doubt. T'was not always the case, though... It took noted logician and philosopher Bertrand Russell some time and effort to prove precisely that equation.
This is on page 362 (!) of his mighty tome Principia Mathematica. Until he had completed his precise and rigorous proof, there was quite definitely some doubt.
Political language
people defended the united states after 911
then you went to war against Iraq and killed 100,000s of people
so self righteous, you feel you can judge all
are you ready to examine prejudice at work in your mind?
where your arrogance is the cause
The last time an american sociopath strangled one Bush enacted the IMBRA effectively barring aspiring wives from entering if their legal pretense happend to be criminal or mentally unstable or somesuch. Developing nation girls surely will pay dearly for Reiser's short temper.