You've misinterpreted my summary. I don't think the jury improperly convicted him. My gut feel after all the press coverage is that he did it. No denial here. But I'm pretty sure that his own testimony was what tipped a fairly circumstantial case against him. I think that if that circumstantial case is all there had been, they probably would have found at least one juror who just wasn't willing to convict.
No body, no witnesses, no murder weapon, no direct evidence, just a woman who's disappeared and a lot of suspicious behavior by her ex. If Reiser hadn't taken the stand, I think there were good odds he'd have been acquitted.
His primary focus now, according to the linked article, will be the development of a cigarettes-and-bitches arbitrage system that will allow inmates to speculatively invest in tobacco and inmate futures.
There was strong circumstantial evidence that Nina had disappeared because she was murdered:
she didn't show up to pick up the kids from school on the day she was supposed to
friends and family testified that she loved the kids and would never abandon them
friends and family hadn't heard from her in two years
her passport was found, meaning she didn't take it with her if she left herself
her bank accounts were untouched in two years, and showed no abnormally large withdrawals before her disappearance
no travel plans or evidence like a plane ticket was ever located for her
her van was found with her cell phone and $146 in groceries in it, several miles from her apartment.
There was evidence that Hans knew she was gone before it was reported: He went to pick up the kids on the day she didn't; he never tried to phone her immediately after her disappearance.
Lots of weird stuff that could plausibly, but not conclusively, be construed as Hans covering up moving her bloody body in his car: removing the passenger seat, hosing out the interior, a 6" bloodstain on a sleeping bag cover kept in the car.
Miscellaneous other stuff that looks suspicious in context of everything else.
Now, you're right, that list alone creates a plausible but by no means airtight case that he killed her and disposed of the body. If that were all, I probably would have voted to acquit if I were on the jury.
But then Hans took the stand for eleven days, against his attorney's advice, and tried to explain all that. And he did such a massively poor job of it that the jury believed he was lying about why he'd done those things. He said he removed the passenger seat because he was sleeping is his car and wanted extra space; but in a Honda CRX, the passenger seat is probably the most comfortable part of the car to sleep in, and removing it leaves a non-flat surface with bolts and bars across it (Hans said that with a good sleeping bag he didn't notice). There was an inch of water in the interior because he hosed it out; Hans said he doesn't remember it bothering him, sleeping on the floor where the passenger seat used to be.
Since there's little worth lying about that's more important than being falsely convicted of murder, the jury concluded that his lies were covering up a murder. In short, he talked himself into jail. He's not the first defendant to do that.
What is supposed to be tested in court is not his veracity, but the evidence against him! The proof!
Nonsense. The credibility of witnesses and the accused is an essential part of every case, especially when the accused is trying to explain that the suspicious things he did (like hosing out the interior of his car) are not actually suspicious.
That does NOT positively contribute to evidence of his guilt!
Sure it does. The collective circumstantial evidence points to him murdering his wife and disposing of the body (though not very conclusively). When asked to explain that evidence (which he didn't have to do if he'd just avoided taking the stand), he tells ridiculous, implausible stories that convince the jury he's lying to cover up the real reasons for his actions. Since there's little to nothing that's worse than being convicted of a murder you didn't commit, and thus worth lying to cover up, the logical inference is that he's lying to cover up the murder.
There was NO convincing, verifiable evidence that he committed a murder.
There was sufficient circumstantial evidence to convince me and a large number of people in this thread that he's guilty.
I had a philosophy professor who was excluded during jury selection. He asked the defense attorney later in the bathroom why he'd been excluded. The defense attorney explained that he'd put "Philosopher's Quarterly" on his questionnaire as part of his regular reading material, and explained largely the same thing that you did: The highly educated people in logical fields don't listen to the attorneys, they try to figure it all out for themselves, and often get it very wrong. They come up with oddball explanations for various bits of evidence that makes sense to them; worse, they can influence the rest of the jury with pet theories that don't stand up to normal legal analysis.
It was an interesting take on intelligence. Whether or not it's a good thing, I don't know.
They actually sat in court. They watched Reiser and how he acted, and came to a conclusion about his credibility.
Appeals courts rule on matters of law from a previous trial, not matters of fact as determined at trial, just because there's a strong supposition that those who were actually there received a lot of contextual evidence that's now unavailable.
I'm at a total loss to how this could have been withheld from the jury.
Look at it this way: You're on trial for murder. I tell the police that I've killed eight people, though I can't demonstrate that they're actually dead or that I actually killed them. Your jury hears about it, says "no, the serial killer obviously did it." You're acquitted. There's no evidence to charge me, so I go free, too. We toast our cleverness over daquiries in the Bahamas.
The police investigated Sturgeon's claims and concluded he was crazy and attention-seeking (a not unknown phenomenon to police). Given that, it's entirely proper that the jury didn't hear about it.
I'm pretty confident that the police really did investigate his claims, too. If I could trade up from a murderer to a serial killer, I'd go for it.
The police investigated Sturgeon's claims, and concluded he's a fameseeking nutbar. They found no evidence that he actually killed eight people.
Look at it this way: You're on trial for murder. I go to the police and confess to eight murders that are unprovable to have even happened. The police arrest me, your jury hears about it, and says I'm obviously the murderer. You go free. Because my murders can't be proven to have even happened, I go free, too.
I don't think the police are that stupid. I do think they're that venal--if they could trade up from a murderer of one to a murderer of eight, they'd go for it.
Someone below linked to Double Jeopardy, the Ashley Judd movie where she's framed for her husband's murder and plans to murder him again now that she's already done the time.
Unfortunately for Hans and Ms. Judd, a crime consists of a single set of facts that support the charge--meaning X killed Y here, at such and such a time, for this reason. After spending twenty years in jail, Hans killing Nina very publicly has a completely different set of facts, and so is a completely different crime. It doesn't trigger double jeopardy; that requires the prosecutor to retry the same set of facts.
As someone who feels a deep commitment to logic himself, I sympathize with your discomfort. But it must be admitted that following only the strictest logic would yield a lot of acquittals where even you and I would be thinking "holy shit, he's totally guilty!"
That's why the standard is "reasonable doubt", not any doubt at all. Philosophical skepticism would demand finding everyone not guilty.
I started with "no" to contradict what I took your (ironic) point to be: that the absence of a body, Reiser's weirdness, and a dash of blood proves his guilt. There's a subtext to your comment that the jury's verdict was absurd because what you listed is the only evidence offered.
Yes, he's an arrogant jerk who screwed himself on the witness stand. Does that somehow add to the evidence against him? No, it does not.
Yes, it does add to the evidence against him. His arrogance helped the jury believe that he was lying, and lying about why you did things in trying to explain away circumstances that point to murder appears to be a guilty act. Presumably there's no reason to lie when trying to defend against a murder charge, since nothing to be covered up by lying could be worse than going to jail for murder. Therefore, if he's lying, it's because he murdered Nina. Lying isn't proof of guilt on its own, but it adds to the pile of evidence.
It may not be a tight syllogism, but you can understand the intuitive appeal of it. I don't know if he's guilty, but I can imagine being on the jury and finding him guilty because of his lies (just as I can imagine acquitting him if he hadn't taken the stand).
I do think that convicting somebody based on circumstantial evidence is almost always a bad idea. In fact, it's such a bad idea, it usually doesn't happen... and when it does, the judge often steps in and overturns the conviction.
This is mistaken: most evidence is circumstantial. Decades of Law & Order have left the general population with the idea that circumstantial evidence is somehow weak. It's not. The DNA of an accused rapist inside a rape victim is circumstantial. The presence of the murder weapon in your home is circumstantial.
The circumstantial evidence in Reiser's case actually was weak individually. Collectively it was strongly suggestive of his guilt. But it was his lies that turned a circumstantial case into a guilty verdict.
Oh bullshit. Reiser talked himself into jail--if he'd simply not taken the stand, he'd have been acquitted. It was his obvious, implausible lies on the stand that convinced the jury he was covering up a murder. Being "weird" probably didn't help, but the Menendez brothers were convicted when the jury didn't believe their lies, either, and those two were a couple of slick California yuppies.
This is a WAG from watching a lot of Law & Order, but there was a movie with Ashley Judd about ten years ago with this plot: Her husband frames her for murder, and when she gets out, she kills him with that defense in mind.
However, I'm under the impression from commentary at the time that it's the specific act that's prosecuted, not the general act. In other words, if Nina reappears and Hans blows her away in front of a cop after getting out, he would be prosecuted for killing her then and there, and the fact that he'd already served a prison term for murdering her twenty years ago, even if he was demonstrably falsely convicted, isn't material. In other words, the actual murder twenty years later is considered a separate criminal act (which it is--different time, different place, different actions by Reiser).
He didn't have a girlfriend, Nina had a boyfriend (Sean Sturgeon). They had an affair. Sturgeon approached the police to confess to eight murders, but not Nina's. The police, after investigating, concluded that Sturgeon is fameseeking nutbar (false confessions to get attention apparently aren't that rare).
Some are pointing at Sturgeon and asking why the jury wasn't told about his confessions, which would make him a much more plausible candidate.
They didn't convict him for lying, they convicted him because his (apparent) lies convinced them that he was covering up a murder.
As for first vs. second degree, someone upthread observed that felony murder is also first degree murder, meaning if you murder someone in the course of a felony. I don't know what the predicate felony is--kidnapping perhaps?
No, what proved he was guilty (to the jury) was getting up on the stand and offering such patently ludicrous explanations for his suspicious behaviors that the jury decided he was lying, from which the thought naturally follows "if he didn't do it, then why is he lying?"
The police investigated and concluded he's a nutcase because Sturgeon couldn't demonstrate that he'd actually killed eight people. And if putting Sturgeon in jail solves eight unsolved murders at the cost of freeing Reiser, well, if I were a cop I'd happily make that trade.
Given that Sturgeon's a fameseeking whackjob, it's certainly correct that his 'confession' should not have been allowed in court to affect Reiser's trial.
The prosecution didn't say "he's nuts, look at him!" They said "Sure we don't have a body, or a weapon, or witnessess... but it's all very suspicious isn't it?"
Then Hans took the stand and offered such implausible explanations that the jury thought he was lying. And if he's lying about things that make him look suspiciously guilty...
Basically, he talked himself into jail. Dumbass. Shouldn't have taken the stand, they would have acquitted.
He's not arguing 'guilty until proven innocent', he's arguing 'if it walks like a duck...'
Seriously, Reiser talked himself into a guilty verdict (and wouldn't be the first defendant to do so). If he'd just not taken the stand (which is his right), a basically handwavey case would have left the jury lots of reasonable doubt. But for eleven days he spun such incredible, implausible stories about his basically suspicious actions that they concluded he was lying. And if you believe he's lying about a lot of suspicious actions, it tends to replace doubt with 'he not only talks like a duck, he walks like it too!'
For all that juries get bashed, it may interest you to know that a survey several years ago found that judges agree with jury verdicts 80% of the time, and when they disagree it's not so strongly that the judge sets aside the verdict as simply wrong (which they can do).
I've heard several lawyers talk about how juries are surprisingly competent at detecting liars.
Menstrual blood is easily detectable as menstrual. Assuming the 6" splotch was not menstrual in origin (safe, I think, because it's pretty pertinent to what the splotch proves), 'intimate contact' is pretty implausible unless Hans was hung like Mr. Hand's last partner.
You would remove the battery in order to ensure that the phone isn't picked up on the network. If your plan is to avoid the van being found by tracking the cell phone, then it makes sense to remove the battery and leave the phone behind.
Then again, this is a guy who thought that hosing out the inside of his car was a good idea, and wouldn't look at all suspicious when charged with murder. I can imagine a lot of flawed reasoning contributing to the idiosyncratic facts of this case.
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You've misinterpreted my summary. I don't think the jury improperly convicted him. My gut feel after all the press coverage is that he did it. No denial here. But I'm pretty sure that his own testimony was what tipped a fairly circumstantial case against him. I think that if that circumstantial case is all there had been, they probably would have found at least one juror who just wasn't willing to convict.
No body, no witnesses, no murder weapon, no direct evidence, just a woman who's disappeared and a lot of suspicious behavior by her ex. If Reiser hadn't taken the stand, I think there were good odds he'd have been acquitted.
His primary focus now, according to the linked article, will be the development of a cigarettes-and-bitches arbitrage system that will allow inmates to speculatively invest in tobacco and inmate futures.
Now, you're right, that list alone creates a plausible but by no means airtight case that he killed her and disposed of the body. If that were all, I probably would have voted to acquit if I were on the jury.
But then Hans took the stand for eleven days, against his attorney's advice, and tried to explain all that. And he did such a massively poor job of it that the jury believed he was lying about why he'd done those things. He said he removed the passenger seat because he was sleeping is his car and wanted extra space; but in a Honda CRX, the passenger seat is probably the most comfortable part of the car to sleep in, and removing it leaves a non-flat surface with bolts and bars across it (Hans said that with a good sleeping bag he didn't notice). There was an inch of water in the interior because he hosed it out; Hans said he doesn't remember it bothering him, sleeping on the floor where the passenger seat used to be.
Since there's little worth lying about that's more important than being falsely convicted of murder, the jury concluded that his lies were covering up a murder. In short, he talked himself into jail. He's not the first defendant to do that.
He had a lawyer; it was against that lawyer's advice that he took the stand, which is (unfortunately in this case) his right.
Nonsense. The credibility of witnesses and the accused is an essential part of every case, especially when the accused is trying to explain that the suspicious things he did (like hosing out the interior of his car) are not actually suspicious.
Sure it does. The collective circumstantial evidence points to him murdering his wife and disposing of the body (though not very conclusively). When asked to explain that evidence (which he didn't have to do if he'd just avoided taking the stand), he tells ridiculous, implausible stories that convince the jury he's lying to cover up the real reasons for his actions. Since there's little to nothing that's worse than being convicted of a murder you didn't commit, and thus worth lying to cover up, the logical inference is that he's lying to cover up the murder.
There was sufficient circumstantial evidence to convince me and a large number of people in this thread that he's guilty.
I had a philosophy professor who was excluded during jury selection. He asked the defense attorney later in the bathroom why he'd been excluded. The defense attorney explained that he'd put "Philosopher's Quarterly" on his questionnaire as part of his regular reading material, and explained largely the same thing that you did: The highly educated people in logical fields don't listen to the attorneys, they try to figure it all out for themselves, and often get it very wrong. They come up with oddball explanations for various bits of evidence that makes sense to them; worse, they can influence the rest of the jury with pet theories that don't stand up to normal legal analysis.
It was an interesting take on intelligence. Whether or not it's a good thing, I don't know.
They actually sat in court. They watched Reiser and how he acted, and came to a conclusion about his credibility.
Appeals courts rule on matters of law from a previous trial, not matters of fact as determined at trial, just because there's a strong supposition that those who were actually there received a lot of contextual evidence that's now unavailable.
Look at it this way: You're on trial for murder. I tell the police that I've killed eight people, though I can't demonstrate that they're actually dead or that I actually killed them. Your jury hears about it, says "no, the serial killer obviously did it." You're acquitted. There's no evidence to charge me, so I go free, too. We toast our cleverness over daquiries in the Bahamas.
The police investigated Sturgeon's claims and concluded he was crazy and attention-seeking (a not unknown phenomenon to police). Given that, it's entirely proper that the jury didn't hear about it.
I'm pretty confident that the police really did investigate his claims, too. If I could trade up from a murderer to a serial killer, I'd go for it.
The police investigated Sturgeon's claims, and concluded he's a fameseeking nutbar. They found no evidence that he actually killed eight people.
Look at it this way: You're on trial for murder. I go to the police and confess to eight murders that are unprovable to have even happened. The police arrest me, your jury hears about it, and says I'm obviously the murderer. You go free. Because my murders can't be proven to have even happened, I go free, too.
I don't think the police are that stupid. I do think they're that venal--if they could trade up from a murderer of one to a murderer of eight, they'd go for it.
Someone below linked to Double Jeopardy, the Ashley Judd movie where she's framed for her husband's murder and plans to murder him again now that she's already done the time.
Unfortunately for Hans and Ms. Judd, a crime consists of a single set of facts that support the charge--meaning X killed Y here, at such and such a time, for this reason. After spending twenty years in jail, Hans killing Nina very publicly has a completely different set of facts, and so is a completely different crime. It doesn't trigger double jeopardy; that requires the prosecutor to retry the same set of facts.
As someone who feels a deep commitment to logic himself, I sympathize with your discomfort. But it must be admitted that following only the strictest logic would yield a lot of acquittals where even you and I would be thinking "holy shit, he's totally guilty!"
That's why the standard is "reasonable doubt", not any doubt at all. Philosophical skepticism would demand finding everyone not guilty.
Yes, it does add to the evidence against him. His arrogance helped the jury believe that he was lying, and lying about why you did things in trying to explain away circumstances that point to murder appears to be a guilty act. Presumably there's no reason to lie when trying to defend against a murder charge, since nothing to be covered up by lying could be worse than going to jail for murder. Therefore, if he's lying, it's because he murdered Nina. Lying isn't proof of guilt on its own, but it adds to the pile of evidence.
It may not be a tight syllogism, but you can understand the intuitive appeal of it. I don't know if he's guilty, but I can imagine being on the jury and finding him guilty because of his lies (just as I can imagine acquitting him if he hadn't taken the stand).
This is mistaken: most evidence is circumstantial. Decades of Law & Order have left the general population with the idea that circumstantial evidence is somehow weak. It's not. The DNA of an accused rapist inside a rape victim is circumstantial. The presence of the murder weapon in your home is circumstantial.
The circumstantial evidence in Reiser's case actually was weak individually. Collectively it was strongly suggestive of his guilt. But it was his lies that turned a circumstantial case into a guilty verdict.
My thinking exactly.
Oh bullshit. Reiser talked himself into jail--if he'd simply not taken the stand, he'd have been acquitted. It was his obvious, implausible lies on the stand that convinced the jury he was covering up a murder. Being "weird" probably didn't help, but the Menendez brothers were convicted when the jury didn't believe their lies, either, and those two were a couple of slick California yuppies.
Give it up. Geeks are not an oppressed minority.
This is a WAG from watching a lot of Law & Order, but there was a movie with Ashley Judd about ten years ago with this plot: Her husband frames her for murder, and when she gets out, she kills him with that defense in mind.
However, I'm under the impression from commentary at the time that it's the specific act that's prosecuted, not the general act. In other words, if Nina reappears and Hans blows her away in front of a cop after getting out, he would be prosecuted for killing her then and there, and the fact that he'd already served a prison term for murdering her twenty years ago, even if he was demonstrably falsely convicted, isn't material. In other words, the actual murder twenty years later is considered a separate criminal act (which it is--different time, different place, different actions by Reiser).
He didn't have a girlfriend, Nina had a boyfriend (Sean Sturgeon). They had an affair. Sturgeon approached the police to confess to eight murders, but not Nina's. The police, after investigating, concluded that Sturgeon is fameseeking nutbar (false confessions to get attention apparently aren't that rare).
Some are pointing at Sturgeon and asking why the jury wasn't told about his confessions, which would make him a much more plausible candidate.
They didn't convict him for lying, they convicted him because his (apparent) lies convinced them that he was covering up a murder.
As for first vs. second degree, someone upthread observed that felony murder is also first degree murder, meaning if you murder someone in the course of a felony. I don't know what the predicate felony is--kidnapping perhaps?
No, what proved he was guilty (to the jury) was getting up on the stand and offering such patently ludicrous explanations for his suspicious behaviors that the jury decided he was lying, from which the thought naturally follows "if he didn't do it, then why is he lying?"
He talked himself into jail.
The police investigated and concluded he's a nutcase because Sturgeon couldn't demonstrate that he'd actually killed eight people. And if putting Sturgeon in jail solves eight unsolved murders at the cost of freeing Reiser, well, if I were a cop I'd happily make that trade.
Given that Sturgeon's a fameseeking whackjob, it's certainly correct that his 'confession' should not have been allowed in court to affect Reiser's trial.
The prosecution didn't say "he's nuts, look at him!" They said "Sure we don't have a body, or a weapon, or witnessess... but it's all very suspicious isn't it?"
Then Hans took the stand and offered such implausible explanations that the jury thought he was lying. And if he's lying about things that make him look suspiciously guilty...
Basically, he talked himself into jail. Dumbass. Shouldn't have taken the stand, they would have acquitted.
He's not arguing 'guilty until proven innocent', he's arguing 'if it walks like a duck...'
Seriously, Reiser talked himself into a guilty verdict (and wouldn't be the first defendant to do so). If he'd just not taken the stand (which is his right), a basically handwavey case would have left the jury lots of reasonable doubt. But for eleven days he spun such incredible, implausible stories about his basically suspicious actions that they concluded he was lying. And if you believe he's lying about a lot of suspicious actions, it tends to replace doubt with 'he not only talks like a duck, he walks like it too!'
For all that juries get bashed, it may interest you to know that a survey several years ago found that judges agree with jury verdicts 80% of the time, and when they disagree it's not so strongly that the judge sets aside the verdict as simply wrong (which they can do).
I've heard several lawyers talk about how juries are surprisingly competent at detecting liars.
Menstrual blood is easily detectable as menstrual. Assuming the 6" splotch was not menstrual in origin (safe, I think, because it's pretty pertinent to what the splotch proves), 'intimate contact' is pretty implausible unless Hans was hung like Mr. Hand's last partner.
You would remove the battery in order to ensure that the phone isn't picked up on the network. If your plan is to avoid the van being found by tracking the cell phone, then it makes sense to remove the battery and leave the phone behind.
Then again, this is a guy who thought that hosing out the inside of his car was a good idea, and wouldn't look at all suspicious when charged with murder. I can imagine a lot of flawed reasoning contributing to the idiosyncratic facts of this case.