Hans Reiser Leads Police To Nina's Body 1523
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.
Okay there you go (Score:5, Interesting)
All you people who said "I still don't believe Hans did it" -- do you doubt it now?
Re:Okay there you go (Score:3, Interesting)
Wasn't it more a matter of reasonable doubt?
I think most thought it was more likely than not that he did it. Just that there were reasonable alternative theories (ran away to frame him, insane best friend that claims to have murdered people still alive are 2 that I can think of).
Choice of file system (Score:4, Interesting)
I guess this means he falls under the messy type.. (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
Re:This makes me sad (Score:3, Interesting)
Why?
Because I sort of hoped he hadn't done it.
Re:Choice of file system (Score:3, Interesting)
We all benefit from someone's loss all the time. If people never died, we'd all be starving, etc. Can you imagine having your overly-senile great-great-great-20-times-removed ancestors hanging around - and ALL their offspring - you'd want to kill them, just to get some breathing room.
Hate to say it, but the Lion King was right with that "Circle of Life" bit.
(now try to get that damn tune out of your head)
Re:The Ends Justify the Means (Score:3, Interesting)
Or are those words simply representative of some supposition (yours or anothers...) about what Reiser may have been thinking?
If those words were spoken or written by Reiser, do you have the cites? If not, would you clarify that?
Just wondering. This has been an interesting case to follow, but I don't recall reading that he said those things, and would be interested in the facts, purely out of curiosity in the bizarre...
Re:Okay there you go (Score:5, Interesting)
I'll clue you in. Reasonable doubt requires more than just a semi-plausible alternative theory. It's not like reading something in a textbook. "Reasonable doubt" is made up of his actions, his inaction, the things he says to the jury, the things he doesn't say to the jury, his actions in court, his mannerisms, whether he appears to be lying, all of that stuff. There is no sterile, black and white "reasonable doubt" where he can just tell lies and suggest an alternative theory and get off.
That's what makes serial killers scary, they are so emotionless and seem to not think that they did anything wrong that they can just lie to a group of people and most people find it believable. Many of them are smart enough to not get caught in lies.
Hans had a lot of circumstances stacked against him and then he did the worst thing possible and he opened his mouth in court, the guy has a hard time communicating with people that really want to understand him and hear what he has to say (fellow kernel hackers) no way he's going to lie to a jury in a convincing manner. Even for a geek he is a very odd individual. Just not convincing in court, and as it turns out, he did the crime anyways. A jury saw through his lies and they were right, as they tend to be. Some estimates have them between 85% and 90% accurate.
Re:Epic fail (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
Re:Sad (Score:2, Interesting)
One illicit and/or immoral actions/beliefs should not prevent the use of their intellectual output, unless the two are intrinsically related (since murder is unrelated to filesystems, that isn't the case).
Re:Okay there you go (Score:5, Interesting)
I think a lot of people here wanted to believe he was innocent, perhaps because of the open source connection
Heh, I'll probably be modded as Flamebait for this, but...whatever.
I agree with you. The OSS connection, I think, is what made people think he was innocent. If this had been a story about Bill Gates or some other closed source proponent, I wonder if people's reactions would still have been the same on this site.
Re:Epic fail (Score:3, Interesting)
Google Maps anyone? (Score:5, Interesting)
From the article, the location where he dumped Nina must be approximately here:
http://maps.google.com/maps?q=37.833531,-122.182109 [google.com]
~Ben
Re:wrong question (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Why throw the baby out with the bath water? (Score:3, Interesting)
no, what he is doing is equating the gp disdaining RFS because of Reiser's wrongdoing to disdaining cotton because of the history of slavery and german engineering because of WWII.
It's a syllogism. and a contra-positive with a bit of reductio ad absurdum thrown in for good measure.
Re:Still could be innocent (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:He duped the great majority of us... (Score:4, Interesting)
Egg on our face for assuming innocence until guilt had been proven?
No, egg on your face for stubbornly clinging to innocence in the face of overwhelming evidence of guilt, just because he was a programming geek. And guilt is rarely "proven", the standard is "proven beyond a reasonable doubt" (And NOT "proven beyond all doubt").
Re:So how many "But he's still innocent"... (Score:3, Interesting)
No, dude, it didn't. He didn't need to explain his behavior. The only reason why his testimony was the final nail in his coffin is because the jury care more about how eloquent he is compared to the DA or his lawyer or the judge. That's wrong. That shouldn't be an issue. It's just like if he was convicted because he was black or because he had a nose ring. The evidence is all that should matter and he should have walked free simply because the police should not have arrested him until they had found the body or even some good evidence - "suspicious behavior" should not be enough. The justice system dodged a bullet here.
The same thing happened to me... (Score:1, Interesting)
> 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.
Funny thing, that. I had pretty much the same thing happen to me (dad kills mom for essentially no reason, insanity defense very much on the table). IMHO, my brother & I turned out okay. I just wish that Hans had gotten life in prison. I doubt the kids will be too eager to see Hans when he's released. I haven't seen dad since the trial.
In the incredibly off chance that someone here knows those kids, I can offer just one piece of advice: don't avoid them. If they're anything like me, they'll keep to themselves even more than usual. So don't leave them alone all the time.
Being that alone sucks and you can't help but feel empty after something like this.
Re:Still could be innocent (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Okay there you go (Score:3, Interesting)
that's enough circumstantial evidence to arrest and probably convict somebody in any state in this country.
It might be enough to warrent a trial (grand jury indictments are not too difficult to obtain), but any decent defense attorney when faced with no body and no murder weapon should be able to raise enough reasonable doubt, particularly if the defendant has even just a plausible alibi, to acquit his client of murder charges. IANAL, but if there is no body (and therefore no time of death or timeline to establish against any reasonable alibi of the defendant) and no murder weapon then it is just a missing person until the prosecution can prove otherwise. About the only thing a prosecutor could point out are circumstantial peices of evidence such as possible motives for murder or perhaps some circumstantial observations (extra mileage on the car for that week, sand from a particular beach, missed work a couple of days during the time in question, etc...).
Probably what got Hans was the sheer amount of very suspicious circumstantial evidence. There were the blood spatters, the unusual book purchases, the missing passenger seat and socket set, his bungling attempts to elude surveillance (you never attempt to dump your surveillance, as every CIA case officer well knows, even if you succeed in eluding them you will only have confirmed their suspicions that you are an interesting person with something to hide. The correct strategy is to continue doing every day boring things until the watchers get bored and give up, however long that takes), and of course (this is probably the unfair part since most of us programmers have a few ecentricities) his odd courtroom manner and selective memory (which is classic Aspergers) didn't help. The confession (proving that he knew were the body was) sealed the deal in any case, but better lawyers (ala OJ Simpson) might have been able to get him off by systematically breaking down the prosecution case and keeping their socially challenged client from opening his mouth or doing anything else odd in court, but Hans didn't have millions of dollars for a legal dream team so now he does 15 years instead.
Re:Still could be innocent (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Still could be innocent (Score:1, Interesting)
"..it is not further proof of his guilt.."
So..how's that hole your head is stuck in?
Re:This makes me sad (Score:3, Interesting)
It isn't a victimless crime but you seem to be closing out any other options beyond primitive revengeful punishment.
Just because he is emotionally a defective human being doesn't mean we shouldn't exploit his intellectual abilities. I fully support hooking him up to a laptop and letting him code to his heart's content for the next 15 years.
Why not? Because he might enjoy it? Because he might feel useful? Because it won't satisfy our need to make him hurt for as long as possible? Do we really think 15 years in prison will dissuade people from killing their wives?
Is he even really a threat to society beyond living as an example of someone who murdered their wife? Let's put his jail sentence to use and make him work even if it means his stay is more enjoyable.
Re:Okay there you go (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:circumstantial going too far (Score:2, Interesting)
That said, the one time I had to show up for jury duty, I wasn't chosen, for saying something like that. After being asked if I felt comfortable handing out a guilty verdict in this particular criminal case, I said "I guess it depends on the evidence". This was my honest response and not a wisecrack. The judge was sort of annoyed and told me that in our state, jurors are instructed to weigh testimony equally with physical evidence. I said something about not being sure I could do that. I was not invited to sit on that jury.
Re:Have to repent for the sin... (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
Re:Okay there you go (Score:3, Interesting)
Well, hopefully, the vast majority of those "ten to fifteen percent" erroneous verdicts are false negatives, as judge William Blackstone intended.
Re:The kids... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:wrong question (Score:4, Interesting)
Actually, I've been quite willing to accept the circumstantial evidence as valid evidence that, in fact, Resier did commit the murder -- you'll notice I copped to that in the grandparent to this post.
What I have an incredible amount of disdain for is the fact that there wasn't any circumstantial evidence that pointed to premeditation, which is a mandatory part of first degree murder in the state of California. You seem to be on the bandwagon that not only did Resier ostensibly commit the murder -- a point which I haven't really refuted, yet you evidently think I have -- but that he must have premeditated it. I'd like to ask you, for all the bungling of this crime that he did, where is the circumstantial evidence that indicates he planned the killing of Nina? Please, enlighten me.
You say:
"consider all the evidence which does point to him murdering him and the...none that points to him not having mudered her"
But that doesn't constitute or imply premeditation.
You say:
"Seriously, what are the odds of all that stuff coming together with _no_ evidence that he _didn't_ kill her? We're talking lottery odds. And most criminal cases like this come down to odds, there's no camera and no witnesses."
But that doesn't constitute or imply premeditation.
And you say:
"You just have to take all the evidence and come up with a percent likelihood that he didn't do it. In this case, that percent was diminishingly small."
And I agree with you, the circumstantial evidence indicates that beyond a reasonable doubt he killed her. But it does not constitute or imply premeditation.
So I'll admit, I'm totally trolling for an "I am a lawyer and here is your ass on a platter" response, but I do not appreciate your misrepresentation of my skepticism of the verdict. My qualms with the outcome extend solely to the realm in which the DA did NOT do an adequate job of accounting for the statutory requirements for a first degree murder conviction.
To say it again completely, I believed all along Hans Resier killed his wife; I do not believe the evidence presented to the jury by the DA adequately accounted for the burden of proof that the murder of Nina Reiser was premeditated. My issue with the jury extends only to the degree of the crime, not the fact that he was found guilty of the crime. Sorry if that's too nuanced for you to grasp ;)
Re:Okay there you go (Score:3, Interesting)
That's why I don't believe for a minute that it was premeditated. The guy is too incredibly bad at lying to be a psychopath, IMHO.
Re:Clarification. (Score:4, Interesting)
Right, there's no guarantee his sentence will be reduced, but he's hoping for it, and you can be sure his attorney at least thought to negotiate for it.
To answer the parent, the reason the court might reduce a sentence is because recovering the body provides closure, both to the family of the victim and to society as a whole; so the ideal situation is that we can give the victim a proper burial.
Will the FLOSS community handle this? (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
Also (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Re:wrong question (Score:4, Interesting)
Bless you for a thoughtful, documented reply. And agreed on the cost of lives ruined. I disagree with your normative argument that "Once murder is established, the burden *should be* on the defendent to prove it wasn't premeditated", emphasis mine... But perhaps we can agree that it may make sense that the DA's office is using the second degree plea bargain in order to recover the body due in part to their in ability to -- circumstantially or otherwise -- prove 'reflection and calculation' in the commission of the crime; to wit:
"While first-degree premeditated murder and second-degree murder with express malice both require a purpose to kill, an individual cannot properly be convicted of first-degree murder if the murder was purposeful, yet without reflection and calculation." (p. 12)
Moreover, the document notes that the only burden of proof the Defense has to offer in charges involving murder refers to 'the mitigating factor of provocation' which 'distinguishes murder from manslaughter' (p. 21). In other words, "premeditated murder includes both a purpose to kill as well as a preexisting reflection, second-degree murder with express malice only requires a purpose to kill. Thus, if the prosecution proves that the defendant purposefully killed, but does not prove premeditation,(93) the verdict
should then be second-degree murder, not first-degree murder." (p. 11)
So the burden of proof for murder is not that high (I have not said it is), but the burden of proof for reflection and consideration indeed is on the shoulders of the prosecution, no? And that proof of reflection and consideration is the primary differentiation between second-degree and first-degree murder. So, again, did D.A. Hora truly demonstrate reflection and consideration prior to the crime, or did he simply demonstrate a flailing, brilliant, antisocial software developer turned murderer? Methinks actions *after* the fact (hosing down the driveway, removing batteries from the cell phone, cleaning the car, ditching the seat) are not actions of a planned, contemplated murderer, but one of someone flailing about and trying to escape the consequences as best they can, ex post facto.
Re:Still could be innocent (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Re:Still could be innocent (Score:3, Interesting)
That's pretty much it. I don't care if he killed her. What matters is, will the development of reiserfs continue?
Call me egoistic, but whether his wife is alive or dead, murdered by him or someone else, has no influence on my life. Whether reiserfs is an option as a filesystem, does.
Re:Okay there you go (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:wrong question (Score:3, Interesting)
They were books on murder investigation, not committal. He could easily play that up to say that he killed her in a fit of passion and afterwards tried to cover it up. That sort of explains the arrogance: he'd read the books, and figured he would be able to outsmart the police and the DA.
Oddly enough, that seems to fit the evidence better than premeditation. If he'd killed her with malice aforethought, I'd imagine he'd have been able to dispose of the body without so much mess.
Re:Okay there you go (Score:4, Interesting)
Here's a little story for you.
Friends of mine got drunk and decided to arm wrestle on a glass table. To make a long story short, we had no time to wait for an ambulance and I was the only mostly sober person, so it was me who drove. The car was quite literally a bloody mess, despite us having a doctor with us (chances are the guy would have died if we didn't), and by the time we arrived at the hospital, the back seats were soaked.
I'm lucky. The guy didn't disappear. But imagine he did. Now, the very first thing I did after the horror trip was to clean out the blood. According to you, this would have made me a prime suspect.
Now, of course there is a lot of evidence supporting my side of the story. Three other people to back it up, medical records showing that he arrived with a wound that can credibly cause the blood stains on my seats. One isn't always so lucky.
Evidence can lie. Or rather, it can lead to the false conclusions.
Re:This makes me sad (Score:3, Interesting)
I say let the bastard code, it would be his forced labour instead of making license plates or bashing rocks to rubble.
He has a gift, in this case, exploit the hell out of it.
Re:Still could be innocent (Score:3, Interesting)
If he had first-hand knowledge of the murder, and didn't report it, he's subject to accomplice charges. In some jurisdictions, being accomplice to a murder, or even near the scene, can get you charged with murder.
Case-in-point, Texas has one of the strictest accomplice laws on the books, known as the "law of parties." Kenneth Foster was charged with murder one and given the death sentence [democracynow.org] for unknowingly (according to his testimony) driving a man to a soon-to-become murder scene. The governor of Texas intervened and commutted his sentence to life in prison. Ridiculous case, if you ask me.
Re:Still could be innocent (Score:3, Interesting)
This is pretty much a ridiculous conspiracy theory.
Maybe so, but your rebutall is completely illogical.
Reiser's attorney flat out denied that he had Aspberger's, Reiser never once raised any sort of mental illness defense.
Then why did he bring multiple witnesses to suggest otherwise? [wired.com]
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.
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.
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.
Way to exaggerate there pal.
Bitterly admitting the cynics were right. (Score:2, Interesting)
I think it's funny that O.j Simpson. A man who without a doubt murdered not just one but TWO people.
Walked.
Because he was an athlete. Possibly also because of race issues. Because he was "charming" and did what his team of scum bag lawyers told him to do.
But a programmer, well we aren't athletes are we?
Hans murdered her, because he loved his kids and she was taking them away from him. She burned him in every way possible and he finally snapped. It wasn't right but it was something I can understand.
Welcome to the modern dilemma where all the raw male emotions required to fight for survival and hunt for food have to be caged and ignored in order to be processed by the system like a slab of beef. Guess what sometimes when you hound someone through the courts, fuck his best friend, and try to deny him access to his kids by moving them to russia you might find out that he can only take so much.
Having been made into weekend daddy/ATM myself I know where the guy was coming from. He just let it off the leash for a few minutes and then scrambled to try to avoid having the rest of his life ruined...
Some people are only alive because it would be illegal to kill them, and from what I saw of her actions Nina fit that bill.
All you do nothing hounds who never wrote a line of code, or did anything worth remembering in your entire life clamoring for him to be brutalized in prison, I spit on you. I have had family and friends in prison the shit that will be done to him, it would be kinder to kill him. Last time I checked the sentence was for a number of years not a number of brutal rapes and or infection with aids, hep C, or herpes. Try to familiarize yourself with what you so gleefully wish on another human being. http://www.spr.org/ [spr.org] the survivor stories would probably be a good place to start.
The man worked his ass off and gave away the fruits of his genius to the world, and because he gave it away he was broke when it came time for him to buy someone like Johnny Cochran ( I neither know nor care how that fucks name is spelled).
I for one will be sending him 10 or 20 bucks a month to his prison commissary, small things like that can really make a huge difference when you are behind bars. If you enjoyed using his file system, or if you ever found yourself in a bad situation you regret maybe you should too.
Or at least stop rushing in to point out black and white cats, they are all grey in the dark after all. If you have a problem with what I have to say, please reply.
ss0
Comment removed (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Sad (Score:4, Interesting)
Agreed. There is never a winner in such cases, for the victim's or perpetrator's families.
Believe me...I know.
My mother got 26 years for killing her boyfriend after he gave her an STD. She's on year 16 now.
My dad, who I think is innocent, is serving 30 years for sexual assault of child (3yrd). He's on year 9. He'll be 73 the first time he could get parole (which he probably won't - They don't do that in Texas) or 88 if he has to serve the entire sentence. I think he is innocent because there was no physical evidence and just the word of a 3yr old. He carded my mom before he would date her. My step mother also said my sister (9yr old @the time) had been abused during the trial, but that turned out to be false. The 3yr old's brother was a sex offender and her dad, who was divorced from the mother, would come over every Wednesday night to his ex's home to bathe the little girl. So all of that makes me think he is innocent. There really is little hope for my dad. He has exhausted his appeals...Everyone thinks that if the appeals didn't get him out then he must be guilty...well appeals are for finding errors in the trial. They are not about finding out if he was guilty or not. You only get one chance to prove that.
My grandparents refuses to discuss my mother with anyone who might have known her. They feel it as a personal shame. Like they messed up as parents. They have lived 16 years like that....
My sister went from getting 4 times her child support payment to none when my dad went to jail. She went from seeing her daddy every other weekend to living with the knowledge of what he was convicted of and going to junior high, then high school. She didn't even know all the facts about the case until a few months ago.
so yeah...I feel for the kids...I feel for their entire family on either side.
Re:Oh Great... (Score:3, Interesting)
So what? Extremely few murderers are repeat offenders. Drunk drivers, on the other hand, or drug users, thieves, etc., should, if your point was valid at all, be locked up for life. No, your point is just a strawman so that you don't have to argue your actual point of view, which is pure, common vindictiveness.
Law, however, isn't about revenge.
Re:Some people are better off dead. (Score:4, Interesting)
"Soldiers on the battlefield kill, people who work on death row kill, doctors who administer euthanasia kill... Hans MURDERED her."
I don't see the difference between killing and murdering. Soldier murder. People who work on death row murder. You end someones live because you think it is just. The soldiers justify their actions by claiming the enemy is evil. The people who work on death row justify their actions by claiming the person they will kill is evil.
What if Hans Reiser has the idea that his wife is evil? Does that make him someone who kills instead of murders?
Serious question (Score:3, Interesting)
I've no plans to drop Reiser (still using v3 dern near everywhere) over something like this, but the serious question is this: What's going to happen to ReiserFS at this point? Would Hans have to turn over the copyright? Is there a precedent to be set here, take it out of his hands, whatever?
I use ReiserFS on a home machine, my wife's laptop, and a fileserver at work (with tail-packing ENABLED) and can't imagine doing without it. Anything comparable on the horizon?
Re:Just use the magic words. (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm having a difficult time imagining a situation where I might have some helpful information, but revealing it might lead to me being charged with the crime.
It's not that hard to imagine. Usually, it happens when there is violence involved.
Heck, man, you're likely to get grilled if the cops think you're "too calm" in a situation involving violence. Happened to me while I was helping treat a gunshot wound.
No, I didn't do it. It was someone I cared about a great deal and it was self-inflicted, but the sheriff was bound and determined that he was going to try to pin it on me because solving an attempted murder or attempted homicide would look better than a suicide attempt. Thankfully, the state troopers there (who were first on scene) had my back. The very first one there looked like he was about ready to beat the living daylights out of the sheriff because he saw what I was going through.
Hell, I guess the cop at the hospital where they took her even tried to get her to say that I did it.
Never underestimate the lengths some cops will go to in order to get a "suspect".
Re:Still could be innocent (Score:3, Interesting)
Hmm... I see your point, but you're being a little harsh on people in general, I think.
I grew up in a little town in the North West of the UK called Hyde. This town is known for being where the UK's most prolific serial killer on record went about his business; Dr. Harold Shipman. I remember how people in Hyde reacted when the story broke, and how this changed as it developed.
In some ways, the parallels with this case are strong. Sure, there are differences - while he committed suicide before he could be tried for more than a handful of them, the best estimates (from medical and judicial professionals, not the gutter press) are that Shipman killed hundreds (I've seen numbers from 200-400 throughout his career quoted), while Reiser just killed one. However, I think the similarities outweigh that.
Both were highly respected within their respective communities. Both were, in some ways, slightly odd, but certainly not to the extent you'd consider them dangerous. Both, thought themselves smart enough to talk their way out of any situation, including a well-evidenced murder rap. Both, ultimately, found out that they weren't.
Shipman was always popular around Hyde, particularly with his elderly patients (who formed the bulk of his victims). I did some summer work, before the story broke, at another General Practice in the area while I was a student and there was always a steady drip-drip-drip of patients leaving the books of the practice where I worked to move over to Shipman's. He was renowned for a good bed-side manner and his patients liked the fact that his surgery was a one-man-band; they could be sure that they'd always see the same doctor when they needed to, whereas at a larger practice, they might end up seeing somebody they didn't know so well.
The first public rumblings came when it was revealed that a non-local woman had complained to the police, after she'd been cut out of her recently and suddenly deceased (Hyde resident) mother's will in favour of Shipman. The reaction of both the local press (albeit by inference) and public was pretty much unanimous. "The mother was very old and had just died of natural causes - she hadn't been fantastically well for some time, after all. She'd been living on her own in Hyde for years, not seeing much of her daughter. It perhaps wasn't surprising that she'd decided to leave her money to her well-liked GP, who she would have seen a lot of in her later years, rather than to a daughter who she felt had abandoned her. The accusations were just a spiteful attempt to get the will overturned."
This lasted several months. However, as time went on, it became clear that the police were actually taking this very, very seriously. More and more bodies were exhumed. There was talk of strong evidence that the will in question was a clumsy forgery. More and more local residents came forward to say "Actually, my Mum died quite suddenly, now that I think about it, and the last person she saw was Shipman". Then it came out that a GP at another local practice had actually informed the police of her concerns about the number of deaths among Shipman's patients over a year earlier and had been ignored. By the time the trial started, there were few in Hyde who believed that Shipman was innocent.
Can you blame people for this? Not really. The man was, to use a rather hackneyed but nevertheless fitting phrase, a pillar of the community. People base their beliefs on the evidence they have available to them and in the early days this was very thin. The narrative of the spiteful attempt to overturn the will fit with the general public mood quite well, and understandably so - there was growing concern at the time throughout the country (and there still is today), that litigation was making it impossible for medical practitioners to do their jobs safely. When the available evidence changed, people's views changed. At a guess, I'd say an overwhelming majority of the locals went through this path, self included.
There were, it is true, a tiny minority who did
Re:Just use the magic words. (Score:3, Interesting)
but I'm not sure how your story is relevant.
2 things - I was there (actually, I was rushing up the hill in question because I had a bad feeling) when it happened so I had the information in question and it's an example of the lengths cops will go to in order to stretch the truth in order to "get the suspect" (make their career).
I can't see how your providing information to this sheriff would have led to your being charged with this crime.
You have obviously not dealt extensively with police. More than a few of them will take "I gave information" to mean "I did it because I know what happened".
Do you really think the DA would have filed charges against you?
In that county? Hell yes.
What did the victim say about "whodunit"?
I don't know how to break this to you, but the cops kept trying to get her to say that I did it even after she told them what happened. This is while she had a bleeding gunshot wound. She actually ended up spitting on the cop that was trying to get her to say I did it. (According to her, that was a mistake, because it really hurt. With a hole in your chest, I'd believe it)
Why would the assailant call 911? Whose prints were on the gun? Did the victim have a history of diagnosed mental illness? What was your relationship to the victim? Did you have motive to murder her?
In order: I had to flag down a car because I didn't have a phone at the time (long story), but an assailant would call 911 in an attempt to make it look like they didn't do it or because they panicked and had second thoughts (it happens). Both of our prints would have been on the gun. Yes, but the police don't care (especially not there. trust me). We were engaged. No.
I still can't imagine what truthful information you could have given that sheriff that would have led to the DA filing attempted-murder charges against you.
The fact that I knew the gun used, knew where it happened, and was "too calm". You don't seem to get that not all police officers are straight as an arrow (and that sheriff, well, isn't).
So that is my question for you. Would you have been considered any more or less of a suspect if you invoked your right to remain silent and your right to counsel?
Actually, this part of the discussion was about how being free with information (whether or not you are a suspect at the time) can lead to you being turned into a suspect and/or being charged with the crime, and I'm telling you that it can, has, and does happen.
Re:So, the jury got it right? (Score:2, Interesting)
He wasn't convicted without evidence. He was convicted without a body. The evidence may have been largely circumstantial, but there was a great deal of it, and it was strong. The fact that she was missing. The car with a seat removed and the appearance of having been washed out, the ditched on the street. Her vehicle, also ditched on the street. The blood, which you mention (that's more forensic than circumstantial). Heck, that crazy defense theory that she was hiding in Russia probably even led to his conviction, in part, as did his own testimony. The fact is, Reiser comes across like a nutcase, and taking the stand himself did nothing to improve his chances of getting away with it.
It's entirely possible to convict based solely on circumstantial evidence. It takes a lot of it, and it has to be very convincing - pretty much to the point where any reasonable person would conclude that the prosecution was right - but it can be done. The fact that they had almost as much evidence on Reiser (accept a body) as they did on OJ and as they did on Robert Blake, doesn't mean Reiser's jury got it wrong or that he was convicted without evidence. It means OJ's jury and Blake's jury almost certainly reached an incorrect verdict. OJ has essentially confessed in "If I Did It." While Blake still maintains his innocence, I think he's probably guilty. At least he had a more plausible defense than Reiser had, so I can understand the jury's result, even if I disagree with it.
I live in the Bay area, where the trial was very well covered by local media (sfgate.com was excellent), and while it sounded unlikely to me at first, as the trial unfolded I became certain that he was guilty. And now he gives up the body, showing that his *evidence-based* conviction was spot-on.
You sound like you're just another of the many people who *wanted* Reiser to be innocent and were therefore willing to ignore the body of evidence against him. I wish he had been innocent, too, but he wasn't, and I was sure of that before the trial was over. I don't wish it for the reasons a lot of people here probably wish it - that ReiserFS may be history and that a lot of people who had not heard of Linux or open source before now have heard of it because a well-known open source developer killed his wife while his kids were upstairs in their rooms - but because a family has lost their daughter, two children have lost their mother, and those children have to go through life knowing that their dad killed her, then lied to them and the whole world about it.
Reiser may think he got something by negotiating a 15-to-life deal, but he's not getting out in 15 years. No parole board would go for it. I doubt he'll get out in 25, either. He's going to find that what may look to him like some kind of victory is no victory at all. If he ever leaves prison, it will be as a very old man.
Re:Still could be innocent (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
Re:Bitterly admitting the cynics were right. (Score:2, Interesting)