
Hans Reiser Guilty of First Degree Murder - mcxx
http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/hans_reiser_trial/#49144716
======
SwellJoe
I worked with Hans and his team a few years back on an experimental ReiserFS-
based filesystem for Squid (still the fastest Squid ever, as far as I know),
and find the whole thing difficult to believe. He very likely suffers from
Aspergers ("suffers" in this case, since it seems to have led to his
conviction due to his insistence on taking the stand and deep misunderstanding
of human nature and how his behavior would appear to others...it seems to be a
beneficial condition for some folks, ordinarily, at least with regard to
productivity, but when it comes to a jury they aren't likely to be your
peers), or a similar condition, and I always found his famously obstinate
behavior more amusing than threatening.

I, of course, have no idea if he committed the crime, but I find his bizarre
explanations far more believable than the jury. He really is just that kind of
person...a bit paranoid, extremely analytical, and significantly smarter than
the vast majority of people. This is true even among extremely smart folks,
like those on the Linux kernel mailing list, he's probably among the smartest
in the conversation. But he's also lacking in many social skills to the point
that his involvement in a discussion usually hurts more than helps--reading
his numerous arguments on the LKML is like seeing a warm up for his bizarre
performance on the stand.

So, one could make the case that Hans' feeling of superiority, which might be
hard to avoid for someone as smart as he is, and his paranoia combined to
produce this very result. Perhaps he figured he'd get away with it, because
he's so much smarter than everyone else. And perhaps his paranoia convinced
him that Nina had plans to steal away with his children and he'd never see
them again (there is some evidence that this was actually her plan). Since the
average American has a rather deeply ingrained mistrust of really smart
people, his particularly ornery and superior attitude certainly didn't help
him.

I genuinely like Hans, and think very highly of him as a developer...so I'm
not going to spend a lot of time dwelling on the uncomfortable thoughts of
whether he committed the crime or not. I'll just hope that if he did, he gets
some help for his mental illness while imprisoned (I'm assuming that if he did
it, it's due to his paranoia being far worse than is apparent in his public
persona), and that he's able to accept responsibility for the act. And, if he
didn't do it, I hope that something comes out that exonerates him before he's
too old to enjoy a return to freedom.

~~~
ardit33
"significantly smarter than the vast majority of people." -- And criminals
too. If he really did it (IF), he did a good job hiding the body.

~~~
SwellJoe
"And criminals too."

That's not that hard. Criminals are notoriously really dumb. And lazy.

~~~
juanpablo
Only most of those who get caught.

~~~
derefr
As far as I can tell, ontologically, you're not a criminal _until_ you get
caught, just as a pressure wave (of a tree falling et all) is not a sound
until it is observed by something with ears.

------
rms
Summary of the evidence, from /.:
[http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=537280&cid=23231...](http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=537280&cid=23231328)

1\. Reiser showed up at his childrens' school the day after Labor day, the
first school day after Nina disappeared and a day when Nina was supposed to
pick up the kids. The prosecuter claims he was making sure the police didn't
show up to ask where the kids' mother was. Reiser claims he went there to add
his mother, Beverly Palmer, to the list of people that could pick up the kids.
He was scheduled to pick up the kids the next day.

2\. Hans' Honda CRX was missing the front passenger seat. It went missing
sometime after he got a speeding ticket (after Nina disappeared) and before
the police seized the vehicle.

3\. Hans admits his hosed out the inside of the car. He removed the seat and
threw it away. He also removed the carpet and disposed of it.

4\. The car was also missing a piece of trim that Hans admits to throwing out.

5\. Han's admits he was trying to hide the car from the police.

6\. Nina's van was found three miles from Hans' home. Her cell phone was found
in the van with the battery removed.

7\. When Hans was taken into custody his cell phone did not have a battery in
it. On the stand he claimed that he did not remove the battery from his own
phone. He later admitted he lied about that. He actually removed it frequently
after Nina disappeared.

8\. Along with his cell phone, Hans was carrying his passport and several
thousand dollars in cash.

9\. Reiser was seen hosing down the driveway to his mother's home shortly
after Nina disappeared.

10\. The police found two books on murder in Reiser's car. He had purchased
them with cash shortly after Nina disappeared.

11\. He paid a $5,000 retainer to a criminal defense attorney just days after
Nina disappeared, while the investigation was still a missing person's case.
He didn't even bother to try calling her to find out if she was alive before
he shelled out for the retainer.

------
breily
Regardless of whether he did it or not, this seems like a failure of the
justice system - sentencing someone to 25 years in prison for a murder in
which there is "no body, no crime scene, no reliable eyewitness and virtually
no physical evidence". He must have had an absolutely horrible lawyer.

~~~
rms
His lawyer told him not to take the stand. Instead he testified for 11 days.

~~~
SwellJoe
Once you take the stand, you have no control over how long you will be on the
stand. The fifth amendment insures you don't have to testify if it will hurt
your case...but if you agree to be questioned, both sides get to ask pretty
much all the questions they want within the bounds of the law and the patience
of the judge.

But, yes, it's clear that him taking the stand was the worst possible thing he
could do and he apparently fought loudly and repeatedly with his lawyer over
this decision.

~~~
tptacek
To be clear: his lawyer was opposed to him taking the stand.

------
ardit33
I have to say, his wife looks cute and very normal. He looks weird. No wonder
the jury was sympathetic to the prosecutors claim. It is just normal human
reaction.

------
Alex3917
My theory has always been that this is Sean Sturgeon's tenth murder. Number
nine was Nina. And the plan for number ten was getting Hans convicted of
murder and put to death by the state. The ultimate thrill for the serial
killer who no longer draws excitement from mere axe murdering and
dismemberment.

~~~
greendestiny
Hans couldn't possibly be a murderer despite the evidence, but you believe
some guy killed 8 people with no evidence whatsoever? They might not have
found Nina's body, but the supposed other 8 victims don't even have names. It
was just a bullshit story to cast some doubt.

~~~
Alex3917
Just to be clear, I don't actually believe that. I just think it's a cool
idea, but I didn't want to log out and make a new account just to post it as a
short story.

Speaking of which, isn't it time to add Paul Graham to the programming
language creator or serial killer game?

~~~
SwellJoe
He's too cute to believably be a serial killer. tlb and rtm on the other
hand...especially now that tlb has shaved his head.

~~~
randomhack
I am not sure why .. but PG sometimes reminds me of the fat majin buu.

~~~
SwellJoe
For anyone else that has no idea what "fat majin buu" means (it's surprisingly
hard to Google for, as most links are dead or tiny):

[http://www.comicvine.com/buu/41116/costumes/&c=8591](http://www.comicvine.com/buu/41116/costumes/&c=8591)

I don't see the similarity.

~~~
tokipin
google image search, yo

~~~
SwellJoe
Of course. But this was on page three "and most links are dead or tiny", as I
pointed out above. I just found it frustrating to click on five or six pages
that were dead--and many that were the skinny "majin buu", which seems to be
the far more common one. So, I thought I'd share the nicely sized set of
images that I finally found after several search misfortunes.

------
aflag
I don't understand it, the article says he faces a sentence of "25 years to
life in prison", but what exactly is the number of years he will have to be in
prison? Why is it a range?

~~~
hollerith
The law gives the judge some discretion in sentencing: in this case the judge
can pick any duration between 25 years and life. Reiser has not been sentenced
yet.

------
jrockway
I'm going to have a bit of a laugh when Nina comes back from her vacation to
Russia.

------
xenoterracide
:(

Here I was hoping he didn't do it...

I hope it doesn't reflect poorly on the open source community. Next thing you
know they will be calling us murderers.

~~~
ken
Open-source got off easy:

"Hora speculated that Reiser might have choked his wife, based on little
evidence except that Reiser was a black belt in judo, a martial art where
choking is a specialty."

Judo, meaning "gentle way", is apparently the martial art that teaches you how
to kill your wife.

~~~
ComputerGuru
I can just imagine it: "And Hans Reiser was heard arguing with his wife - just
like he'd practiced for years on the mailing lists of open source communities
where overly-violent and highly-sensitive people are known to dwell and
practice verbal abuse quite often."

~~~
menloparkbum
You just described the OpenBSD mailing lists quite accurately.

~~~
rbanffy
Well. Just wait until Theo's wife goes missing.

