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Hans Reiser Guilty of First Degree Murder (Wired)Wired reports that Hans Reiser, developer of the reiserfs and reiser4 filesystems, has been found guilty of first-degree murder. (Log in to post comments)
Hans Reiser Guilty of First Degree Murder (Wired) Posted Apr 28, 2008 23:07 UTC (Mon) by deucalion (subscriber, #12904) [Link] Some people might beg to differ, but IMHO this neither belongs to Wired nor to LWN. Even if it is the case, it is both distasteful and it might harm the ReiserFS project and all its participants in a way that can hardly be justified. .. my ,02 EUR
Hans Reiser Guilty of First Degree Murder (Wired) Posted Apr 28, 2008 23:17 UTC (Mon) by rfunk (subscriber, #4054) [Link] Of course it belongs here. The news would also belong here if it were Linus Torvalds or Richard Stallman. He's a significant figure in the Linux community.
Posting it on LWN Posted Apr 28, 2008 23:34 UTC (Mon) by corbet (editor, #1) [Link] Distasteful it certainly is. You'll notice that LWN has done its best to minimize the coverage of this whole episode. But this is a conviction of a developer known to many LWN readers; I do believe that I was right in posting it.
Posting it on LWN Posted Apr 28, 2008 23:44 UTC (Mon) by deucalion (subscriber, #12904) [Link] Yes, I only noticed your obvious lack of coverage when I glanced over the numerous articles posted on Wired. Considering how LWN compared to Wired dealt with this I'm convinced this headline and news posting is just fine the way it is. So... concluding my first outcry - actually thanks for the article. And all the quality content on LWN. :)
Under covered, in my opinion Posted Apr 29, 2008 1:48 UTC (Tue) by frazier (subscriber, #3060) [Link] We didn't need lots of coverage. That said, given the significance, it was literally buried at the end of the October 12, 2006 weekly edition: http://lwn.net/Articles/203084/ http://lwn.net/Articles/203091/ That seemed very odd to me. More odd, was that it was filed under "Announcements" rather than the earlier section "Linux in the News" or perhaps more appropriately, the front page. This arrest was significant to the development of ReiserFS.
Hans Reiser Guilty of First Degree Murder (Wired) Posted Apr 29, 2008 0:07 UTC (Tue) by rahvin (subscriber, #16953) [Link] Hans Reiser was the founder of the ReiserFS project. IMO it's highly relevant to the Linux community as he was a developer of a major file system that bears his name, not only that but he was a highly contentious person on the mailing lists IIRC. Anyone with common sense knows it is nothing more than a curious footnote in the history of the ReiserFS project. It doesn't disparage the project or the use of the system because he's a convicted murderer. He not the first smart person with major skills to do something heinous to someone he supposedly loves, and he certainly won't be the last. (How many people stopped using Heinz ketchup?) Murder happens, and it's not something that is relegated to a single class or type of people. And above all the fact that an OSS developer did something like this is important to the community for no other reason than to point out that just because someone is a good developer doesn't mean they aren't capable of murder. From what I know of the case he was a very very different man at home than he was as a developer and manager and it's a classic case of covering up a murder but getting caught by forensic evidence, fact it might end up as a "Forensic Files" episode on truTV.
Hans Reiser Guilty of First Degree Murder (Wired) Posted Apr 28, 2008 23:24 UTC (Mon) by smoogen (subscriber, #97) [Link] I can not see how it is distasteful in that this, and while Europe may be more clear-headed... the trial has had some effect in the North American market with people confusing Linus and Hans Reiser and Linux and ReiserFS. However, I would love to hear that ReiserFS is continueing to be developed. It had seemed to suffer from a 'cult' of personality with little to be done without Hans.
Hans Reiser Guilty of First Degree Murder (Wired) Posted Apr 28, 2008 23:53 UTC (Mon) by JoeF (guest, #4486) [Link] I guess development for ReiserFS and Reiser4 will go on.The mailing list is migrated to kernel.org, and kernel.org also provides space for the user-space tools: http://marc.info/?l=reiserfs-devel&m=120914838419924&w=2
Hans Reiser Guilty of First Degree Murder (Wired) Posted Apr 29, 2008 1:27 UTC (Tue) by BenHutchings (subscriber, #37955) [Link] They might want to think about renaming the project though.
Hans Reiser Guilty of First Degree Murder (Wired) Posted Apr 29, 2008 9:16 UTC (Tue) by Duncan (guest, #6647) [Link] Renaming the project would be unethical without the blessing of Hans himself. In the past, he was pretty particular about it, apparently due to a bad experience where someone else took credit for Hans' work. That has been why he has been rather insistent on it being ReiserFS. That said, I can see at least /some/ people being pragmatic enough to realize the problems now attached to the name, and wishing to let the idea go and be what it can be. Still, Hans Reiser has not demonstrated himself to be very pragmatic in the past, and as I said, I believe it's his call -- and I think most developers in the FLOSS ecosystem would agree -- after all, the recognition they get for their code is a good portion of the payment they get for it, even for those getting paid some money otherwise. It's not like most couldn't work for a proprietary company and make more money, if they chose to, but they don't. So I do believe it unethical to change the name without Hans' blessing. Maybe he'll give it, maybe he won't, but either way, I believe it's his decision. === I've wondered, however, if it's now actually more likely the code will make it into the mainstream kernel. Nobody involved can seriously deny that Mr Reiser was as much an obstruction as help, likely even more an obstruction than help. Every time he got on the mailing lists, fireworks erupted. Then there's the fact that he got reiserfs (3) in, over the objections of some, and then pretty much dumped it, refusing to do the normal upkeep to keep it up to date with the current kernel. Others had to pick up where Namesys basically went AWOL on maintenance (there was of course a basic development strategy disagreement, but it's the mainline kernel, and if you want your stuff in it you play by Linus' and lieutenants' rules or you're unlikely to get more in, exactly what happened), and that's just not the way you go about impressing folks that letting you introduce additional filesystems into the kernel is going to work. It was it seems, more the slow steady work of his cooler headed employees that got Reiser4 as close to inclusion as it came, and I don't believe I'm alone in thinking we may well have had Reiser4 in mainline by now if Hans Reiser himself had simply stayed out of the mainline kernel merging process, realizing the realities of the situation, and delegated that job to someone else, someone with a bit less history of having EVERY exchange blow up. With Hans Reiser now pretty much forced out of the picture in terms of personal involvement, in some ways it seems only a question of letting things settle down a bit now, and seeing if there's anyone left to actually carry on (which, so far there has been, thanks to some perseverance on the part of former employees). If so, I believe it's likely it'll hit the kernel sooner now than it may have otherwise. Certainly, not everyone gets hosting on kernel.org, so that alone indicates some belief in the technology and the people continuing to work with it thru it all. You know... if Mr. Reiser is really interested in letting his work be all it can be... maybe suggesting it be renamed in honor of his employees might be the way to go, or if that doesn't work because of the multitude and variety of names, maybe honoring their national or regional origin, RussianFS, anyone? Or EuroRussianFS, or pancontenentalFS, or similar? The thing is, if it isn't introduced soon, regardless of how technically great it is, it may still be dead on arrival, simply due to the march of technology. In a couple years' time it's likely that all traditional primarily single hard drive block device filesystems will be dropping in popularity, squeezed on the small side by filesystems more appropriate to solid state devices (zero seek time, limited writes, larger blocks written at once), and on the large side by cluster filesystems appropriate for SANs and high availability computing. I know a few years ago I was really eager to see reiser4 in mainline, and am still using reiserfs (which has been a lot more stable since the introduction of data=ordered by default), on md/RAID (RAID-0, 1, 6, depending on the use of the data). However, I'm now looking at some sort of SSD based RAID for my next generation data storage, doing away with spinning hard drives entirely. Some form of logged fs (write and append, never rewrite until one reaches the end of the media) is better suited to that than journaling (pretty much any of them but certainly reiserfs/3 or ext3/4) or reiser4's dancing trees. Duncan
mainline Posted Apr 29, 2008 13:19 UTC (Tue) by jengelh (subscriber, #33263) [Link] >If so, I believe it's likely it'll hit the kernel sooner now than it may have otherwise. There is a slight problem to it. reiserfs3 has been touted by many as "unsupported", and since Hans is now not in the picture anymore, reiserfs4 lost their main person to push the project, possibly leading the project again into an "unsupported" state.
Hans Reiser Guilty of First Degree Murder (Wired) Posted Apr 29, 2008 0:19 UTC (Tue) by kev009 (guest, #43906) [Link] So, Reiser4 turned out to be a real killer file system after all.
Hans Reiser Guilty of First Degree Murder (Wired) Posted Apr 29, 2008 5:31 UTC (Tue) by linuxrocks123 (guest, #34648) [Link] I'd like to suggest that corbet remove both the parent comment and any replies, including this one. ---linuxrocks123
Hans Reiser Guilty of First Degree Murder (Wired) Posted Apr 29, 2008 6:37 UTC (Tue) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link] Seconded. (kev009 proves the need of a killfile for guests; linuxrocks123 shows why this is not the same a show-by-guest boolean switch.)
Hans Reiser Guilty of First Degree Murder (Wired) Posted Apr 29, 2008 6:53 UTC (Tue) by ekj (subscriber, #1524) [Link] I'd like to suggest that jokes, even tasteless ones, be allowed. It's not as if it's a personal attack on anyone in particular.
Hans Reiser Guilty of First Degree Murder (Wired) Posted Apr 29, 2008 12:30 UTC (Tue) by i3839 (subscriber, #31386) [Link] Seconded. Making any joke about this whole thing may be inappropriate, but considering the possibilities I think it can't get much better than this one. So I think it isn't a tasteless joke, but a rather good one.
Hans Reiser Guilty of First Degree Murder (Wired) Posted Apr 29, 2008 7:43 UTC (Tue) by DonDiego (subscriber, #24141) [Link] Seconded. kev009, please save your tasteless jokes for a subject that is less serious and less sad.
Removal of comments Posted Apr 29, 2008 12:36 UTC (Tue) by corbet (editor, #1) [Link] The moderation (and removal) of comments is really not a business we want to get into. Happily, LWN's readership is of a quality that the question rarely comes up. So when a comment which does raise the temptation to bring in censorship (as this one does), we're able to resist it.The only time we've done removal is for stuff which was obvious spam. (Plus redaction of comments twice, I think, for legal reasons).
Hans Reiser Guilty of First Degree Murder (Wired) Posted Apr 29, 2008 15:13 UTC (Tue) by aigarius (subscriber, #7329) [Link] I'd like to suggest you to get a sence of humor which is most important to have in dire times.
Hans Reiser Guilty of First Degree Murder (Wired) Posted Apr 29, 2008 22:56 UTC (Tue) by sbergman27 (subscriber, #10767) [Link] The joke is an old one, and was actually funny for a few months. But now it's just old. That said, I find your call for the removal of the post to be more offensive than the worn out old joke itself. You may consider it to be in poor taste. But those are poor grounds for calling for the suppression of someone else's post. When in the history of the Internet did people lose the ability to simply deflect their eyes down the page to skip over posts they don't happen to like, and start calling for editorial suppression and personal kill files instead?
Hans Reiser Guilty of First Degree Murder (Wired) Posted Apr 30, 2008 23:02 UTC (Wed) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link] Killfiles, the early 1980s? (Some newsreaders had acquired killfiles by the mid-80s, I know that.)
Hans Reiser Guilty of First Degree Murder (Wired) Posted Apr 29, 2008 0:32 UTC (Tue) by proski (subscriber, #104) [Link] Whether Hans Reiser is guilty of not, it would be beneficial for the society if he is allowed to work as a programmer and given the necessary facilities. He may be a jerk, and he may be a murderer, but no jury can deny that he is a great programmer.
Hans Reiser Guilty of First Degree Murder (Wired) Posted Apr 29, 2008 0:51 UTC (Tue) by Alan_Hicks (subscriber, #20469) [Link] I had no intention of posting, so I'll leave my personal feelings regarding his guilt or innocence and whether I could have convicted him on circumstantial evidence or not alone. With that said, I do not believe under any circumstances that he should be allowed to continue to operate as a programmer by the County or State in which he will be imprisoned. The man has been convicted of murder and as such deserves punishment. Allowing him to continue to act a very normal life for himself as a programmer is not what prison is about. On a side note, I applaud LWN's coverage of this case. It has been brief, objective, reserved judgment, and sensitive to the people most hurt throughout this bloody affair.
Hans Reiser Guilty of First Degree Murder (Wired) Posted Apr 29, 2008 1:03 UTC (Tue) by jmspeex (subscriber, #51639) [Link] That's one way of seeing things. The other way would be that in no way can you have a normal life in prison even if you have a computer. Also, having prisoners contribute to society in some way (not arguing about which way) is a good thing.
Hans Reiser Guilty of First Degree Murder (Wired) Posted Apr 29, 2008 1:16 UTC (Tue) by joey (subscriber, #328) [Link] This is getting a bit far afield, but this idea that programmers shouldn't be allowed to program while in prison is one that utterly rubs me the wrong way. History is full of people who wrote letters and essays and literature in prison. And were allowed to use a pencil and paper and get it published. King's Letter From a Birmingham Jail is the first one that comes to mind. This writing from inside prison has been allowed to have sometimes large impacts on the world outside. (It's also no doubt been used to continue criminal careers from "inside".) Similary, prisoners are allowed to use phones (with various limitations). And yet, currently there's a feeling that using a computer and the net is somehow a privledge that should be taken away from the incarcerated. Especially if they're programmers. Perhaps this is just another case of the legal/justice system lagging technology by the customary 50 years. I hope so. And if you think that being in prison while still being allowed to write (or program) is any kind of "normal life", please think again.
Letters from prison Posted Apr 29, 2008 2:13 UTC (Tue) by jreiser (subscriber, #11027) [Link] History is full of people who wrote letters and essays and literature in prison.Jawaharlal Nehru's letters to his daughter Indira Gandhi, Glimpses of World History (1936), are another example.
Letters from prison Posted Apr 29, 2008 7:28 UTC (Tue) by patrick_g (subscriber, #44470) [Link] Or André Weil work :"Among his major accomplishments were the 1940 proof, while in prison, of the Riemann hypothesis for local zeta-functions, and his subsequent laying of proper foundations for algebraic geometry to support that result" (From Wikipedia).
Writing in prison Posted Apr 29, 2008 11:12 UTC (Tue) by man_ls (subscriber, #15091) [Link] Or the greatest work in Spanish literature: Don Quijote de la Mancha.
Letters from prison Posted Apr 29, 2008 15:14 UTC (Tue) by tjc (subscriber, #137) [Link] History is full of people who wrote letters and essays and literature in prisonCase in point: several books in the New Testament were written from prison.
Letters from prison Posted May 2, 2008 12:53 UTC (Fri) by flewellyn (subscriber, #5047) [Link] Yes, but so was Mein Kampf.
As a programmer ... Posted Apr 29, 2008 1:08 UTC (Tue) by AnswerGuy (subscriber, #1256) [Link] First I could not condone giving him access to the facilities necessary to carry on his work. A convicted murderer shouldn't be given any sort of special treatment regardless of his or her skills. (And giving a hacker access to a computer and Internet connectivity --- and allowing him the freedom to work "hacker's hours" on such things would count as "special treatment"). Frankly, I don't know if he did it or not. But he has been convicted and I didn't see anything egregiously unfair in the handling of his case. (The lack of a corpse and the estranged victim's foreign ties might have been "the shadow of a doubt for me" but I wasn't in the court room and didn't see the evidence; and I would have been recused from the jury if I'd been called up for it --- since I was an aquaintance). Regarding possible impact to ReiserFS and more generally to Linux ... Hans was the founder, and principal sponsor of the project. The design concept was his and it embodies an innovative unifying idea. I admire the concept. He was not the main programmer. From what he said, on various occasions when I heard him speak, both formally and around the dinner table as SVLUG after-meeting social events, he hired programmers, mostly Russian, to do the bulk of the implementation. I don't know if he did any of the low level coding personally --- but his own description of the project to me suggests that this would have been relatively minor. This isn't intended to disparage his work. It's just the facts as I understand them. I'm a bit disappointed that ReiserFS development and adoption has lagged so much. However, I can't say I'm surprised. It has suffered some horrible technical setbacks (quite apart from the sordid issues related to its namesake and some of the vitriolic verging on childish flame wars). (The debacle of a filesystem whose fsck utility would merge looped filesystems out of their containment files and into their parents would be just about the worst that I've heard of in any production Linux code). I hope that development will continue ... and that adoption will find its niche --- or that some of the design concepts (particularly the tail-packing and ubiquitous indexing) will be merged into other filesystem designs (ext5 or btrfs++ or whatever). But, if that's to happen it will have to be without Hans' involvement (at least for the next 25 years or so). JimD
As a programmer ... Posted Apr 29, 2008 18:40 UTC (Tue) by ofeeley (subscriber, #36105) [Link] I could not condone giving him access to the facilities necessary to carry on his work. A convicted murderer shouldn't be given any sort of special treatment regardless of his or her skills. (And giving a hacker access to a computer and Internet connectivity --- and allowing him the freedom to work "hacker's hours" on such things would count as "special treatment").Seems like a waste to have him sitting there or watching TV or doing some make-work project when he could actually be contributing something useful to society. That's all assuming that he would be able to actually do any work while living in the boring hell that is a prison. Don't make light of the punishment he's facing.
As a programmer ... Posted Apr 30, 2008 3:03 UTC (Wed) by sbergman27 (subscriber, #10767) [Link] If a person convicted of such a crime can make constructive contributions to the world, then why deny the world those contributions? There are practical concerns to giving a convict access to the Internet; His activities would have to be monitored. But that administrative overhead would be a small price to pay. And the work would certainly be more therapeutic than meaningless busy-work. The way I see it, prisons are to protect the innocent, and not to punish or take revenge upon the guilty. I'm far from a fan of Reiser or his filesystems. But I would strongly support his being allowed to use his talents to constructive purpose.
Hans Reiser Guilty of First Degree Murder (Wired) Posted Apr 29, 2008 2:46 UTC (Tue) by bojan (subscriber, #14302) [Link] The man was convicted of _first_ _degree_ murder of the mother of his children by the jury of his peers. And you are seriously asking what _he_ should be allowed to do?
Hans Reiser Guilty of First Degree Murder (Wired) Posted Apr 29, 2008 3:09 UTC (Tue) by proski (subscriber, #104) [Link] Actually, the "first degree" part is likely to be appealed. It's not like the jurors could have made any informed conclusion whether is was a premeditated murder (as opposed to a manslaughter) based on what Hans Reiser did after the fact.Anyway, I'll rather see a criminal write free software than make license plates. The punishment remains the punishment, but the society gets a better deal.
Hans Reiser Guilty of First Degree Murder (Wired) Posted Apr 29, 2008 3:21 UTC (Tue) by bojan (subscriber, #14302) [Link] > The punishment remains the punishment, but the society gets a better deal. I don't see how allowing murderers to continue doing what they like best is punishment. Personally, I'd be more concerned with the fact that two kids effectively lost both parents. Hopefully, they are big enough to fend for themselves or have good support network.
Hans Reiser Guilty of First Degree Murder (Wired) Posted Apr 29, 2008 7:02 UTC (Tue) by Janne (guest, #40891) [Link] If some murderer likes reading the most, should he be denied access to books while in prison? If he likes sports, should he be denied physical exercises while in prison? If he likes writing, should he be denied access to pen and paper (or word-processor)? Being sent to prison for years is a punishment. Being labeled "murderer" is a punishment. Does that mean that those people should be denied the possibility of doing things in which they are good and enjoy doing? I think that the person should be a productive member of the community when he has served his time. If we deny them the possibility of maintaining/improving their skills and preserving their sanity, what we will end up doing is that by the time they are released from prison, they are a shadow of their former selves, with no hope of integrating back in to society. And those are the kind of people who will end up back in jail. Is that what we want? If prisoner is capable of making positive contribution to the society while doing time, should he be denied that possibility? Why? How would that benefit society or the individual?
Hans Reiser Guilty of First Degree Murder (Wired) Posted Apr 29, 2008 9:11 UTC (Tue) by bojan (subscriber, #14302) [Link] Nice example of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man. If I murder my wife tonight, does that mean I get to keep my job after being imprisoned, because I can be productive to society, given the whole thing is done remotely? I don't think so. To answer your question: > "Does that mean that those people should be denied the possibility of doing things in which they are good and enjoy doing?" Yes, it does - they should be denied many of those things. Collaborative development of software should be one of those things, as it is essentially a highly social activity. In other words, a complete opposite of what imprisonment is all about.
Hans Reiser Guilty of First Degree Murder (Wired) Posted Apr 29, 2008 9:18 UTC (Tue) by Janne (guest, #40891) [Link] Nope, this is not s straw man argument. "If I murder my wife tonight, does that mean I get to keep my job after being imprisoned, because I can be productive to society, given the whole thing is done remotely? I don't think so." If your emplyer wants to employ you, why not? "Yes, it does - they should be denied many of those things." I'm sorry, but I was under the impression that the prison-sentence was the punishment. Hell, by your logic prison-libraries should be closed down, since the existence of those libraries obviously mean that the inmates like reading. Since they like reading, they should not be allowed to read. They probably also like to sleep in beds, so the beds should be removed. They also like sunlight, so windows should be removed. Where do we draw the line? "Collaborative development of software should be one of those things, as it is essentially a highly social activity. In other words, a complete opposite of what imprisonment is all about." No, that is not what imprisonment is all about. Now, solitary confinement is about removal of all social activity. But last time I checked, inmates have plenty of social activity with other inmates, the guards and even members of their family.
Hans Reiser Guilty of First Degree Murder (Wired) Posted Apr 29, 2008 9:21 UTC (Tue) by bojan (subscriber, #14302) [Link] > If your emplyer wants to employ you, why not? You must be joking. No point responding to the rest.
Hans Reiser Guilty of First Degree Murder (Wired) Posted Apr 29, 2008 10:04 UTC (Tue) by Janne (guest, #40891) [Link] I misread the original comment. I read it as "after I'm released from prison", instead "after I'm imprisoned".
Hans Reiser Guilty of First Degree Murder (Wired) Posted Apr 29, 2008 12:36 UTC (Tue) by nye (subscriber, #51576) [Link] >> If your emplyer wants to employ you, why not? >You must be joking. No point responding to the rest. You must be trolling, but I'll respond anyway (see how sometime the way a response is worded makes you look less than constructive?). The point of prisons is notionally to provide rehabilitation. In some countries this apparently even works, but I couldn't say. Effectively, prisons in most of the world provide two things: vengeance, and keeping convicted criminals away from the general population, as a safeguard. The latter is provided by the simple act of physical confinement, so the former must be the issue here. If a criminal can contribute to society (ie help others) from in prison, then is it really worth preventing them, on the grounds that they might enjoy it? That would depend upon whether your desire for revenge against one person is greater than your desire for the work they could do to benefit many. Personally, I think that would be cutting off your nose to spite your face, as the saying goes.
Hans Reiser Guilty of First Degree Murder (Wired) Posted Apr 29, 2008 21:16 UTC (Tue) by rahvin (subscriber, #16953) [Link] Not to defend the trollish nature of the poster you are replying to but many people do not consider prison about reform. A number of people consider reform a secondary goal of prison and punishment as the first goal.
Hans Reiser Guilty of First Degree Murder (Wired) Posted Apr 30, 2008 7:00 UTC (Wed) by Janne (guest, #40891) [Link] What is the goal of prison: a) punish the criminal b) reduce the amount of crime If you select A, you will most likely end up with a system where the criminal spends some time in prison, gets released, commits another crime, gets sent to prison etc. etc. In option B, the criminal is sent to prison. But instead of focusing on "punishing" the criminal (well he is punished as well, since physical confinement that is prison is a punishment), they also try to make sure that he can re-integrate back in to the society. That way he wont commit any more crimes after he has been released. If prison focuses on "punishment", the man that is released after his time is up, is a broken and bitter person, with no real hope for the future. And that is exactly the kind of person who will commit more crimes. Do those extra crimes help society? No they do not. What does help the society? Productive members of the society.
Hans Reiser Guilty of First Degree Murder (Wired) Posted Apr 30, 2008 23:52 UTC (Wed) by rahvin (subscriber, #16953) [Link] I discussing my personal feelings on the matter the point of prison is to remove the individual from society. Not for the sake of the prisoner, but for the sake of society. Rehabilitation or punishment are secondary to removing the person committing illegal acts from society. Of course it's hoped that in allowing the person back out that they will have learned a lesson but I highly doubt you could prove that very many (if any at all) rehabilitation programs have lower recidivism rates than the general prison population. Every scientific, rather than anecdotal, study I have seen shows there is no correlation between recidivism and "rehabilitation" programs and that return rate is the same in almost every study. Someone else pointed to USA recidivism rates and tried to infer the Europe is better in this regard than the US because of softer sentencing, this is while neglecting that the numbers are almost identical in both jurisdictions. First time offenders are about 60% likely to re-offend, of re-offenders 90% will re-offend again after the 2nd prison term. This has led to the idea of the three strikes system in some states because it keeps the people that will re-offend in prison rather than releasing them to commit more crime.
Hans Reiser Guilty of First Degree Murder (Wired) Posted Apr 29, 2008 21:48 UTC (Tue) by bojan (subscriber, #14302) [Link] > You must be trolling Get over yourself, please. A woman is dead and two children have been left without parents. A man has been convicted of her murder and all you can think about is what _he_ should get?
Hans Reiser Guilty of First Degree Murder (Wired) Posted Apr 30, 2008 8:44 UTC (Wed) by thumperward (guest, #34368) [Link] and all you can think about is what _he_ should get?This too is a straw man. There are obviously other considerations here. However, it is a valid point to bring up. If you don't believe that murder sentences should be universally punished with execution or solitary confinement, the question is what said murderers should be doing with themselves behind bars. Hans Reiser could make a minor contribution to society manufacturing license plates, or could make a larger one by working on a file system. It is evident that criminals are already allowed access to writing materials, books, multimedia and physical education, so the question is whether or not restricted access to computing facilities should be allowed as well. - Chris
Hans Reiser Guilty of First Degree Murder (Wired) Posted Apr 30, 2008 9:37 UTC (Wed) by bojan (subscriber, #14302) [Link] I find it awfully distasteful that many here are worried whether he'll be able do this or that, especially given that they may have personal interest in it. The man has just been found guilty of murder and the first priority is preserving his coding privileges? I think not. Murderers should be given an opportunity to think long and hard about the consequence of actions they have chosen to take. This does not include (effectively) extending their employment inside prison walls on day one of their imprisonment.
Hans Reiser Guilty of First Degree Murder (Wired) Posted Apr 30, 2008 11:24 UTC (Wed) by Janne (guest, #40891) [Link] "Murderers should be given an opportunity to think long and hard about the consequence of actions they have chosen to take. This does not include (effectively) extending their employment inside prison walls on day one of their imprisonment." What if we are talking about a hobby here? Of course Reisers ambitions about coding for profit wont fly while he's doing time. But what if he wants to code as a hobby? Last time I checked, inmates are allowed to do things that could be considered hobbies. Things like sports, writing, reading, playing an instrument etc. Why would coding be different? Of course coding Reiser4 might be difficult since his net-access would be limited in the extreme. But still.
Hans Reiser Guilty of First Degree Murder (Wired) Posted Apr 29, 2008 10:11 UTC (Tue) by aogulla (guest, #29747) [Link] A prison is a correctional facility whose main purpose is _not_ to punish wrongdoers but to rehabilitate them and prepare their return to society as worthy citizens. Hans Reiser, even if guilty, should be allowed contribute to ReiserFS development whilst in prison as a productive person. At least this is my understanding of prisons in Kenya. I don't know about the US.
Rehabilitation: a convenient fiction --- a little white lie Posted Apr 29, 2008 11:21 UTC (Tue) by AnswerGuy (subscriber, #1256) [Link] Characterizing prisons, anywhere in the world as "correctional" facilities for "rehabilitation" is one of those little white lies that lily-livered liberals tell one another. (I'm liberal, but not lily-livered) :) Prisons are for locking people up and keeping they away from the rest of us. They don't do any appreciable level of "rehabilitation" --- and if we wish to claim that this is their purpose then we should also give ourselves, all of us, as a society, failing grades for the absolutely abysmal "success" rate that they exhibit. They mostly keep convicted felons off our streets, out of our homes and places of business and away from us, our family and our friends. The tragedies are: * Too many "crimes" have nothing to do with harming other people (drug use, etc) * The administration of "justice" is far too uneven ... heavily weighted towards more several punishment for people of specific racial and economic backgrounds * The lack of effective "rehabilitation" and a number of other factors practically guarantee that most criminals will cycle through a revolving door career of felony. * Some of the the worst harm --- atrocities which *should* be criminal --- are being perpetrated "above" or "beyond" the reach of the law (yes, I'm talking about you, Mr. President). JimD
Rehabilitation: a convenient fiction --- a little white lie Posted Apr 29, 2008 19:00 UTC (Tue) by ami.ganguli (subscriber, #9613) [Link] In Finland, at least, prisons certainly are for rehabilitation. Prison terms are much much shorter than in the U.S., and conditions are generally quite comfortable. Recidivism rates in Finland are also much lower than the U.S. Even though the prisons aren't so bad, people who are given an opportunity to turn themselves around during their time in prison are less likely to commit more crime upon their release.
Hans Reiser Guilty of First Degree Murder (Wired) Posted May 1, 2008 5:33 UTC (Thu) by lysse (subscriber, #3190) [Link] We don't lock murderers up to punish them. We lock them up for the good of society, and we deny them their freedom until they are able to demonstrate that they can use it responsibly. (At least, that's the theory. "Punishment" is nothing more than vengeance with permission, and doesn't help anyone.) So there's no objection to extracting as much good for society from the situation as possible. Whether it happens to coincide with the prisoner's desires is immaterial, and denying someone something they like doing, when it would be useful to everyone, simply because "you're supposed to be being punished" is stupid and irrational. Indeed, far better to put prisoners to work doing whatever they most want to do - that way society benefits most from its incarcerated members. (In any case, a fair few prisoners *want* to sit around all day doing nothing, getting into testosterone-triggered territorial fights and spending the rest of the time smacked up into oblivion - which means that the current system is catering for their desires almost perfectly. Why are they more deserving than Hans Reiser?)
Hans Reiser Guilty of First Degree Murder (Wired) Posted Apr 29, 2008 16:32 UTC (Tue) by grahammm (subscriber, #773) [Link] The jury which convicted him may be his contemporaries, but were they his peers? To be peers indicates equality of quality, rank, standing etc. The comments in the article about the jury's reaction to him indicated that they did not understand him, which makes it very unlikely that they were his peers.
Hans Reiser Guilty of First Degree Murder (Wired) Posted Apr 29, 2008 22:16 UTC (Tue) by bojan (subscriber, #14302) [Link] Jurors are human beings, which makes them his peers. PS. It is exactly this kind of elitist garbage that landed him in even more trouble.
Hans Reiser Guilty of First Degree Murder (Wired) Posted Apr 30, 2008 23:00 UTC (Wed) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link] Exactly. `Peers' in this context does not mean `people with the same job' or even `people who think the same way as him', or all corporate fraud would be tried by CEOs, and everyone would get off scot-free. It means `people in the same society', i.e. the people the defendant has to share the world with.
Hans Reiser Guilty of First Degree Murder (Wired) Posted May 1, 2008 5:35 UTC (Thu) by lysse (subscriber, #3190) [Link] "All are equal before the law."
Hans Reiser Guilty of First Degree Murder (Wired) Posted Apr 29, 2008 4:38 UTC (Tue) by flewellyn (subscriber, #5047) [Link] I think that would be highly inappropriate. Consider the impact on the public's perception of our community. Right or wrong, many people who heard that, for instance, the kernel team continued to work with him after this conviction would be left with a very bad taste in their mouths regarding Linux and free software in general. Even aside from corporate adopters, this would also spook a great many of the general public.
Hans Reiser Guilty of First Degree Murder (Wired) Posted Apr 29, 2008 5:13 UTC (Tue) by joey (subscriber, #328) [Link] Let's assume for the sake of argument that Hans is sitting in front of a network-connected laptop tomorrow. (Smuggled in in a cake, presumably.) If so, there's nothing stopping him from submitting a patch to the kernel under another name. It's not as if new kernel patches have to be gpg signed with a known-good key. If the patch is reviewed and judged to be good and signed-off-on by a lieutenant, it will get into the kernel. If the fact that this can happen spooks corporations or the general public, then well, they've not been paying attention.
Hans Reiser Guilty of First Degree Murder (Wired) Posted Apr 29, 2008 6:04 UTC (Tue) by jamesh (subscriber, #1159) [Link] As happened with Shem Multinymous's contributions?
Hans Reiser Guilty of First Degree Murder (Wired) Posted Apr 30, 2008 8:03 UTC (Wed) by njs (subscriber, #40338) [Link] Well, sure, but... it's pretty clear that Shem only has problems because he (she?) makes a point of being *obviously* pseudonymous. If Shem used, I dunno, "Robert Hines" as a pseudonym instead, then no-one would have ever looked twice before accepting the patches.
Hans Reiser Guilty of First Degree Murder (Wired) Posted Apr 29, 2008 2:01 UTC (Tue) by madscientist (subscriber, #16861) [Link] I don't know anything about the trial other than what was contained in this one article. It seems very likely he did it (but what are the odds that his best friend, whom his wife had an affair with, is also a serial killer?!?! Bizarre. No wonder the judge disallowed that little tidbit--talk about prejudicial! Does Gambler's Fallacy also apply to serial killers?)It seems pretty clear to me that if he'd just exercised his legal right to not testify at all, he'd have gotten off. His actions look very suspicious but juries have to find guilt without a reasonable doubt, and they would have to wonder if he might have had some reason for those suspicious actions. There was absolutely no direct evidence linking him to the crime--there wasn't even any direct evidence that there was a crime! By taking the stand and spewing such plainly bogus nonsense he proved to them there was no reason for his actions other than the obvious one: he was guilty. For those not familiar, in the U.S. a defendant does not have to testify, and the jury is not allowed to consider that the defendant did not testify as any indication of guilt--of course, it's probable that some juries do consider it anyway. In this case, though, his lawyer could have argued that he is so socially inept that he felt he would damage his own case by testifying--which would have been the truth as it turns out. We can't say it's a shame without knowing whether he did it, but it's at least ironic that the same qualities which made his experiences so difficult with the Linux community appear to be the ones that got him convicted of first degree murder. I guess some people really don't ever learn!
Hans Reiser Guilty of First Degree Murder (Wired) Posted Apr 29, 2008 2:34 UTC (Tue) by zlynx (subscriber, #2285) [Link] > his lawyer could have argued that he is so socially inept that he felt he would damage his own case by testifying--which would have been the truth as it turns out. Lawyers can't actually stop their clients from as they wish. Mr. Reiser probably insisted on telling it his way.
Hans Reiser Guilty of First Degree Murder (Wired) Posted Apr 29, 2008 3:59 UTC (Tue) by madscientist (subscriber, #16861) [Link] I'm not sure where your comment comes from. I never suggested that Reiser's lawyer had any say in whether he testified or not. What I said was, the lawyer had plausible justifications for it if he decided not to testify, for example that he could use in closing arguments.
Hans Reiser Guilty of First Degree Murder (Wired) Posted Apr 29, 2008 3:32 UTC (Tue) by proski (subscriber, #104) [Link] Actually, we can say it's a shame.I can understand not applying a patch from a person with social issues, because the code needs to be maintained, somebody needs to work with people reporting bugs. I can understand a judge choosing a harsher punishment for a person who appears to be more dangerous to the society, as long as it's within legal limits and follows precedents. But the jury should not be basing answers to yes-or-no questions on personal traits of the suspect. The jury is supposed to work with proven facts, not with guesses. The jury is not made of omniscient beings who know better than the prosecution, whether he did it, and especially whether it was intentional and planned. IANAL (unfortunately, this acronym sounds very different in this discussion).
Hans Reiser Guilty of First Degree Murder (Wired) Posted Apr 29, 2008 4:34 UTC (Tue) by madscientist (subscriber, #16861) [Link] > But the jury should not be basing answers to yes-or-no questions on > personal traits of the suspect. No, but they can certainly base judgements of the suspect's trustworthiness and inclination to violence from his or her testimony and use it to condemn them. Just as they cannot hold it against a suspect for failing to testify, the jury certainly doesn't have to give them any extra points for testifying, especially if they do it as badly as Reiser seems to have (based solely on published reports).
Hans Reiser Guilty of First Degree Murder (Wired) Posted Apr 29, 2008 6:34 UTC (Tue) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link] This is doubly true if there is no other evidence one way or the other...
Hans Reiser Guilty of First Degree Murder (Wired) Posted Apr 29, 2008 21:32 UTC (Tue) by rahvin (subscriber, #16953) [Link] In the US, a common mistake of the educated is to assume that the Justice system is about facts. The justice system is about emotion, facts are just a way to justify the emotion. If trials were only about facts inflammatory language wouldn't be used, but the prosecutor calls the defendant those names because it incites an emotional response. For example in the Hans trial closing remarks the prosecutor read a passage from a children's book found in the car of Han's wife. Such action was to incite anger and sadness for the loss of the mother to the children, and secondarily to try to show the fact that the mother wouldn't abandon her children (as the defense contended). The emotional response was the target, the fact was used to justify the blatant attempt to influence the emotions of the jury. The best lawyers are those that can weave emotion and fact together to create the emotional response the lawyer wants in the jury. Whether you approve or disprove of this isn't entirely relevant as this is a fact of the justice system and I doubt this will ever change as long as people are involved in the process. In the case of Hans I doubt the Jury would have convicted him had he not gotten on the stand and produced such unbelievable responses for his strange behavior after the disappearance.
Calm down, everyone Posted Apr 29, 2008 7:08 UTC (Tue) by janpla (guest, #11093) [Link] As others here have noted, murderers are not always primitive types of low intelligence - they are, however, always murderers. We probably don't know enough to really make a judgement of his character either way - there are cases where one can understand and even sympathise with a killer, and there are cases where a person kills without a shred of conscience, "just because". Leave that to one side, though. We, in the open source community, pride ourselves of being open, so let us not try to sweep it under the carpet. I agree that sensationalism is utterly distasteful, turning the suffering of others into entertainment; however, just like we don't try to hide problems with our SW behind lies, but step right up to task at hand and take responsibility, we should not try to explain this away. Instead, those of us who have admired him for what he has done for OSS should perhaps take a moment to reflect on the dangers of hero-worship. No man is so good that there is nothing bad in him; nor so bad that there is nothing good.
Hans Reiser Guilty of First Degree Murder (Wired) Posted Apr 29, 2008 7:30 UTC (Tue) by csawtell (subscriber, #986) [Link] Just a few points:-
Hans Reiser Guilty of First Degree Murder (Wired) Posted Apr 29, 2008 7:48 UTC (Tue) by vblum (guest, #1151) [Link] Based on the evidence that was presented, this is a deeply troubling outcome. Regardless of who did what and how, a car that appeared to have been cleaned out rather thoroughly is just not a solid reason to convict anyone of first-degree murder; likewise for the remaining evidence. I agree with all other posters that this is a tragedy for all involved, regardless, but how a jury could find anyone guilty beyond reasonable doubt based on this is not clear.
Hans Reiser Guilty of First Degree Murder (Wired) Posted Apr 29, 2008 15:31 UTC (Tue) by aigarius (subscriber, #7329) [Link] Seconded. Combine this evidence of the troubling state of USA legal system with the rapid disintegration of civil liberties, declining economy and all kinds of security services feeling entitled to confiscate your laptops without any evidence. I think I will not step into USA willingly in the coming 10-20 years at least and would not recommend anyone else as well.
Hans Reiser Guilty of First Degree Murder (Wired) Posted Apr 29, 2008 21:36 UTC (Tue) by alankila (subscriber, #47141) [Link] One of the members of the Jury interviewed: http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/04/reiser-juror-de....
Hans Reiser Guilty of First Degree Murder (Wired) Posted Apr 30, 2008 10:57 UTC (Wed) by forthy (guest, #1525) [Link] Thanks for the link - this is just like I expected. Guilty because he's an arrogant asshole who can't look into your eyes when he talks with you (so he must lie), and has little emotions for his ex-wife (I doubt Hans has much emotions for anything else than his work). Well, that's Hans with all his typical Asperger symptoms, making life for him more difficult than necessary. No proof of murder anywhere to be seen, they don't even have a conclusive story how it could have happend.
Hans Reiser Guilty of First Degree Murder (Wired) Posted Apr 30, 2008 15:13 UTC (Wed) by alankila (subscriber, #47141) [Link] Well, that is just a brief telephone interview. The case dragged on for 6 months, so I doubt you should read too much from it. In that article, they also appeared to have much better reasons for this conviction than his arrogance, lack of emotions or avoidance of eye contact. They mentioned something about a cellphone with battery removed and car missing a seat, for instance.
Hans Reiser Guilty of First Degree Murder (Wired) Posted Apr 29, 2008 8:05 UTC (Tue) by inverter (guest, #19022) [Link] Apart reiserfs having some serious and unresolved bugs (I have one file-system that without apparent corruption, crashes any 2.4 or 2.6 kernel after playing a bit with some files, so I stopped to use it, reverting on the slow ext3 or trying XFS), it was my file system of choice until one year ago. I hope mr. Reiser can get a way to still write code if finally declared guilty. Humor note: he just started to work in the 'wrong' nation: if he moved in Italy before committing the supposed murder, after making it the worst thing would can happen would be go to the Parliament (http://www.beppegrillo.it/eng/condannati_parlamento.php).
XFS is worse then ReiserFS in some regards Posted Apr 29, 2008 8:32 UTC (Tue) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link] If your XFS partition ever fills up - you are in BIG trouble. Apparently it can keep files in memory for months if it can not find place to store them on disk: everything looks Ok... till the next reboot when you find out that some files are silently corrupted. IMNSHO it's even worse then reiserfs: where in reiserfs you have quite visible crash with XFS you have corrupted files! It only happens when filesystem is full - but I can not gurantee I'll never fill it so I've stopped using XFS...
XFS is worse then ReiserFS in some regards: additional clue requested Posted Apr 30, 2008 23:44 UTC (Wed) by inverter (guest, #19022) [Link] So, what FS do you suggest? I liked XFS lately, even if I never used heavily before stopping to use it as default file-system on new servers, because speed was very similar to reiserfs.. but the XFS behavior you pointed out shocked me!
additional clue provided Posted May 8, 2008 8:55 UTC (Thu) by gvy (guest, #11981) [Link] XFS+UPS+monit: UPS guards against another XFS feature (security one: the blocks which might be astray are zeroed out while mounting the filesystem after power loss, system reset or kernel crash -- while metadata would be OK so the zero-filled files might just look OK), and monit is able to yell when a filesystem is getting tight. 2 khim: Vitya, filesystems used up for more than 9x% drop the performance sharply (usually an order of magnitude within 90..95% margin for different FSes). So you probably don't want them in that state no matter what. PS: well... as I tell constantly to girls and women in Russia and Ukraine: don't fall for pretty foreigners. Yet to see at least one successful family, and have seen a few "almost ideal". Almost. Have had. This is double-sided: folks, don't think that Russian girl might be "just cute". She well might be *massively* better educated and raised -- one doesn't have to be redneck to feel like a crude oak at times. So spare the contrast, do yourself a favour. Or considering moving here, as some tired of american boredom do. Still, they get sad eyes in several years... read an interview with one such man and recently met another one. So if a friend of yours liked russian dating spam, maybe pass this message.
Hans Reiser Guilty of First Degree Murder (Wired) Posted Apr 29, 2008 9:05 UTC (Tue) by danielpf (subscriber, #4723) [Link] In view of the poor record of the US justice system, I cannot take the conclusions of this trial seriously. Finally there are no proofs, just circumstancial evidences, and in that case crowd justice is rarely the best.
Rude and arrogant Posted Apr 29, 2008 9:11 UTC (Tue) by forthy (guest, #1525) [Link] We all know that Hans Reiser is rude and arrogant. He always was. It has already caused lots of problems with merging ReiserFS4 into Linux, and it's also the reason for his divorce. He's also highly intelligent, and if he tells other people that they are stupid, he's most often right. This is the problem of judges in the US: If you appear as asshole, you'll be found guilty, no matter what evidence there is. His defense strategy certainly was wrong. The right thing to do is to find his ex-wife - hire some ex-KGB agent to do that work. A bit like "The Fugitive" ;-). If he could have presented his ex-wife to the court, he could have been as much asshole as he liked, he could have told them "here is my ex-wife, here's the evidence that you are all a bunch of brainless idiots, and hold me captive without reason." In any case: If you are a geek and accused of something, understand the jury, not just the police. The jury are ordinary people; nothing you do sounds logical to them, because "logic" is not something they really use. They have habits that work, they don't try things, but ask for help instead (like cleaning a dirty car with water instead of using the vacuum cleaner on the gas station). My e-mail footer is "If you want it done right, you have to do it yourself". Hans Reiser certainly agrees to this footer, but all the judges would be offended by it (I've found that this footer is offensive to certain kinds of people, so I use it only for personal mails - the persons I like understand it). The normal way to get something done right is by asking an expert. This is the reason why countries like Germany don't have juries - if you want a correct judgement, get a judge. The founding fathers however must have been geeks, so they distrusted authorities, and gave this power into the hand of common people (without understanding how common people work).
Rude and arrogant Posted Apr 29, 2008 9:55 UTC (Tue) by alankila (subscriber, #47141) [Link] Seems implausible, even irrelevant. Would you not suppose that was Nina Reiser alive, she'd have done something to announce her existence, especially after reading about this case worldwide? Or, if you think that she hated Hans, what about her friends in the States? Or what about her kids? According to the prosecution, Nina cared a lot for them...
Rude and arrogant Posted Apr 29, 2008 13:28 UTC (Tue) by forthy (guest, #1525) [Link] Yes, and where are her kids now? AFAIK they are in Russia, with their grandma. When Nina cared a lot about her kids, everything's all right now. And BTW: I've had a case of a mother leaving her child with the father in my larger family (widower from a cousin) - IIRC, it took half a year before they heard of the woman again (the mother engaged in a new relationship, and the kid would have been a problem for her new friend). People do disappear, and mothers do leave their children behind. The theory of the jury is that Hans Reiser did a "perfect murder", where the corps vanished completely; something that doesn't happen very often, compared to the number of murders in total. This, especially given Hans' reduced abilities to perform manual work (after all, he's a very typical Asperger case), is implausible - and there are numerous proofs of his manual-work-disability in just this single car. The alternative theory (Nina Reiser goes back to Russia with a new Russian identity - quite cheap to obtain there) is not so implausible. There must be a lot of hate involved, but anybody who knows how Hans Reiser communicates can understand every amount of hate. He's just one of those people who mess up every discussion.
Rude and arrogant Posted Apr 29, 2008 21:47 UTC (Tue) by rahvin (subscriber, #16953) [Link] The theory of the jury is that Hans Reiser did a "perfect murder", where the corps vanished completely; something that doesn't happen very often, compared to the number of murders in total.Your argument is supposition. The number of "Perfect Murders" would in fact not be known because they are "perfect". Many many people disappear every year and are never found again. Some as you relate move on in life, but others have more than likely been killed and will never be found again. Given the number of people that disappear every year, if even 50% are assumed to have been killed (which I think is probably to few) then the number of "Perfect Murders" is rather large. In comparison to the number of murders, I wouldn't be surprised if the number of disappearances is close to 50% of that number, and that doesn't even include the people that don't have friends of family that simply never get reported as missing. As an example I provide the man from Canada that killed and disposed of, IIRC 48 prostitutes before one escaped and reported him. He killed and disposed of people that don't generally get reported missing and as a result went undetected for years. There are a number of "famous" serial killers that engaged in similar success rates because they were adept at disposing of the bodies.
Rude and arrogant Posted Apr 29, 2008 22:34 UTC (Tue) by man_ls (subscriber, #15091) [Link] 50% of all disappeared people are murdered? Come on, you watch too much Reality TV. It would mean hundreds of thousands of bodies disappearing without a trace in the US alone, every year.The cases you mention are pathological, not the usual behavior of the human race. It is worth keeping it in mind.
Rude and arrogant Posted May 1, 2008 5:40 UTC (Thu) by lysse (subscriber, #3190) [Link] > It would mean hundreds of thousands of bodies disappearing without a trace in the US alone, every year. How closely do you think anyone looks at the contents of bin liners...? ;)
Rude and arrogant Posted Apr 30, 2008 7:12 UTC (Wed) by alankila (subscriber, #47141) [Link] Hmh. Well the theory of the defense was that Nina framed Hans for her murder, if not intentionally then accidentally. Either way she wouldn't even drop a phone call to the police after hearing that her husband is jailed for it, so that would indicate an incredible malice (and lots of patience) to use the justice system as the tool of revenge. Is that _really_ any more believable? Further, no other evidence appears to support that she was planning on vanishing, on the contrary there is every indication that her life was planned ahead in the States. She'd have left behind thousands of dollars in cash, a new job that she was starting in a few weeks, the fate of her kids would be a gamble in the justice system even if in the end they ended up in Russia. She was supposed to meet a friend over a dinner that very evening, which is pretty disingenious because worried friends tend to call the police. In other words, I don't believe a word of this back-to-Russia theory.
No corpse, no proof of murder Posted Apr 29, 2008 10:22 UTC (Tue) by rvfh (subscriber, #31018) [Link] My feeling (which I hope is wrong) is that to present his ex-wife to the court would prove the jurors right... I cannot imagine a mother leaving her children, nor could I understand why buying grocery if you know you're leaving the country. I really doubt she's still alive. For the rest, only one or two persons know what really happened.
No corpse, no proof of murder Posted Apr 29, 2008 14:49 UTC (Tue) by forthy (guest, #1525) [Link] You are a typical juror - you just cannot imagine what happens every day, because these sort of stories don't make it into crime movies (but murder does). I had such a case in the larger family - as I replied above. The women just disappeared. There was some back and forth with the child after she reappeared, but finally, he was left with her ex-husband. Things like that happen, they are not even very unlikely. Buying groceries before? She didn't want her children to know - if the usual routine was "buy groceries, drive to daddy" on that day, it would be very difficult to omit the "buy groceries" part without causing suspicion. If you don't have a corps, proving murder becomes much more difficult. Just not being able to imagine an alternative theory is no proof. I find it very hard to imagine that an Asperger case like Hans is able to dispose a corps without trace, and lying to the audience with a story that makes at least some sense (the fact that all he did is weird is no proof - Hans is a weird person). The act of lying requires so much more social skill than these people have; they can't even tell the truth as convincing story. It's the convincing part that's too difficult for them, and it's convincing the jurors that decides if you are found guilty or not.
No corpse, no proof of murder Posted May 1, 2008 5:46 UTC (Thu) by lysse (subscriber, #3190) [Link] There are cases on record of mothers *murdering* their children - in one case because she thought the man she fancied would be more interested in her if she didn't have kids hanging around, in other cases to cover up years of sexual abuse, and of course for pretty much any other reason one might imagine. Not to mention the documented cases of abuse and neglect perpetrated by mothers upon their children. In Britain, there is a famous example of a journalist and novelist who basically abandoned her young child. The mother-child bond is nowhere near as inviolate as your average person would like to believe it to be.
Rude and arrogant Posted Apr 29, 2008 14:25 UTC (Tue) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link] Jury trials in the US are inherited from English common law, and ultimately from the Magna Carta. So blame a bunch of barons holding King John over a barrel eight hundred years ago. (A bunch of barons who could not by any stretch of the imagination be described as 'geeks' but who were correcting some definite injustices, from their POV...)
Rude and arrogant Posted Apr 29, 2008 19:06 UTC (Tue) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link] Oh, and also, producing Nina would have proved that she was alive: being unable to produce her indicates only that she is dead, and says nothing additional about who killed her. (Given that there was already one known murderer among her acquaintances, it is more plausible than is usually the case that someone else did the deed, if deed there was.)
American Injustice Posted Apr 29, 2008 16:29 UTC (Tue) by mgb (subscriber, #3226) [Link] Hans is arrogant and annoying but there was insufficient evidence for a murder conviction and no evidence whatsoever of premeditation. Hans may have committed the crime but there are at least two other equally plausible suspects. Without further evidence none of the suspects can properly be found guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. One of the other suspects is a confessed serial killer but the Hans jury was not allowed to know that fact. The third suspect had much greater opportunity than Hans, and indisputably wanted the Reiser children. Unfortunately Hans lacked the millions necessary to secure justice in the US. Justice failed due to an extraordinarily biased judge, a weak defense attorney, and jury members selected primarily for their availability to sit though six months of soap opera and innuendo. We will probably never know who killed Nina.
American Injustice Posted Apr 29, 2008 19:51 UTC (Tue) by ncm (subscriber, #165) [Link] ... or, indeed, whether she's alive or dead. IMHO the headline should say "found guilty".
Sad Comments Posted Apr 30, 2008 2:37 UTC (Wed) by clugstj (subscriber, #4020) [Link] This (the comments) appears to me to be rather sad and beneath the quality I've come to expect from LWN readers. We've the bashing of the US justice system by those who've probably not even read the complete article (or know anything about the US justice system that they didn't read in the media - oh, yea, they tell us the whole truth). We've the snooty "This would never happen in Europe" crowd. And then there's the punishment vs rehabilitation argument with no data presented by either side. Oh, well, I'm done bitching now.
Sad Comments Posted Apr 30, 2008 9:46 UTC (Wed) by forthy (guest, #1525) [Link] For one thing, it can't happen in Germany. Here, when someone is just missing, it takes 25 years to claim (s)he's really dead (and without someone officially dead, you can't claim it's murder). Unless of course, you have someone confessing the crime - and this confession is plausible. E.g. a few years ago, a child vanished, and soon afterwards the police arrested several people who accused each other of murdering that child after abuse - and they had even confessed that to the police after tough examination (no torture involved ;-). The court verdict finally was "not guilty", because the way these people accused each other and the "facts" of their confession were not leading anywhere - except if you assume that they made this all up (for whatever stupid reasons, like deals with the police "if you don't confess, you'll end up forever in jail, if you do, it's over after 10 years"). Especially that even those who confessed that they did this murder couldn't tell the police where and how they got rid of the body. The boy is still missing, and we still don't know if it was murder, kidnapping, accident or whatever; we just know that the police followed the wrong trace. It is extremely difficult to prove a crime when you don't have a trace of the victim. The messages here also indicate that people assume murder is more likely than people going somewhere else (and vanish, because they cut ties from their former live). You look too much TV, too much horror stories. Hans was found guilty of the worst thing thinkable in such a situation, but where's the proof beyond reasonable doubt? I have no idea what really happend, but that's because this trial did not find out the truth (whatever the truth actually is). They only tried to find out how believeable Hans' version is, and since Hans' version is by default unbelievable (weird arrogant asshole Asperger case talking himself into a corner), he must be guilty of whatever he's accused. This is not logic, this is just stupid. What's correct is that jail does not work as rehabilitation, neither in Europe nor in the USA. Our problem is that criminals are usually pathological humans, and we deal with them as if they weren't (so we assume all the ordinary mechanisms like thread of punishment actually work), and we deal with them after the fact. Neither here nor there the system is anywhere close to ideal.
Sad Comments Posted May 2, 2008 13:35 UTC (Fri) by alfille (subscriber, #1631) [Link] Are you really expounding on the virtues of German justice?
Sad Comments Posted May 2, 2008 14:51 UTC (Fri) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link] Sorry, what's wrong with the German justice system? The machineries of *state* in .de are somewhat deadlock-prone, but the .de system is definitely not bad.
Sad Comments Posted May 2, 2008 16:58 UTC (Fri) by alfille (subscriber, #1631) [Link] Their history is inauspicious, to be polite about it. More to the point, comparing the theory of one system against the practice of another is bad science. Even worse, there is systematic bias when you compare the theory of one system against an individual case, since that case is preselected for your bias.
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