Reiser leads police to wife's body (MercuryNews) [LWN.net]

Reiser leads police to wife's body (MercuryNews)

Posted Jul 8, 2008 18:09 UTC (Tue) by jwb (subscriber, #15467) [Link]

I doubt that we'll see a return of the holier-than-thou Europeans from that other thread.
It's better for the prejudiced to never have to face reality.

Reiser leads police to wife's body (MercuryNews)

Posted Jul 9, 2008 8:25 UTC (Wed) by zzxtty (guest, #45175) [Link]

Oh the irony, calling other people prejudiced whilst singling out the Europeans.

People from all over the world were making comments on this case,  my opinion has always been
the same: if you didn't sit through the entire court case you have absolutely no right to
comment. The media attempt to summarize days/weeks/months/years worth of court proceedings in
a few paragraphs, you cannot use this as source material for making judgments. Well you can,
but you end up looking like an idiot....

Z

Retractions

Posted Jul 8, 2008 18:17 UTC (Tue) by ncm (subscriber, #165) [Link]

There's plenty of damning to go around.  Everybody who insisted they knew he was guilty,
guilty, guilty! -- without present evidence -- are still as wrong as those who insisted
otherwise.  Lots of people are framed, and there was a very plausible culprit for that
involved (which I think the jury was not permitted to hear about), so the only correct opinion
was "I don't know".

It seems pretty clear this murder was second-degree, and would have been found that way if not
for all the foofaraw.  There's plenty of other evidence that the judicial system is deeply
flawed. The number of exonerations based on DNA evidence supports it, but the number of judges
and prosecutors who try to block re-hearings based on new DNA evidence is proof.

Retractions

Posted Jul 8, 2008 20:07 UTC (Tue) by tialaramex (subscriber, #21167) [Link]

How murder is split between first and second degree varies by state. I'm no expert in the
relevant state's laws, are you ?

Based on just a sketch outline of California's laws I would assume that the jury were told
murder was premeditated, and they found the evidence sufficient to conclude that this was the
case, which would meet the minimum standard for California's first degree.

Retractions

Posted Jul 8, 2008 21:01 UTC (Tue) by ncm (subscriber, #165) [Link]

It does not suffice for the jury to be "told the murder was premeditated".  That's for the
jury to determine, based on the evidence.  The evidence I know about shows that he was
grievously ill-prepared -- indeed, panicked.  If the prosecution insisted it was premeditated,
that might be another fault in the case.  That wouldn't matter so much for this case, but
remember the topic: we're talking about system and process; the case is a window into those.
As in the OJ case, what we can see through it doesn't look too good.

Retractions

Posted Jul 9, 2008 8:18 UTC (Wed) by tialaramex (subscriber, #21167) [Link]

I said they found the evidence sufficient. A juror says they found the evidence sufficient and
is quoted as being unhappy that Reiser may now receive a reduced sentence. The jury are
instructed in the law by the judge, who will have informed them on what basis they could find
a man guilty of first degree murder. Unlike us, they won't have been relying on a vague
sketch, but on explicit instructions from at least three experts in the law (the judge, a
defence lawyer and a prosecutor).

I'm appalled that so many people reject the jury system, in which a group of people calmly
listen to all the evidence presented by advocates, and then make up their own minds, in favour
of reading a few third hand reports on the web and deciding that they know better.

You realise that the accounts you read on the web are allowed to be entirely fictitious,
right? That nothing, nothing whatsoever will happen to a journalist who for the purposes of
making a story fit his preferred narrative simply invents or ignores evidence?

Yes, the US has had problems with inadequately briefed, or incompetent defence lawyers, due to
the way they're funded. That's worth reform. Yes, the US, as with every other country that
retained a death penalty, sometimes executed men who were probably innocent. But Reiser is in
Northern California, where the death penalty is effectively suspended, and he had by all
accounts excellent counsel, and was simply too arrogant to do what he was told. Does that even
strike you as out of character, based on what we already knew of him?

Reiser leads police to wife's body (MercuryNews)

Posted Jul 8, 2008 18:32 UTC (Tue) by kripkenstein (subscriber, #43281) [Link]

> I assume we'll now see retractions from all the people who insisted that Reiser's conviction
was a miscarriage of justice and proof that the American judicial system doesn't work?

I'm not sure why you would expect that.

There are two separate issues, whether he most likely did it, and whether he should have been
convicted. Yes, given the evidence back then, he most likely did it. But IMHO he shouldn't
have been convicted, simply because the evidence wasn't certain enough. There was reasonable
doubt - small, but reasonable - and that should be reason enough to not convict.

In other words, the goal of criminal convictions isn't to get the *right* result. There is a
trade off between type 1 and type 2 errors, i.e., how much we are willing to convict the
innocent versus to let loose the guilty. The principle is that we are extremely worried about
the former, incarcerating innocent men is abhorrent. Hence, we require evidence beyond a
reasonable doubt.

So, Hans shouldn't have been convicted, even though he most likely did do it given the
evidence back then. However, we now know that he certainly did do it. That means that the
justice system got it *right*, but the process was sadly *wrong*.

Reiser leads police to wife's body (MercuryNews)

Posted Jul 9, 2008 7:48 UTC (Wed) by kleptog (subscriber, #1183) [Link]

Just out of curiosity: was anyone in thread actually in the court room to hear all the
evidence? I'd be surprised if any substantial fraction of it got mentioned in any news outlet.
Whatever it was it convinced the juror unanimously and I don't think it's right for us a
armchair judges to say they were wrong.

Reiser leads police to wife's body (MercuryNews)

Posted Jul 9, 2008 8:45 UTC (Wed) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]

Your point stands, but not all media coverage was crappy simplifications. Henry K. Lee has had excellent (and enormously voluminous: how do jurors stay awake?) coverage here, I think from the trial's start.

Reiser leads police to wife's body (MercuryNews)

Posted Jul 9, 2008 9:52 UTC (Wed) by forthy (guest, #1525) [Link]

Actually, there was quite some reporting on it. But certainly, no, we weren't. I think what convinced the jurors was the "show", as usual. The state attorney was well prepared, honorable, and convincing (that's what I expect from a professional state attorney). Most of what he brough up was nonsense though, even considering what we know now. The removal of the seat in his car weeks after the murder didn't have much to do with it. The "smoking gun", the old blood stench was an old blood stench. The suspicious cleaning of his driveway and the car - maybe a McBeth-like "wash my hands in innocence", but not removing real traces.

The point is still: You convict murder beyond reasonable doubts, not because you have a gut feeling that it might be like that (though these gut feelings can be quite right). Now we are beyond this point, we have a confession and a corps. That's clearly beyond reasonable doubt, this is just an ordinary case, no big discussion needed.

I think one of the problem with the US system is that such a trial must find a solution quickly. You can't say "not decidable because of insufficient proof", which would allow to restart the trial if there's a significant proof turning up later. E.g. OJ Simpson now pretty much confessed that he was it; he's still a free man, because he was found not guilty. There was a lot more proof in his case - there was a corps, there was blood, OJ's DNA, etc., but there was also the doubt that a racist policeman fabricated parts of the proof. Gut feeling of the jury: OJ is not guilty. I don't want a legal system that relies on gut feelings.

Legal system recurrence

Posted Jul 9, 2008 12:26 UTC (Wed) by man_ls (subscriber, #15091) [Link]

That is true, but OTOH you cannot have someone stand trial an indefinite number of times, just because the police have not been able to gather all necessary evidence on time. The life of the accused might arbitrarily become very complicated.

Legal system recurrence

Posted Jul 9, 2008 16:19 UTC (Wed) by forthy (guest, #1525) [Link]

Indeed, the issues that should lead to reopen such a case must be strong. That's how it works in Germany: E.g. if someone is found not guilty due to lack of proofs (we call that "second class acquittal"), and then later he confesses, this is a strong indication that the case needs to be reopened (first class acquittals are much more difficult to reopen, i.e. cases where there was somebody else found guilty). Or somebody else confesses, and the court previously thought the proofs were enough. This is not to be taken lightly; the US system however says "one trial", without exception, and appeals rarely take new facts into account. That should do it for most cases, but for difficult cases it's not enough.

On these difficult cases, justice in Europe is quite slow. This is also a problem with the system (when it's the court that makes things slow, not the police). But you always have to make the tradeoff of getting it right or closing the case timely.

Reiser leads police to wife's body (MercuryNews)

Posted Jul 10, 2008 19:32 UTC (Thu) by wahern (subscriber, #37304) [Link]

Two reporters--SFGate and Wired--separately transcribed most or all of the courtroom
proceedings. The SFGate blog is an engrossing (and very long) read.

There may have been reasonable doubt, but when Reiser took the stand the jury clearly decided
their own doubts weren't reasonable. In other words, Reiser's testimony provided the
opportunity for the jury to hear evidence on the reasonableness of their doubts (e.g. Reiser's
"autismal" geek persona, etc), and we all know how they decided. Whether you could believe, in
the abstract, somebody would take the seat out of their car and sleep in it (rather than in
their own bedroom), once you hear somebody try to explain in their own words why, when, and
how they did so, you have an opportunity to concretely examine your doubts.

Lesson? Never, ever, ever, take the stand as a criminal defendant. If you don't trust the
jury, telling your side of the story is pointless. If you do trust the jury, telling your side
of the story is still pointless.

Also, when you have a defense attorney widely respected, and when prosecutors from around the
region come into the courtroom just to take notes on his performance, heed his counsel! It's
still good advice no matter your attorney.

Oh, and don't murder people if you can help it.

Reiser leads police to wife's body (MercuryNews)

Posted Jul 10, 2008 7:33 UTC (Thu) by epa (subscriber, #39769) [Link]

This is a strange argument.  If you think the justice system is flawed and convicts too many
innocent men, you should point to an example case where it did that.  Not to a case where,
despite not complying with whatever criteria you think a trial should follow, it did give
justice anyway.

Reiser leads police to wife's body (MercuryNews)

Posted Jul 10, 2008 7:55 UTC (Thu) by kripkenstein (subscriber, #43281) [Link]

I never said I think the US justice system convicts too many innocent men. I also didn't say
the US justice system is flawed.

All I am saying is that the *procedure* in *this* case was faulty. Happily, the result was
correct despite the flawed procedure. But it was still improper procedure, by its own
standards, at least as I understand 'beyond a reasonable doubt'. Of course it is very
legitimate to disagree with me on that matter.

But that the result in this case was correct doesn't prove the procedure was valid, these are
separate issues; that is precisely my point. For example, the following algebra is flawed
despite arriving at the correct result:

100 - (-5*-6) = 100 - (-30) = 70

Reiser leads police to wife's body (MercuryNews)

Posted Jul 8, 2008 18:34 UTC (Tue) by Zack (guest, #37335) [Link]

>I assume we'll now see retractions from all the people who insisted that Reiser's conviction
was a miscarriage of justice and proof that the American judicial system doesn't work?

Why would there be retractions ? Reiser's conviction was a miscarriage of justice and proof
that the American judicial system doesn't work.

Just because it got the right result doesn't mean the process is sound.

Reiser leads police to wife's body (MercuryNews)

Posted Jul 8, 2008 19:42 UTC (Tue) by rvfh (subscriber, #31018) [Link]

I just re-read my post on the previous thread, where I said at the time that I thought he was
guilty, based on my readings about the case.  Sadly, I was right.

The jury evidently thought so as well, and I don't think we can accuse the American justice of
having done anything wrong really: there was just too much against him, even though there was
no body at the time.

Condemning without absolute proof happens any judiciary system really, and leads to mistakes
from time to time.  I can remember two cases, one in France and on one UK that are well known
mistakes, but they don't make the whole system wrong.  No system is perfect, that's all...

Reiser leads police to wife's body (MercuryNews)

Posted Jul 9, 2008 4:57 UTC (Wed) by dvdeug (subscriber, #10998) [Link]

I'm not sure how you can claim with a straight face that a trial that convicted a guilty man
of the crime he committed is a miscarriage of justice. Justice was served, whether or not the
process was sound.

When something gets the right result, it's evidence that that thing is working. If you want to
find bugs, you look at when it got the wrong result, not the cases when it found the right
result.

Reiser leads police to wife's body (MercuryNews)

Posted Jul 9, 2008 10:39 UTC (Wed) by Zack (guest, #37335) [Link]

>When something gets the right result, it's evidence that that thing is working. If you want
to find bugs, you look at when it got the wrong result, not the cases when it found the right
result.

Take the fraction 16/64. Now, canceling a six on top and a six on the bottom, we get that
16/64 = 1/4.

Any math teacher, notwithstanding the correct answer, will reach for his red marker here. So
no, getting the right result is not evidence that a procedure is working.

Reiser leads police to wife's body (MercuryNews)

Posted Jul 9, 2008 11:01 UTC (Wed) by rsidd (subscriber, #2582) [Link]

Your example applies when you already know the rules and there's nothing to "judge". Most legal/criminal cases aren't mathematically provable. Hence the usual phrase "beyond reasonable doubt".

To take your example further, someone who did not know the rules of arithmetic, if told that your procedure gave the correct answer for 16/64 but the wrong answer for 16/65, would conclude that the procedure is wrong. But if "striking out the 6" gave the correct answer in every case, the conclusion would be that the procedure is correct (perhaps it's a notational quirk where digits are meant to be multiplied together). To conclude that the judicial procedure was wrong, you'd need to cite a similar case where they arrived at the wrong answer. Of course there are lots of cases of miscarriage: nobody in the world has a perfect judicial system. The task is to minimise mistakes while not releasing dangerous people.

As people who attended the courtroom proceedings know, the jury's decision wasn't in the least surprising.

Reiser leads police to wife's body (MercuryNews)

Posted Jul 9, 2008 15:04 UTC (Wed) by vblum (guest, #1151) [Link]

There's a string of recent overturned rulings in Texas where the math went provably wrong.

That said, I am deeply frustrated by the Reiser outcome. Poor Nina.

I was among those that thought the (press-published) evidence was formally insufficient to
warrant a conviction that could reach up to the death penalty. I still think it is dangerous
to reach a verdict with evidence that says he probably did it, vs evidence that says he did
it; there are too many cases in legal history where "probably" was not enough. 

In a posting further up, a poster suggested that "Europeans" generically were holier than
though because of an attitude such as this. I sincerely hope that my opinion is not linked to
my being European. In fact, I was appalled that, on LWN, someone would use generic stereotypes
about nationalities (continentalities) in such a way. I also don't cite Texas above because
it's Texas; Texas was simply big in the press lately, and I just don't good recent European
example of a false conviction handy right now; I am sure there are. But that's besides the
point.

Reiser leads police to wife's body (MercuryNews)

Posted Jul 9, 2008 16:19 UTC (Wed) by dvdeug (subscriber, #10998) [Link]

I think your standards give the Han Reisers of the world carte blanch to kill and kill again.
As the Slate article linked to upthread says:

"When told two days later his estranged wife was missing, he refused to talk to the police.
They started following him but he engaged in counter-surveillance, driving in circles, pulling
over to the side of the road, exiting and entering the freeway. Within two days of being
notified Nina was missing, he hired a well-respected criminal defense attorney, William Du
Bois. Hans withdrew large sums of money from the bank. When the police found his car -- it was
missing the passenger seat and rear assembly -- they uncovered two books on murder, including
"Homicide" by David Simon. Simon wrote about the importance of not talking to the police and
how a crime is rarely solved without a body."

That's good evidence, and exactly the type of evidence a brilliant sociopath will leave
behind.

Reiser leads police to wife's body (MercuryNews)

Posted Jul 10, 2008 7:12 UTC (Thu) by vblum (guest, #1151) [Link]

Yes, but innocent until PROVEN guilty is the one thing you can do to prevent the wrong person
from being convicted. Lots of questionable convictions here (simple google):

http://standdown.typepad.com/weblog/exoneration/

The question is, are you happy to occasionally kill the wrong guy, just cause that way you
sometimes catch your "brilliant sociopath"? I guess that is a matter of opinion. I,
personally, would rather not; hoping the sociopath is maybe not so brilliant after all and
will catch himself at some point. 

[I am not so sure Reiser should be glorified as a brilliant sociopath. In retrospect, the guy
is a rather sad existence; someone who failed utterly unimaginably in his interactions with
any environment; causing a terrible tragedy for everyone around.]

Reiser leads police to wife's body (MercuryNews)

Posted Jul 10, 2008 10:33 UTC (Thu) by dvdeug (subscriber, #10998) [Link]

Innocent until proven guilty prevents the wrong person from being convicted. That's because it
prevents anyone from being convicted. That's why it's not the standard under law.

> The question is, are you happy to occasionally kill the wrong guy,

Irrelevant; the death penalty was not on the table here. And there are body counts involved
with letting too many murderers walk, too. People like Reiser frequently kill again.

> hoping the sociopath is maybe not so brilliant after all and
> will catch himself at some point. 

He wasn't going to lead them to the body; the question is when did and when would the
psychological evidence, combined with the forensics they had, be enough?

Reiser leads police to wife's body (MercuryNews)

Posted Jul 14, 2008 7:48 UTC (Mon) by vblum (guest, #1151) [Link]

Sorry to not respond right away, but I think there is simply a misunderstanding here.
"Innocent until proven guilty", as worded here, is the standard under any western jurisdiction
anyway.

My impression was that attempts to circumvent this usually focus on what constitutes "guilty";
like here. Was the evidence enough to "prove" or no?

Btw, I am _not_ stating all this to defend Hans Reiser. Even I believed (before the verdict)
that it was likely him, although I hoped not. But, I also tentatively _believed_ in the Iraqi
WMD at the time. What I did _not_ believe in at the time (honest) was that some aerial
photographs of trucks could constitute any convincing _proof_ of WMDs. 

In the Iraqi case, the logic (convict first, prove later) was a deeply embarrassing failure.
(Btw you can be of any opinion you wish whether that war was needed or not for other reasons;
all I'm saying is, to my surprise, what seemed like a safe but unproven guess did not work.)
In the Reiser case, it worked.

Reiser leads police to wife's body (MercuryNews)

Posted Jul 14, 2008 8:21 UTC (Mon) by dvdeug (subscriber, #10998) [Link]

You're misusing the verbal formula; "innocent until proven guilty" means that it's the state's
responsibility to prove the guilt instead of the defendant's responsibility to show their
innocence. When discussing the standard to which that guilt must be shown, it's "proven guilty
beyond a reasonable doubt".

Guilt is a matter for a jury

Posted Jul 8, 2008 20:45 UTC (Tue) by tialaramex (subscriber, #21167) [Link]

A jury found him guilty of first degree murder, that's the accepted standard. Unless you have
some evidence which you think the jury should have seen but didn't, you don't really have any
argument for saying that it wasn't first degree murder. If you do have such evidence, you
should contact the defense lawyer, his name is included in the article and the appropriate
professional organisation for Northern California ought to be able to give you contact details
if you can't find them online.

Reiser leads police to wife's body (MercuryNews)

Posted Jul 8, 2008 23:23 UTC (Tue) by jwb (subscriber, #15467) [Link]

To this day, I still cannot understand the praise of Reiser for his programming ability.  His
egomania always stood in the way of good programs.  He could not accept criticism and
therefore was unable to see the flaws, fundamental and superficial, in his filesystem.  His
last product, v4, was the height of failure.  Really, it's a terrible file system with many
dataloss flaws and fatal performance edge cases.

The hagiography of Hans Reiser really should stop.  Everything we need to know about him as a
programmer is available in the bitkeeper and git history of the Linux kernel and in his
numerous epic self-congratulatory emails to the linux-kernel mailing list.  Dispassionate
analysis shows that he was at best a programmer of moderate ability with a gravely inflated
opinion of his own abilities and the importance of his own product.

Reiser leads police to wife's body (MercuryNews)

Posted Jul 9, 2008 5:12 UTC (Wed) by ncm (subscriber, #165) [Link]

And trees aren't especially fast, either.

Reiser leads police to wife's body (MercuryNews)

Posted Jul 9, 2008 8:30 UTC (Wed) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]

I can't think of anything that grows or moves more slowly, really. They're 
renowned for it.

(gd&r)

Reiser leads police to wife's body (MercuryNews)

Posted Jul 9, 2008 12:09 UTC (Wed) by csawtell (subscriber, #986) [Link]

They are when they are dancers.

Sillyness aside for a moment.

My emotions and feelings about Hans & Nina, and about his quilt or otherwise have wavered wildly as the trial proceeded. It was not until nearly the end of the trial that the fact emerged that he had a credit card belonging to Nina in his bum-bag, together with the $9000 and passport, that my idea of certainty went through the "beyond reasonable doubt" barrier.

In the interests of "Justice should not only be done, but should also be seen to be done", I'd like to see the output from the Court Stenographer connected to an IRC channel or something similar. Similarly there is now-a-days the technical reality to stream all the speech onto the 'Net verbatim. This would not only allow us all to make rational decisions based on fact, but would also keep the functioning of the whole Criminal Justice system straight and aboveboard for a relatively low financial cost. Surely that is not beyond our abilities in this day and age?

Right from the start of this ghastly scenario playing out, I have been upset that there appeared to be little or no concern about the psychiatric state of Hans's mind. Thus I am considerably gladdened that the interests of true justice are at last being served by the defense uttering the 1368 motion (to have Hans declared incompetent). In the jurisdiction in which I live a similar procedure is almost always ordered immediately on the arrest of an alleged murderer, not months later just before sentencing. I hope the motion gets acted upon expeditiously.

Reiser leads police to wife's body (MercuryNews)

Posted Jul 9, 2008 13:39 UTC (Wed) by tialaramex (subscriber, #21167) [Link]

In principle showing all the proceedings would ensure that justice is "seen to be done". But
even after the inevitable restrictions necessary to protect witnesses, and so on, I doubt that
it would be viable. What I expect you'd actually see was that no-one watched the tedious,
slow-moving live coverage (unlike some readers I've spent time observing ordinary court cases,
they're very dull, even murder can be dull in a court room). Instead people would watch
"summarised" versions which would have all the same problems as the existing media coverage.

Providing a live video and audio feed of everything* from Westminster did not have much effect
on people's involvement in government in the UK. I understand that the US also has a
capability to provide this sort of coverage and again few watch it, most get a summary from
elsewhere. You could argue that it won't hurt, but that's a much weaker argument, the court
has a limited budget, why waste some of it on providing live coverage that few will ever watch
?

* Everything /except/ divisions, the video feed doesn't show the voting lobby and the audio is
muted until the results are read out.

Reiser leads police to wife's body (MercuryNews)

Posted Jul 9, 2008 14:53 UTC (Wed) by dark (subscriber, #8483) [Link]

It does seem likely that people would still read summaries, but I think 
that such summaries will get considerably more accurate if they can link 
to their source material and people can look up and verify controversial 
claims.

Such coverage would not have to be live, though, which will ease some of 
the privacy issues.

Reiser leads police to wife's body (MercuryNews)

Posted Jul 9, 2008 17:00 UTC (Wed) by cgyrovague (guest, #21692) [Link]

I would suggest taking a look at this article. 
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2008/07/09/hans_reiser/

This reporter followed the trail very closely and interviewed Hans
right before he agreed to reveal the body. Doesn't sound much like a mistake in justice.