Hans Reiser guilty of first-degree murder

A jury in Alameda County, Calif., on Monday afternoon found Linux programmer Hans Reiser guilty of first-degree murder in the 2006 killing of his estranged wife, Nina Reiser, according to news accounts.

The jury made its decision after three days of deliberation following a drama-filled six-month trial. The jury had the option of considering a lesser charge of voluntary manslaughter.

Hans Reiser

(Credit: via Stanford University)

Hans Reiser, 44, is known to the technology world as the founder of the ReiserFS file system software, which is available for Linux. Nina Reiser, then 31, was last seen alive on September 3, 2006, in Oakland, Calif., as she was dropping off the couple's two children for the Labor Day weekend. At the time, the couple had been involved in a bitter divorce.

Despite exhaustive searches by authorities, Nina's body has never been found. And there was very little forensic evidence presented during the trial--only a tiny amount of Nina Reiser's blood found on a pillar in Hans Reiser's home and another speck on a sleeping bag cover in his car.

That left the jury relying heavily on circumstantial evidence. Much of that evidence surrounded Hans Reiser's strange behavior following Nina Reiser's disappearance, such has his hosing down of the car's interior, which he said seemed a logical way to clean it; his removal of his car's passenger seat, which he said allowed more room for him to sleep in his car; and his attempts to elude police.

Arguing the so-called "geek defense," Hans Reiser's attorney William Du Bois said those behaviors may have been odd, but weren't evidence of murder. In his closing statements, he likened his client to an odd "duckbill platypus," and later stipulated to the fact that Hans Reiser "isn't normal," according to news accounts.

Wired blogger David Kravets, who covered the trial from gavel to gavel, said the turning point in the trial came when Hans Reiser, defying his lawyers' advice, took the stand in his own defense.

"By the time he was done, Reiser had succeeded only in dispelling the cloud of ambiguity surrounding his actions in the case, replacing it with a storm of very specific explanations that each strained credulity," Kravets wrote. "Jurors had to choose between Reiser's strained version of events and the plain conclusion that he was lying."

Apparently, they chose the latter. Hans Reiser faces a sentence of 25 years to life in prison. He's expected to return to court Tuesday morning to have a sentencing date set, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.

This post was updated with the correct spelling of David Kravets' name.

[lameshu]

FINALLY!!!!

JUSTICE SERVED!!!!

[reasonableDoubter]

I Had My Doubts

I'm Reasonably Doubting Justice Was Served,

[AppleSuxLeo]

Use/Program Linux...go to prison !

Should have been a "Softie"

[Talinus]

How to Linux geeks escape from prison?

A cake with a file system bum dum ching

[WJeansonne]

Some Stanford students are so damned bright...not!!

First Wang at Yahoo, now this fool. Of all the idiotic moves--trying to defend ones self in court. So how does one go about questioning themself in court? I'm sure it looks like Woody Allen's classic scene in his Bananas movie, lol.

[ethana2]

the appearance of evil

Whether or not he killed his wife, he made some dumb choices.

I'm sure the most frustrating thing about the jail he's going to is that it's not optimized for many small prisoners.. and he has no commit access-- in fact, very little access to anything after, you know, he's committed.

And as for parole, well you just can't give a guy like that mainline inclusion or he'll rewrite way too many rules...

In the end, you realize if it holds what it's meant to hold as long as it's meant to hold it, well, maybe it's just good enough. ...I just wish our incarceration system used less monetary resources in between making transfers.

...Wait, what am I trying to say?

[rdupuy11]

another successful conclusion

wife dead. husband in prison.
another divorce successs story.

I envy countries where people can just get divorced. Right now, its so lopsided that one side loves the courtroom and the other side doesn't bother to hope for any legal solution.

Equal time, equal support...for and from BOTH parents NOW....until that day comes...take joy in these results, its all you have.

[Zaunto]

Oddball murderer?

And I was all ready to defend the guy with the lack of forensic evidence. Who doesn't "hose down the exterior of their car". "Removing the passenger seat in order to have room to sleep in his car" is definitely odd, but certainly isn't proof of murder unless DNA, trace, or blood is found on that removed passenger seat. The idiot had to take the stand and bury himself. Why couldn't this have happened to a "Windows Geek" instead of a "Linux Geek"?

[wjcunning]

I doubt it

Having spent time around prospective Russian/Baltic brides, can say with coinfidence that American juries are CLUELESS to the deception techniques employed to get citizenship and access to a cash stream. Another successful con job.

[rswwalker]

What are you saying?

Can't tell if your implying that Nina's murder was faked or if you mean Hans' had the right to kill her for taking half his fortune and children?

If it is the former, then dead people can't collect alamony, and if it's the latter then you've got some morality issues here.

I personnally think it was a crime of passion and that if he called the paramedics after he smacked her into the pillar he would have gotten a much lighter sentence with parole. Now the idiot is facing life without parole.