Hans Reiser Is In Charge
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Copyright © 2005, 2006 and 2007 by Jay B. Gaskill
THE REISER TRIAL, DAY 2:
Hans Reiser Is In Charge
Lawyers generally don’t talk to the press about what their murder client has or has not told them, a least not without the client’s permission and as part of an overall strategy.
In the course of this exchange, some very interesting things were revealed. Here are my top three:
1. The defendant intends to testify, even though “it would be easy” if he didn’t.
2. Reiser has been an active participant in the defense, familiar with the “9,000 pages of discovery”, and he has occasionally disagreed with his attorneys over how to proceed.
3. The pull quote from Mr. Du Bois: “…[W]e don’t know how he will come across because of his intellect.”
This exchange is fairly easy to decode. Mr. Reiser, a software genius, is something of a control freak. The defense is undoubtedly worried that he will come off as one, as a much smarter than the average bear, and as an unsympathetic “cold hearted geek”.
Any jury that can see Mr. Reiser capable of cold hearted ruthlessness will have little trouble deciding this case against him. As I wrote yesterday, Hans Reiser’s character will be the elephant-in-the-room subtext of the whole trial.
I agree that putting the defendant on the witness stand is a roll of the dice, but I tend to agree with Mr. Reiser. It is this defendant’s best (maybe his only) chance of getting an acquittal.
File this thought away: If the Reiser case is ultimately mistried because of a hung jury (especially is there are 6 or more votes for guilt) you can be assured that the DA’s office will have another run at it. Very few software geniuses have the means to fund a second high profile murder trial, let alone the first one.
The DA’s opening statement will occupy front stage today and all or part of tomorrow. This is a critical part of any case that has no smoking gun, no bloody dagger and no eyewitnesses. Isolated bits and pieces of evidence need to be understood by the jury in the overall context of the people’s case. The opening statement is the prosecution’s one chance to provide that context in advance.
In this atypical murder case, the DA will need overwhelming evidence of at least three things: (1) that Mrs. Reiser’s sudden disappearance was due to foul play; (2) that Hans Reiser is the only plausible culprit, in effect, that – absent a miraculous violation of the laws of common sense – he is the only one who could been responsible for the foul play; (3) that the totality of the circumstances effectively exclude any realistic possibility that Nina Reiser survived the foul play.
WHAT TO WATCH FOR:
How, plausibly and realistically, could Nina Reiser’s body have been disposed of so effectively that now, more than a full year after her disappearance, the authorities remain stumped?
Opening statements will probably occupy the next three court days and there will probably be a recess on Friday.
More to come….
JBG
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All contents, unless otherwise indicated are
Copyright © 2005, 2006 and 2007 by Jay B. Gaskill
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Please contact Jay B. Gaskill, attorney at law, via e mail at law@jaygaskill.com
Please contact Jay B. Gaskill, attorney at law, via e mail at law@jaygaskill.com
THE REISER TRIAL, DAY 2:
Hans Reiser Is In Charge
Lawyers generally don’t talk to the press about what their murder client has or has not told them, a least not without the client’s permission and as part of an overall strategy.
Yesterday, when it was announced that the opening statements would be delayed until today, Hans Reiser’s lead attorney, Bill Du Bois, spent a few moments chatting with San Francisco Chronicle reporter Henry Lee.
[Please see the full article on www.sfgate.com at this link:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/interstitial/main/showad?target_url=http%3A//www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi%3Ff%3D/c/a/2007/11/06/BASUT6KAE.DTL ]
In the course of this exchange, some very interesting things were revealed. Here are my top three:
1. The defendant intends to testify, even though “it would be easy” if he didn’t.
2. Reiser has been an active participant in the defense, familiar with the “9,000 pages of discovery”, and he has occasionally disagreed with his attorneys over how to proceed.
3. The pull quote from Mr. Du Bois: “…[W]e don’t know how he will come across because of his intellect.”
This exchange is fairly easy to decode. Mr. Reiser, a software genius, is something of a control freak. The defense is undoubtedly worried that he will come off as one, as a much smarter than the average bear, and as an unsympathetic “cold hearted geek”.
Any jury that can see Mr. Reiser capable of cold hearted ruthlessness will have little trouble deciding this case against him. As I wrote yesterday, Hans Reiser’s character will be the elephant-in-the-room subtext of the whole trial.
I agree that putting the defendant on the witness stand is a roll of the dice, but I tend to agree with Mr. Reiser. It is this defendant’s best (maybe his only) chance of getting an acquittal.
File this thought away: If the Reiser case is ultimately mistried because of a hung jury (especially is there are 6 or more votes for guilt) you can be assured that the DA’s office will have another run at it. Very few software geniuses have the means to fund a second high profile murder trial, let alone the first one.
The DA’s opening statement will occupy front stage today and all or part of tomorrow. This is a critical part of any case that has no smoking gun, no bloody dagger and no eyewitnesses. Isolated bits and pieces of evidence need to be understood by the jury in the overall context of the people’s case. The opening statement is the prosecution’s one chance to provide that context in advance.
In this atypical murder case, the DA will need overwhelming evidence of at least three things: (1) that Mrs. Reiser’s sudden disappearance was due to foul play; (2) that Hans Reiser is the only plausible culprit, in effect, that – absent a miraculous violation of the laws of common sense – he is the only one who could been responsible for the foul play; (3) that the totality of the circumstances effectively exclude any realistic possibility that Nina Reiser survived the foul play.
WHAT TO WATCH FOR:
This is not a slam dunk case even if the DA carries the day on all three lines of proof.
Look closely for how prosecutor Hora attempts to address the huge hole that remains:
How, plausibly and realistically, could Nina Reiser’s body have been disposed of so effectively that now, more than a full year after her disappearance, the authorities remain stumped?
Opening statements will probably occupy the next three court days and there will probably be a recess on Friday.
More to come….
JBG
