The Out-Lawyer's Blog

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WEDNESDAY AT THE REISER MURDER TRIAL ---

ONE MORE NAIL /and/or/

IS THE DEFENSE RUNNING THE WRONG PLAY?

The Supervisor

Alameda County Supervisor Gail Steele, a dedicated public servant, the kind who conscientiously answers and even acts on her constituents’ letters and complaints, was a prosecution witness today.  It seems that Hans Reiser contacted her repeatedly – even though she was outside his Oakland district – for help in correcting the perceived abuses in the child custody system of the county (something the county Board of Supervisors can do little to change).  Steele, conscientious to a fault, listened patiently and Hans donated to her campaign.

This did nothing significant to affect the balance of the case.  An aggrieved father may or may not be a homicidal nut, but complaining to an elected official cuts neither way on that issue. 

There was some suggestion that Hans’ calls and emails to Steele’s office intensified just before Nina’s disappearance (and presumably slacked off immediately thereafter), but the chronology and circumstances are probably too fuzzy for the DA to make much of it.

Loving Mommy

Later this afternoon the jury heard from Ron Zeno who runs something called “Safe Exchange” a place where estranged parents pick up and leave their children.  Though innocuous, I suppose it has a sort of Berlin Wall flavor in a murder case.  Nina and Hans used Safe Exchange a  lot, apparently, and the owner, Ron, was clearly on Nina’s side.  The children always ran to her and, in his opinion, she would never abandon them.  This sort of thing is just opinion, of course, but it the kind of opinion that juries tend to trust because it accords with common sense and ordinary experience. 

PS

Is The Defense Committed to the Wrong Theory?

Again, I am increasingly of the opinion that the defense is losing on the “mom abandoned kids to vindictively frame dad” theory.  It just isn’t selling. 

A much better theory (dangerous because it seems to admit that there may well have been a murder) would be the following common sense approach: 

We all know that Oakland has a large and growing murder rate, and that almost all of the killings are by thugs, not well off software geniuses.  If you heard - without more - that Nina’s car was found but she was missing, what would be the first thing you’d think?  That some Oakland thug was responsible. And statistics would be on your side.  

But that promising line of argument appears to have been rejected, in advance, by the defense.  As I said at the outset, Hans Reiser is very much in charge of the defense. 

And that may be the problem….

JBG