ABOUT THAT MISSING HARD DRIVE...
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A full account of Monday's session, with drawings, is at WIRED... Go to http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/01/hans-reiser-m-1.html .
Monday, January 28.
So where is the Hard Drive?
IN TODAY'S TESTIMONY, THE JURY LEARNED THAT HAN'S COMPUTER WAS RECOVERED, BUT THAT THE HARD DRIVE HAD BEEN REMOVED...
OTHERWISE...
Today’s testimony was dense with detail, much of it about Nina’s pre-disappearance financial transactions – nothing consistent with any putative third party abduction and nothing inconstant with her demise on or about September 3, 2006. In other words, the jury heard nothing – so far in the financial transaction narrative- nothing to move the ball in one direction or another.
DuBois regained lost ground today, however, when an interviewing officer agreed that in an early statement, Hans’ son had in fact seen his mother leave Han’s house on the day of her disappearance. You will recall that the DA’s rehabilitation on redirect was when the boy seemed to agree that he’d merely assumed his mother left because she had said goodbye and hugged.
The record stands there – in ambiguity. DuBois – properly in my objection – has complained that the court’s admonitions of him during his cross examination of the boy amounted to commenting on disputed evidence in front of the jury. A mistrial motion based on that courtroom incident (really a form of judicial misconduct, though apparently not labeled as such in the motion) was filed today. The defense does not seriously expect a mistrial to be granted, so has proposed an alternate remedy in the form of an instruction to the jury, inviting the trial court:
… to correct its error by informing the jury to specifically disregard its inaccurate, intemperate, unfair remarks referenced above”. The jury should be advised that they are the ‘sole, exclusive judges of the facts in this case… to determine whether Nina’s son “left the house and walked up the outside stairs to her van, and as he testified at the (before the trial) got in her van and drove away.”
A trial judge would be ill advised to ignore the request entirely. I would anticipate a watered-down version of the defense proposed instruction to be given, coupled with a standard general instruction that any comments the court may have made on the evidence should not influence the jury in its deliberations.
BUT HANS -- IF HE TESTIFIES - NOW MUST EXPLAIN THE MISSING CAR SEAT, THE BLOOD SPOTS AND HIS EVASIVE ACTIONS... HE MUST EXPLAIN WHAT HAPPENED TO HIS HARD DRIVE. WHAT DID HE HAVE TO HIDE?
We’ll see…
