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WHAT IS GUILTY BEHAVIOR?

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Thursday – from a remote lotation…

As of noon today, the jury has heard more about Hans’s obsession with child services, some of his pre arrest behavior, and – as of the noon recess – about his actual arrest.

In my opinion, his evasiveness - even a preparation for flight – is cumulative in the sense that this jury doubtless already believes that someone like Hans (think controlling personality with latent paranoid tendencies)  on whom suspicion is sharply focused would not simply surrender, even if innocent. 

So the real focus will be on other conduct, more specifically related to a ‘guilty conscience’ – such as hiding or destroying possibly incriminating evidence.  This is why Reiser’s hard drive and the missing car seat will ultimately prove more important to the “who-done-it” issue than the money in Hans’ fanny pack or his issues with the child protection services crowd. 

Think about it for a moment.  As a computer scientist, the data in Hans’ computer would be of immense value to him.  And remember --- he appears to be a controlling personality with a tendency to obsess over details.  What on earth would cause someone like that to jettison his hard drive?  I suggest only a powerful motive like saving his skin.

I’ll be back in town on Monday and return to the case then…

JBG

Posted by U2RGood on January 31, 2008 11:49 AM |

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Comments

The comments below are good as far as they go. But this is why we (and the jury) maywell infer a guilty state of mind because -- having been charged and on trial -- Hans still refuses to disclose what was on the drive. As his attorneys will have warned him, choosing to testify puts him on the dock answering questions like these & if he doesn't testify the jury will conclude "cover up" in spite of the commenter's hypothetical innocent explanation. Yes, there may be business reasons to keep secrets, but at the expense of a murder conviction? I doubt it...

JBG

As a computer scientist, the data in Hans’ computer would be of immense value to him.
You forget that Hans programs Free and OpenSource programs. His work is distributed widely for all to see, review, build and use. The actual output record from Hans work would have no value in his particular disc drive because it's duplicated all over the Internet. And, yes the computer being used to make this post is running an instance of his latest file-system.

I suspect that he has placed his hard-drive(s) into safe keeping somewhere because he wanted to keep his secure login keys to machines belonging to other people out of harms way. To say nothing of all the e-mail correspondence he has had over the years. The file-system technicalities about which he would have been discussing would have totally beyond the ken of 'experts' appointed by the Court. Goodness only know what implications they would have drawn.


Judging by the huge amount of very peripheral evidence which has been sucked into this case, I am quite sure that Hans would have not wanted the data on his discs to be pored over, and inevitably miss-construed, by people who have little or no understanding of what they were reading.

What has really worried me since the start of this very sad case is whether or not Hans has been examined and found fit to plead. If so, by whom, how and when?

Posted by: Christopher | January 31, 2008 05:46 PM

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