[conspire] Avoid Acer and Best Buy , especially for a Laptop

Mon Feb 4 17:50:20 PST 2008

I can't believe whats going on with this laptop. The bad power system on my acer 5420-5687 is all over the web now. Acer insists I go through Best Buy. Best Buy is willing to do the return if I restore it to 'original condition'. Unfortunately the external drive I used to save the recovery partition to was ntfs and appears to have mangled it. Any ideas.? Does someone have spectacularly good recovery tools for bz2 type archives and ntfs ? Just a cheaper source of the disk image would help but tomorrow is the time limit!

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Today's Topics:

   1. Re: Reiser trial: DNA tests partially flubbed, defence motion
      for mistrial (Rick Moen)
   2. Reiser trial: DNA tests partially flubbed, defence motion for
      mistrial (Rick Moen)

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Message: 1
Date: Mon, 4 Feb 2008 03:33:12 -0800
From: Rick Moen 
Subject: Re: [conspire] Reiser trial: DNA tests partially flubbed,
 defence motion for mistrial
To: conspire at linuxmafia.com
Message-ID: <20080204113312.GN16922 at linuxmafia.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii

Following up on one very strange forensics claim in the press, and some
typos/gaffes on my part:

> Oakland PD criminalist Shannon Cavness [...]
> commented that the easiest way to "lyse" (break apart) blood cells and
> their DNA is to wash them with water.

As I read the news accounts that relayed Cavness's remarks, I was
thinking "WTF?", but Deirdre the forensics fan covers this point nicely
at http://dsmoen.livejournal.com/160047.html:

  Subject:  If This Were True, We'd All Fall Apart

  "Earlier in the morning, and still under direct questioning by
  prosecutor Paul Hora, Cavness told the jury that the simplest way to
  wash blood -- and DNA evidence -- out of material is to use cold water.
  She said blood cells lyse -- or break apart -- when introduced to water."
  [link]

  Keep me away from that water!

  But it's pretty clear to anyone who's watched any forensics shows that
  washing an area with water does not remove blood evidence. It just
  washes most of it away, but there certainly other tests one can do.
  (Then again, most people think that washing a glass until it appears
  clean means it is clean, but experienced chemists know otherwise.)

  Anyhow, it's hard to tell without looking at the court transcripts
  themselves, but I sincerely hoping that most of this is stupid
  reporting and not stupid forensics. 

I _do_ fear stupid forensics, given how unimpressive Cavness's testimony
has been, generally.  This whole notion of transporting a corpse in the
passenger side of a Honda 2-seater after unbolting a bucket seat -- why
not just in the hatchback? -- and then seriously expecting to get blood
stains out with water and 1/2 roll of paper towels seems wacked.  But
then, prosecution's entire theory has the air of post-hoc invention
about it.  Remember the fantasy about Hans lugging Nina's corpse
downstairs to where the living areas are -- in a house whose only exits
are on the top floor?  I'm increasingly reminded of preliminary-hearing
Judge Julie Conger's remark that she found prosecutors' theory entirely
unconvincing.

> Tu 2008-01-22:  Prosecution's case continued with a return visit from
> Oakland PD criminalist Shannon Cavness, talking about items found in
> Hans Reiser's decrepit 1988 Honda Civic CRX 2-seater a week after police
> followed Hans to it on Mo 2006-09-18 on Monterey Blvd., in Oakland's
> Montclair District.  She described it as in "dirty condition", listing
> clutter including a sleeping bag, absorbent cloths, a siphon pump,
> plastic trash bags, a roll of paper towels missing about half its 55
> sheets, a credit union receipt, a Target receipt from Mo 2006-09-11,
> various food items (both eaten and not), toiletry articles, Stockton and
                           ^^^^^  meaning: wrappers thereof, etc.
> Manteca street maps, two books on murder investigations, a Manteca
> U-Haul printout from Su 2006-09-17 that detailed a projected trip from
> there to Oakland, a Manteca 7-Eleven receipt from the same day, a
> Fremont Motel 6 receipt for an overnight stay on Su 2006-09-10, a
> 40-piece socket wrench set and receipt from Kragen's Auto Parts, Hans's
> We 2006-09-13 Redwood City traffic citation, a Th 2006-09-14 newspaper
> article entitled " and 12 mm bolts consistent with those used for the
                   ^ "Police search home of missing woman's spouse" 
> missing right-side car seat.  She said the floorboard was very wet (1/2
> to 1 inch of standing water), at the time police found the car, and
> commented that the easiest way to "lyse" (break apart) blood cells and
> their DNA is to wash them with water.

> What followed after Weisenberg's testimony was yet another bombshell:
> Defence counsel DuBois filed a _motion for mistrial_, alleging improper
> conduct (a "false statement") by Judge Larry Goodman in front of the
> jury on We 2007-12-12, which DuBois said has prejudiced the jury and
> improperly excluded evidence from them.  To review, this was when DuBois
> was cross-examining Nina's best friend and fellow Russian mail-order
> bridge Ellen Doren, and asked if she'd pursued son Rory's claims to have
  ^^^^^^ er, "bride"
> observed Nina leaving the Exeter Drive house unharmed.  Doren, who has
> consistently been extremely hostile to defence, had said merely "No",
> DuBois attempted to follow up, Hora objected, and Goodman angrily and
> very loudly intervened.  It went like this:

> On cross-examination, Morasch admitted that the cessation of charges to
> Hans's VISA card after August was an obvious and simple consequence of
> it being maxed out.  DuBois then asked Morasch if he were familiar with
> how Hans paid his employees:  "No."  (The point, which DuBois is sure to
> bring out earlier, is that Hans paid Namesys's Russian staff through
            ^^^^^^^  "later"
> occasional cash transfers.)

> Did Morasch even know that Latvia was _a separate country_?  At this
> point, Morasch pretty much conceded DuBois's point, that as sudden
                                                           ^^ "a"
> infusion of $8,000 from Latvia was peculiar for Nina, who had no history
> with that country at all.

> DuBois interjected to point out that the matter of custody was still
> unclear, and that defence believes Family Court's ability to oversee the 
> children's welfare from halfway around the world was questionable.
> Judge Goodman acknowledged that this subject was still "on appeal" (and 
> both sides attorneys "stipulated" this fact, which means they agreed to 
> regard it as settled and not contest it, nor be able to examine
> witnesses on that point) -- which dancing around defendant Hans Reiser's
> biggest sort point (the spiriting of his children away to Russia against
          ^^^^ "sore"
> court orders) prompted him to finally speak out-loud, attempting to
> address Goodman, in front of the jurors.

> On cross-examination, asked Fanucchi if (in effect) the messages had
                       ^ DuBois
> been marked as unheard until Sa 2006-09-23, when Reiser heard them for
> the first time.

------------------------------

Message: 2
Date: Mon, 4 Feb 2008 09:47:49 -0800
From: Rick Moen 
Subject: [conspire] Reiser trial: DNA tests partially flubbed, defence
 motion for mistrial
To: conspire at linuxmafia.com
Message-ID: <20080204174749.GP16922 at linuxmafia.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii

[Forwarded back from another mailing list.]

Quoting Brian Chrisman (brian at permitsoft.com):

> I don't know the context, but if she literally means just 'lyse', ie, 
> bursting the cell membrane, water will do it.

However, just bursting the cell membranes wouldn't destroy all DNA
evidence in white cell and other DNA-bearing blood components (red blood
cells have no DNA, but other blood fractions do), let alone prevent a
criminalist from detecting there having been blood there at all.

Remember, Cavness was saying the _only_ blood found in the car was the
faint 6" smear of unknown age on the stuffsack.  And yet, Hans moved a
corpse in that car to somewhere far from the Oakland hills?  Really?

> You'd think that transporting a body would leave a whole lot of blood 
> pretty much everywhere, unless you had meticulously planned for disposal 
> over a good long period of time.

Yes.  Prosecutor Hora attempted to dance around this point in his
opening statement by speculating that maybe Nina'd been strangled, but
again this sounds to me like ad-hockery suspiciously crafted to fit his
lack of evidence.

> I took out the passenger seat in my NSX to transport a bunch of stuff 
> once.  It would make more sense if he'd taken out the CRX passenger seat 
> in order to fit a body in the entire car (the CRX hatchback isn't big, 
> and if the body was rigid and she was tall?? I dunno....), but then he 
> would've gone ahead and put the seat back in after he was finished, 
> presumably.  I don't think anybody could fit my body in rigor in a CRX 
> without removing the passenger seat.. might need to leave the hatch open 
> too... :)

Nina was or is a pretty short gal.  Rigor mortis ceases around 72 hours
after death, FWIW (but that would be after his mother's return from
Burning Man).

> What mystifies me, is what's happened to the 'friend' who claims to have 
> killed several people?  Anything?  Did he recant or something?

No news on that -- and Sean Sturgeon's confession was ruled inadmissable
for the Reiser trial, early on.  Before you ask, sealed writ, so we
don't know the grounds.

> Seems like that's all the defense really needs to build some
> reasonable doubt.

Prosecution's case is, fundamentally, this:

o  Two pieces of (now-dubious) DNA blood evidence.
o  Nina was last seen at Hans's house.
o  Witnesses say Nina would never voluntarily abandon her children.
o  Hans showed up to pick up the kids at school after Nina 
   disappeared but before authorities were alerted, even though it
   was Nina's day to do pickup.  (Oddly, he then left without the
   kids.  Eventually, Ellen Doren dropped by and took them.)
o  Hans's car's seat was gone, floorboards wet, and two books on murder
   investigations found in it.
o  Days after Nina vanished, Hans was sort-of seen washing his 
   driveway at night, wearing heavy clothes on a hot autumn night.
o  "Counter-surveillance" measures.
o  Hans had mentioned at a school party that he'd be better off 
   without his wife.

I'll be fascinated to hear about DuBois's case for the defence. 
One of the things criminal defence lawyers must stress (in common law 
countries like the USA) is that they have literally no burden of proof:
As you say, prosecutors must establish guilt past any reasonable
doubt.   Thus, defence's best tactic is sometimes to point out that
key holes in the opposition's case, and otherwise say nothing at all.

That's why the fight over Rory saying his mother left the house and
drove off is such a big deal:  That's reasonable doubt, right there.

------------------------------

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