[conspire] (forw) Reiser trial: DNA tests partially flubbed, defence motion for mistrial

[Christian Einfeldt]

hi

On Feb 5, 2008 9:45 PM, Rick Moen <rick at linuxmafia.com> wrote:

> Quoting Christian Einfeldt (einfeldt at gmail.com):
>
> > [...] the buzz word that we were tested on is corpus delecti, the body
> > of a crime.  It really seems as if the prosecution has failed to prove
> > a basic, basic element that is even more fundamental than causation:
> > corpus delecti.  There is insufficient evidence that there was any
> > crime at all!!!  We don't even know that there was a kidnapping, much
> > less a murder.
>
> "Corpus delicti" (literal translation:  body of the crime) does _not_,
> however, necessarily mean a corpse.


Right.


> The term "corpus" here is
> figurative and means "the fact of a crime having been actually
> committed" (Black's Law Dictionary) -- the point being that nobody may
> be tried for a criminal act until it's been convincingly shown that
> there's good reason to think the deed occurred.


Right.  No formal crime, no trial. We don't try people for just being "bad
people."

That was, in fact, one major reason for Judge Julie Conger's preliminary
> hearings following Hans Reiser's indictment -- to determine whether the
> Alameda DA's department had gone off the rails.  To review, Conger
> pronounced herself utterly unconvinced by Oakland PD's murder theory,
> but felt that Hans's "strongly suspicious activities" and "the totality
> of the circumstances" suggested that Hans at least knew more about
> Nina's disappearance than he was saying.
>

It's sad that the judge didn't have enough backbone to grant def's motion to
dismiss, which I am assuming was filed.

It wasn't "awful":  The firms in question -- whom I just got through
> listing, by the way -- paid for it because Nina Reiser was missing and
> they were attempting to support a campaign by Ellen Doren, Anthony
> Zografos, and other friends of Nina to motivate the public to report any
> sign of her.


Aha, that is what I was looking for.  I would like to know more about Doren,
Zografos, and the others.  I can understand that friends would be upset that
a friend was missing under suspicious circumstances, but something doesn't
smell right here.


>
>
> > This makes me wonder how this was engineered, and maybe if Hans is being
> > railroaded.
>
> I don't think there's a master plan, just people in the DA's office
> trying to do their jobs under pressure.


Okay, but I am wondering what the nature of that pressure is.  Friendship is
fine, but people don't often go to such great lengths over mere friendship.
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