Intellectual Property Law

After a nearly six month-long trial, the jury in the Hans Reiser murder prosecution finally has the case. If you've been following David Kravets' gavel-to-gavel coverage in this space, you know the facts are complicated. At heart, though, the case puts a battery of circumstantial evidence against the proposition that Hans Reiser, though kind of a jerk, isn't a killer. No body has been found.

Much of the circumstantial evidence comes in the form of Reiser's suspicious behavior following his wife's disappearance. Reiser's so-called Geek Defense proposes that this was the result of his overly-logical mind, and his inattention to social cues. Wired.com is, of course, produced by geeks, for geeks, and many of our readers have been paying close attention to the case. So we'd be remiss if we didn't give our readers a chance to weigh in.

Obviously, no amount of reading can replace the experience of sitting in a jury box, hearing the testimony first hand, and shouldering the responsibility of determining guilt or innocence in a murder prosecution. So nobody should mistake this poll as a predictor of what the jury will find, or a barometer of Reiser's guilt or innocence.

We're posing the same question the jury is asked: has the prosecution proven its case to the necessary legal standard. That is, based on the evidence presented at trial, would you find Reiser guilty of killing his wife, beyond a reasonable doubt?

First degree murder requires premeditation, in a killing that is intentional and deliberate. Second degree murder means there was no premeditation proven. Voluntary manslaughter is an unplanned killing in the "heat of passion" or a "sudden quarrel."

You can review Kravets' nearly 100 posts from courtroom here, and read more about the jury's instructions and see a timeline of events here.

(Poll:  twiigs.com)