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Defense Planting Seeds of Doubt; Is the Reiser Son to be Believed?

By Ryan Singel, Kevin Poulsen, Sarah Lai Stirland, Kim Zetter, and David Kravets

OAKLAND, California -- The Hans Reiser defense on Thursday zeroed in on the case's only eyewitness -- the Linux programmer's 8-year-old son: A child psychologist took the stand in a bid to convince jurors that the boy, when he was 6, saw his mother Nina Reiser walk out of the Oakland hills house where prosecutors said she never left alive.

The boy, the only witness in the case who was at the scene of the alleged crime when her mother vanished, has said repeatedly to the police and during a preliminary hearing outside the jury's presence that he saw his mother leave the house. But in November, while in front of the 12-member jury here, he never directly said he saw his mother leave.

On the stand was Michael Fraga, a child psychologist who reviewed the transcripts of the six different interviews the young son gave to jurors and to the authorities about that Sept. 3, 2006 fateful day. (Fraga concludes that the "predominant theme" of seeing the mother leave should be given "credibility.")

The boy's father is accused of killing Nina Reiser, who was divorcing Hans Reiser. She vanished after dropping off the boy and his younger sister, now 6, to their father's house in the Oakland hills for the Labor Day weekend. The defendant, the 44-year-old popular open source programmer, has pleaded not guilty and maintains his estranged wife left Oakland and their kids and returned to Russia, where the couple met while the defendant was overseas working on his software.

Here is what Fraga said about children's thoughts:

"When analyzing data or stories or narratives, we look, I look for the common themes, the stability, how stable is that theme over time," Fraga said. He added that "You look for stable aspects of stories as a means to get closer to what actually happened."

Defense attorney William DuBois asked: "What does that indicate to the reliability of the theme?"

"If it's a very stable theme so we give it more credibility in the final assessment."

"Was there a predominant theme?"

"Yes."

DuBois was prohibited from asking the next logical question: What was the "predominant theme" in the boy's statements? The judge ruled Wednesday, outside the jury's presence, that DuBois couldn't go that far.

Still, Fraga said outside the jury's presence that the common theme was that the mother left the house.

It was a minor victory of sorts for the defense. During DuBois' closing arguments, he will inform jurors that the there was a common theme to the boy's statements. Jurors will take it from there.

The jury, which listened intently to Fraga's testimony, will have to balance what Fraga said with what prosecutor Paul Hora noted during his opening statement -- that the boy should not be believed because he was too little.

Also, the boy also testified that he envisioned his father carrying "somebody" in a bag wrapped like a "ball" the night in question.

Testimony is breaking for lunch.

THREAT LEVEL is providing gavel-to-gavel coverage.

Courtroom sketch by Wired's Norman Quebedeau.

See Also:

• Hans Reiser Evading Police Because He Was Upset, Feared Arrest ...
• Hans Reiser Murder Trial: The Ego, the Filesystem and No Mention ...
• Hans Reiser to Testify; Judge Says Sufficient Evidence to 'Sustain ...
• Hans Reiser Murder Trial: Indigent, Technospeak and Evading Detection
• Hans Reiser Murder Trial: Trance Music, Belly Dancing and the Minotaur
• Psychiatrist Testifies: Reiser May Have Asperger's Syndrome
• Hans Reiser Murder Trial: The Vilification Defense Begins -- UPDATE II
• Nina Reiser's Mother, Defense Attorney Verbally Sparring at Hans ...

Full post as published by Threat Level on February 28, 2008 (boomark / email).