OAKLAND, California -- Linux programmer Hans Reiser's defense attorney told jurors here during his closing arguments Wednesday that his client did not kill his wife, "not because he is a nice guy, but the evidence in this case has not proven the crime."
"Hans' conduct can be interpreted as being guilty. It can also be interpreted as innocence, and a product of his own platypus-ian personality, as we will see," defense attorney William DuBois told jurors.
"He is odd in every way," DuBois said.
DuBois, who was summarizing for jurors his geek defense, labeled his client a "duckbill platypus" and said any guilt-like behavior the defendant exhibited in the aftermath of his wife's disappearance could easily be explained because Reiser is paranoid and "socially inept."
"Why did he act the way he acts?" DuBois asked as he held a miniature platypus stuffed animal.
Answering himself, he replied: "He does not understand social cues. He shows almost no emotion is because he has no emotion."
That he threw away his car seat after his wife vanished Sept. 3, 2006, proves nothing, DuBois said. The defendant, who made 11 appearances on he witness stand, said he was sleeping in the car and hosed down the inside because it was dirty.
"What is the evidence on the seat that is supposed to connect Hans Reiser to the disappearance of his wife?" DuBois asked. "Was he trying to get into the commuter lanes with a body on his seat?"
DuBois said his client would have gotten rid of the car if he really did kill Nina Reiser and use the vehicle to transport her dead body. He might have burned it and reported it "stolen." Or, DuBois said, he might have brought it to a salvage yard and have it squeezed "into a tiny little thing and get money for it."
Nina Reiser, at age 31, was last seen at her husband's house in the Oakland hills. She was dropping off the divorcing couple's two young children to stay with him for the Labor Day weekend. The defendant claims she left the country, perhaps to Russia, after he accused her that day of embezzling from his Namesys software company.
"The evidence hasn't excluded her being in Europe," DuBois said. Moments before, he added: "She speaks German, English and Russian. No one ever looked for her that we know of in any of the European countries."
DuBois said his client is "such an easy person to dislike. He just comes across so lousy."
"He doesn't get it. That doesn't mean he killed anybody," DuBois said
Prosecutor Paul Hora spent Wednesday morning and Tuesday deriding the defendant during his closing arguments.
From the defense table, the 44-year-old developer of the ReiserFS filesystem watched his lawyer's every word. Some of the jurors took notes. Others slouched in their high-back chairs. One sat with his arms crossed while others crooked their necks.
The 12-member jury and two alternates have been seated since Nov. 6, when trial began. More than 60 witnesses have testified.
"If there was a jury hall of fame, this jury would be right up there," DuBois told panelists as he quoted the Gettysburg Address, "that all men are created equally."
DuBois said an Oakland police officer was lying when he testified that he told Nina Reiser to "get yourself a gun" to protect herself from the defendant a year before she went missing.
In a sarcastic tone, DuBois said: "If you have a little domestic problem, you go out and buy a little gun. The way you resolve your divorce is to go out and buy a gun?"
He called that statement "bologna."
"I don't think he said that. It sounded good," DuBois said.
He said Hans Reiser was not acting nefarious when he was hosing down his driveway days after his wife vanished, wearing heavy clothes on a warm fall night.
"What was it that he was washing off the driveway? The prosecution provided no information."
Hans and Nina met in 1998, in Russia, when he was overseas hiring programmers. He picked her out of a mail-order bride catalog, where she was advertised as "5279 Nina." They married the following year after she became pregnant with their first of two children.
DuBois, as he displayed for jurors Nina Reiser's bride advertisement, said she moved to divorce him five years later, just as she became a U.S. citizen.
"She had an ulterior motive to marry Hans," DuBois said.
"It couldn't have been out of love that she married Hans Reiser," DuBois said. "I can't see anybody loving Hans Reiser."
"He has to be one of the least attractive people you can imagine," DuBois continued. "And she's a doll."
DuBois' closing arguments resume here Thursday.
THREAT LEVEL is providing gavel-to-gavel coverage.
Sketches by Wired.com's Norman Quebedeau.
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