Reiser's testimony draws a chuckle from Judge

Larry Goodman.

*Courtroom sketch: Wired.com/ Norman Quebedeau.*OAKLAND, California – Even the judge chuckled, or at least did a poor job of concealing it from the bench here.

Alameda County Superior Court Judge Larry Goodman, who is overseeing the Hans Reiser murder trial, smiled and briefly laughed to himself Thursday as the murder defendant rambled on whether he was nervous the day he unexpectedly showed up to his children's school the first day of class after his wife vanished.

That was two days after the computer programmer's estranged wife, Nina Reiser, was last seen when she went to her husband's Oakland hills residence Sept. 3, 2006 to drop off the divorcing couple's two young children. The authorities said she never left the house alive.

"We're you nervous?" prosecutor Paul Hora asked the developer of the ReiserFS filesystem on his third day of cross examination.

"No."

Hora asked whether the defendant avoided eye contact with one of the school's teachers, who had testified in December that the defendant was acting strange on Sept. 5, 2006, when he showed up after classes ended.

"At that time, I avoided eye contact," the defendant said.

Then the open source guru offered an unsolicited reason:

"I don't have a specific memory of avoiding eye contact. At that time, it was my usual method of interaction to not look people in to the eyes as much as normal people do. Somehow when I was a teenager I got the idea that it was kind of impolite to look people in the eyes."

The judge tried to hide his chuckle with his hand. Some jurors shook their heads in apparent disbelief. One put her head to her waist with her hand on forehead as the defendant explained why he went to his kids' school on the day it was his wife's day to pick them up.

Earlier on Thursday, the defendant testified he tried to hide his car from police who had a search warrant for it.

As Thursday's afternoon session wore on, many jurors sat with their hands over their mouths and quit taking notes as the 44-year-old defendant and prosecutor played verbal volleyball. Some jurors lightly shook their heads while others looked like they were in a trance.

The defendant claims his wife, at age 31, abandoned their kids – a boy now 8 and girl now 6 – after he confronted her with allegations that she stole money from his software company, Namesys.

Hans Reiser testified his children's school left him a phone message that his estranged wife was not there to pick up his children but her best friend would be picking them up.

He initially wasn't going to worry about it, but then decided he needed to go to the school so he could put his mother, Beverly Palmer, on the children's pickup list, the defendant testified.

Courtroom sketch: Wired.com/ Norman Quebedeau."My first thought was that it was Nina's problem. My second thought was to reconsider that and to also put my mom on the pickup list," he testified.

Days ago, however, he testified he was acting nervous when he showed up to the school because he thought being at his kids' school on a day he didn't have custody might count against him in his custody battle with his wife.

On Thursday, the prosecutor asked why the defendant didn't call the school to put his mother on the list. He also wondered aloud why the defendant didn't go to the school the next day, Wednesday, when it was his day of custody and time of week to retrieve the kids.

"When I need my mother to pick up he kids. It's never a planned event," the defendant replied, adding: "If I didn't take care of it right then, I would forget about it."

"Even though you knew it was a no no to be there on a non-custody day?" Hora asked. "You decided to go down there anyway and check the pickup list, right?"

(Long pause)

"I've been told to say I don't understand the question."

After some badgering from the prosecutor, Hans Reiser replied:

"Because I would have forgotten it on Wednesday," he said. Then, unsolicited, he added:

"Things like paperwork, I put them off and never deal with them," he said. "That's been my whole life paying late fees and filing applications after they are due."

Hans Reiser examines phone records for the prosecution.

*Courtroom sketch: Wired.com/ Norman Quebedeau.*Then Hora asked him again whether he was nervous that day he appeared at his children's school. (After the defendant left the school, the kids went home with Nina's best friend.)

"How nervous is nervous?" the defendant replied.

When he was at the school, the defendant supplied the school with his wrong mobile phone number. Hans Reiser responded that sometimes he forgot his number.

Prosecutor Hora noted that the defendant's mother was already on the school pickup list and that, because his wife had sole legal custody, he was not authorized to dictate who could take his kids from school.

"Did you," Hora asked, "have something else on your mind?"

As the session was breaking for the day, Hora displayed telephone records and asked why he called Nina's mobile phone at 5 p.m. that day and hang up when her answering message went on.

He replied that he was checking to make sure the children got picked up from school. Hora asked why the defendant did not follow up with calls to Nina's best friend or to the school to find out for sure whether the kids got home that day.

"Because I just didn't care about it that much," he said. Moments later, he added: "Because I'm an inconsiderate asshole."

Trial is dark until April 1 for jurors' vacations.

THREAT LEVEL is providing gavel-to-gavel coverage.

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