Intellectual Property Law

OAKLAND, California -- Prosecutor Paul Hora began a brief rebuttal argument in the Hans Reiser murder trial Monday before court recessed until Tuesday, when he is to pick it up again.

Hora derided the geek defense and the likening by defense attorney William DuBois of his client as a duckbill platypus, a strange and bizarre animal. At one point, DuBois held a small, stuffed-animal-sized version of the ugly animal, and also projected a picture of one to jurors on a large prompt.

Hora told jurors that the platypus "is one of the few venomous animals in the world."

"The male platypus has a spur on the hind foot that delivers a venom capable of causing severe pain to humans," he said.

And regarding that geek defense: "We heard his nonsense. His lies. His bologna and the excuses for the things he did," Hora said. (Among them, Hora noted, was that the defendant hosed down the inside of his car because it was dirty and threw away the passenger seat to make room so he could sleep in the tiny Honda CRX -- all in the immediate aftermath of his wife's disappearance.

DuBois' defense, of "just saying your guy is odd, doesn't cut it," Hora said. DuBois had just finished his three days of closing arguments, calling his client a "genuine geek."

Regarding the Reiser boy who was at the Oakland hills house the last day his mother was seen, Hora said: "He was only 6 years old. He is just a little boy. He really doesn't have any idea when he last saw his mom."

The Linux programmer and developer of the ReiserFS filesystem is accused of killing his wife, Nina Reiser, on Sept. 3, 2006. She was last seen when dropping off the divorcing couple's two young children to stay with their father the Labor Day weekend. Hora said she never left that Oakland hills house alive.

The defendant claims his wife abandoned his children when he accused her that day of bilking his software company, Namesys.

THREAT LEVEL is providing gavel-to-gavel coverage.

Sketch by Wired.com's Norman Quebedeau.

See Also:

• Reiser a Victim of 'One of the Great Screw Jobs,' Lawyer Says ...
• Reiser Defense Blasts Prosecution; Geek Defense Re-Deployed
• Reiser Prosecutor to Jurors: 'You Know He Killed Her'
• Reiser Hard Drives Don't Map to Murder
• Prosecutor on Hans Reiser Defense: 'You've Got to Be Kidding Me'
• Testimony Concludes: Reiser Decries Murder Case as 'Silly ...
• Prosecutor Tells Jurors 'Nina is Dead' and Hans Reiser 'Killed Her'
• Jury Can Consider Lesser 'Manslaughter' Verdict, Reiser Judge Rules