That Means Guilty.

I don't know how many people were following the circus that was the Hans Reiser trial. I'm confused how Reiser can offer to lead police to the body as part of a plea deal after the year-long trial which he lost. I understand the need for closure for the victim's family, etc., but this seems like the sort of thing you set up as a plea deal beforehand, behind closed doors.

If the defendant knows where the body is, his right against self-incrimination clearly means he can't be forced to reveal anything, but he's still not permitted to commit perjury. Reiser not only voluntarily testified in his own defense (against the advice of his defense attorney), he claimed that his wife escaped to Russia in order to frame him. If he knew where her body was, he was lying to the court, period. Reiser even turned down this exact plea deal before trial.

That's not how it works -- i.e. gambling on the jury decision and then waiving your 5th Amendment rights in order to get a sentence reduction after the conviction. In particular, you shouldn't be able to game the sentencing phase by revealing material facts that bear directly on the class of the offense charged, as is the case here. The lack of a body was nearly fatal to the prosecution's case. Whether or not there's evidence of premeditated murder was supposed to be a jury question, and now it won't be.

Of course, I admit that criminal law isn't my area of expertise -- and I tend to be unsympathetic about "sand in the umpire's face" issues, so I'm probably wrong on the merits. It's still ridiculous. At least I won't have to listen to any more people whining about how Reiser was only convicted because he's a computer geek.