Not only did Sturgeon not confess to the the murder Reiser was convicted of, but after claiming to have killed 7 other people, he was not arrested or charged of any crime. To believe in some kind of coverup, conspiracy, or massive miscarriage of justice here, you have to believe that the State of California was willing to ignore seven other murders in order to screw over Reiser.
The reasonable explanation here is that the evidence available to both the prosecution and the defense suggests that Sturgeon is simply a nutcase telling stories.
Nutcase? I think its abundantly clear he was deliberately trying to cast doubt by telling lies. I'm not sure if I should be surprised as I am that the internet so readily believes such a blatant ploy. I suspect if he wasn't a geek reddit/slashdot/digg/hackernews would be unable to stop laughing at the blatant transparency of it.
If Sturgeon was lying, was he charged with falsely reporting a crime and was the jury warned that his testimony might be suspect? If not, it seems reasonable to believe that the State of California was trying to screw Reiser over.
No matter what other story you want to tell based on California's actions, the last sentence of your comment is predicated on the idea that the state betrayed seven other murder cases simply to get at Hans Reiser.
The reasonable explanation here is that the evidence available to both the prosecution and the defense suggests that Sturgeon is simply a nutcase telling stories.