Criminal
Jun. 19, 2002
Judge Overturns Knoller's Murder Verdict
SAN FRANCISCO - Superior Court Judge James Warren on Monday granted attorney Marjorie Knoller a new trial on her second-degree murder charge in the dog-mauling death of Diane Whipple, stunning a courtroom packed with the slain woman's family and friends.
"I cannot say as a matter of law that [Knoller] subjectively knew that her conduct was such that a human being was likely to die," Warren declared from the bench.
"This does not in any way excuse or change the horror of what happened. It does not excuse or minimize the despicable conduct of the defendants. But the court has no choice," he said.
Warren did uphold the involuntary manslaughter and negligent ownership convictions of Knoller and her lawyer-husband, Robert Noel.
Prosecutors and Whipple's survivors accused Warren of undermining the jury system.
"You have robbed Diane Whipple, Sharon Smith, 19 members of the grand jury, 12 jurors in Los Angeles and all the people of California of their sense of justice," Deputy District Attorney James Hammer told Warren. "To say that we're shocked is an understatement."
But Knoller's attorneys praised the decision.
"It was a difficult and courageous and absolutely the right decision," said Don Horgan, of Riordan & Rosenthal. Dennis Riordan, the attorney who argued the new trial motion in a June 7 hearing, was vacationing in France on Monday.
Noel was sentenced to four years in state prison, the maximum term, for his role in Whipple's death.
But in Knoller's case, no one was sure what would happen next.
Warren scheduled a hearing July 15 to give prosecutors a chance to persuade him to reconsider his decision. If he changes his mind, he would at that time sentence Knoller to a prison term of 15 years to life for second-degree murder.
If Warren holds firm, it may mean the end of the people's efforts to pin murder charges on her, although they could appeal.
District Attorney Terence Hallinan said he wasn't sure if Knoller could be retried. He said it's possible that in accepting the jury vote to convict her of involuntary manslaughter, Warren might have precluded further prosecution.
If a jury deadlocks on a murder charge, a finding of guilt in a lesser-included manslaughter charge is assumed to constitute an acquittal on the murder count, he said.
But Hallinan believes the issues in Knoller's case are different. He said his office has consulted the state attorney general's office and will explore several courses of actions should the motion to reconsider fail.
"We'll have to look and see what our options are," Hallinan said during a press conference. "We'll make sure we don't lose any opportunities."
Lincoln Mintz, a retired East Bay defense attorney not directly involved in the case, said the murder charge is still viable because Knoller has not been sentenced.
"The double jeopardy concept has many different prongs," Mintz said. "At this point, there's a pending charge with no judgment. The act of the jury finding a verdict is separate from the judgment of conviction, which begins when the defendant is punished."
Under that reasoning, prosecutors could seek to stay Knoller's sentencing next month. If they don't, Mintz, said, defense attorneys would "have a lot of weight behind the bow" of an argument that Knoller has been punished for her crime.
Like the prosecutors, Mintz questioned Warren's judgment. But he praised Warren for making what will undoubtedly be an unpopular ruling. He speculated that voters might seek to punish Warren, although the judge is not up for reelection until 2008.
"I'm not sure he understood the standard of ordering a new trial, but he made perhaps the gutsiest decision I've ever seen," Mintz said. "I don't know where the guy got those guts, but he showed unusual judicial courage. For him to make that call in this political climate makes you proud of the system."
Smith, Whipple's partner of seven years, did not see it that way.
"Justice was done, and now it has been undone," she said following the hearing.
Earlier, given the opportunity to address the court, she took out her anger on Noel, who sat writing through the morning and afternoon sessions of Monday's proceedings.
"Maybe you could take one second to pay attention," she said. "You're pretending to write, but I know you can hear me. You've been too busy being a lawyer to be human. This was all one big legal game to you."
The game for Noel probably will end next summer. With credit for time served, he'll be released from prison no later than July 2003. As it stands, Knoller may be out by then as well.
In a long address before issuing his ruling, Warren dropped several hints about his intentions.
He warned a courtroom packed with friends of Whipple and Smith against making any outburst, and he recited a litany of the arrogant and spiteful statements made by Noel and Knoller in the weeks immediately following the Jan. 26, 2001 death of Whipple.
"You are probably the most despised couple in San Francisco," he told the defendants, but he reiterated his belief that it was their behavior following the attack, not the attack itself, that ultimately led to the murder charge. The pair suggested Whipple might have brought the attack upon herself and refused a chance to escape into her apartment as Knoller tried to control the animals.
He told Knoller he found her trial testimony to be "inherently incredible" but said he did believe her when she slammed her hand angrily on the witness stand and swore she had no idea her dogs would kill someone.
Without that element, Warren said, there was no basis for the murder conviction.
Addressing the anger and frustration of those gathered in the courtroom, Warren said later in the day, "There's no question that in the eyes of the people, the defendants are guilty of murder, but in the eyes of the law they are not."
Despite the setback, Hallinan declared the day a victory and vowed to continue the fight to convict Knoller of murder.
"Noel got what he deserved today," Hallinan said, "and he'll be spending a little over a year with his adopted Aryan Brotherhood son in Pelican Bay."
For the Record A story published on June 18, 2002 in the San Francisco Daily Journal about the dog-mauling case referred to Oakland attorney Lincoln Mintz as retired. The story should have stated that Mintz is dis-barred.
The Daily Journal regrets the error.
Matthew King
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