Dog owner faces up to life in prison after rare murder conviction in dog-mauling death
LINDA DEUTSCH, AP Special Correspondent
Friday, March 22, 2002
©2002 Associated Press

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Rejecting defense arguments that the attack couldn't have been foreseen, jurors returned a murder conviction against a woman whose dog mauled a neighbor to death in an apartment building hallway. The woman's husband was convicted of manslaughter.

Marjorie Knoller -- believed to be just the third person ever convicted of murder in a U.S. dog-mauling case -- fought back tears as jurors announced Thursday that she was guilty on all counts. Behind her, victim Diane Whipple's domestic partner, Sharon Smith, and others began to weep.

"There's no real joy in this but certainly some measure of justice for Diane was done today," Smith said later. "I'm glad to see the jury didn't buy some of the smoke screens that were put in front of them."

Knoller, owner of the two huge Presa Canario dogs named Bane and Hera, was convicted of second-degree murder. She was also found guilty, along with her husband, Robert Noel, of the lesser charges of manslaughter and having a mischievous dog that killed someone.

The murder count carries a potential sentence of 15 years to life; each of the lesser charges carries a sentence of up to four years.

Sentencing was set for May 10 in San Francisco, where the fatal attack on Whipple, a 33-year-old lacrosse coach, happened last year as she was carrying groceries into her apartment. The case was moved to Los Angeles because of heavy pretrial publicity.

One legal expert said Thursday's verdict was likely to send a message across the nation.

"This does not mean that every dog mauling case will end up as a murder case," said Loyola University Law Professor Laurie Levenson. "But it does mean if people have prior warning they will have to take it seriously."

After the verdict, jurors said they thought Knoller, 46, and Noel, 60, had been arrogant to ignore warnings from more than 30 people that their dogs were dangerous. The 120-pound Bane delivered the fatal wounds and Hera tore at Whipple's clothing during the attack. Both dogs were later destroyed.

Knoller looked stricken upon hearing the verdict, turning to look at her parents and apparently mouthing the word "help." Her husband showed no reaction.

In all, jurors deliberated for 111/2 hours over three days before convicting the couple. They decided the most serious charge, second degree-murder, last.

"It was a painful decision," said jury foreman Don Newton, 64. "The question of implied malice was a difficult question to decide, but we did decide there was implied malice in her actions."

He said Noel, who was not present during the attack, nevertheless "was equally responsible."

Jurors said Knoller was her own worst witness, unbelievable at every turn in her testimony. Newton said Noel, who didn't testify but whose letters about the dogs were admitted as evidence, "didn't seem to be a very nice person."

Even so, juror Shawn Antonio said the panel resisted making a decision based on personalities, carefully weighing the evidence instead.

Meeting with reporters after the verdict, the jurors also said Knoller's situation was worsened by the behavior of her flamboyant lawyer, Nedra Ruiz.

Ruiz had crawled on the floor, kicked the jury box and cried during her opening statement, and was admonished by the judge for interrupting the prosecutor during his closing argument.

"She's an amazingly dramatic person," Newton said. "She's an incredible actress and I think to some extent she was counterproductive."

Levenson, the law professor, gave high marks to the prosecutors, Assistant District Attorneys Jim Hammer and Kimberly Guilfoyle-Newsome. They set out to prove that the husband-and-wife lawyers knew the powerful dogs were "time bombs."

"We've gotten so used to TV trials we forget how important evidence is and how competently it is presented," said Levenson. "Lawyers sometimes get distracted from their mission. The prosecutors kept their eye on the prize."

Prosecutors repeatedly showed jurors a TV interview in which the couple disavowed responsibility for Whipple's death and appeared to blame the victim.

"It's not my fault," Knoller said in the interview. "Ms. Whipple had ample opportunity to move into her apartment. She could have just slammed the door shut. I would have."

Antonio said that had a powerful impact on him and on other jurors.

"There was no kind of sympathy, no kind of apologies," he said. "It helped us a lot."

The defense lawyers, Ruiz and Bruce Hotchkiss, contended that Knoller and Noel could not have known their animals would kill, and that Knoller tried to save Whipple by throwing herself between her neighbor and the enraged Bane. They also disputed witnesses' accounts of being menaced previously by Bane and Hera.

The Jan. 26, 2001, attack had all the elements of a TV crime drama: a successful member of the city's gay community savagely killed outside her door in exclusive Pacific Heights by an exotic breed of dog known for its ferocity.

The owners were lawyers who specialized in lawsuits on behalf of inmates. They had adopted an inmate, white-supremacist gang member Paul Schneider, who officials said was trying to run a business raising Presa Canarios for use as guard dogs.

The case made legal history even before the trial began when Whipple's partner, Smith, claimed the same right as a spouse to sue for damages. The state Legislature enacted a law to allow such lawsuits by gay partners.

Pretrial hearings were explosive, with the prosecutor alleging at one point that Knoller and Noel practiced bestiality with their dogs. Evidence relating to that claim was barred from the trial.

Still, the trial was graphic. Jurors were shown 77 bloody photos of Whipple's wounds, many of them blown up on a movie screen. The prosecutors said the 110-pound college lacrosse coach's throat was ripped open and she had been bitten everywhere except the top of her head and the soles of her feet.

©2002 Associated Press  

Appeals to test pair's mauling convictions
Plenty of fodder for defense, say legal experts
Harriet Chiang, Chronicle Legal Affairs Writer
Friday, March 22, 2002
©2002 San Francisco Chronicle

The guilty verdicts are in. Now on to the appeals.

Facing lengthy sentences behind bars, Marjorie Knoller and Robert Noel are likely to raise a host of issues in hopes of overturning, at the very least, Knoller's conviction for second-degree murder in connection with Diane Whipple's death.

Questionable calls by the judge, ineffective assistance by Knoller's lawyer and prejudicial evidence involving the couple's ties to the Aryan Brotherhood are likely to be the primary defense arguments, veteran lawyers said yesterday.

"It's almost a buffet of appellate issues that are present in this case," said Bill Fazio, a defense lawyer and former San Francisco prosecutor.

Veteran trial lawyers say that the murder count against Knoller is the most vulnerable of the convictions and that her lawyers are likely to focus their attack on whether there was enough evidence to show that she had the necessary "implied malice."

"I don't think there's sufficient evidence of malice to sustain that element of the offense," said Joseph Russoniello, former U.S. attorney for Northern California and now dean of San Francisco Law School. He predicted the murder conviction will be overturned on appeal.

But other lawyers say the conviction is likely to stick because second- degree murder is vaguely defined, leaving it up to the jury to make the call.

Alameda County District Attorney Tom Orloff compared Knoller's murder conviction to a drunken driver killing someone. A few decades ago, that would have been manslaughter -- but now it qualifies as murder because the person created a situation that was likely to result in death.

"I think the second-degree murder will stand," Orloff said.

Some lawyers questioned several of Judge James Warren's rulings that went against the defense.

In a preview of what is likely to be part of the appeal, Knoller's attorney,

Nedra Ruiz, complained that Warren should not have allowed prosecutors to use as evidence the couple's ties to the Aryan Brotherhood. Several criminal defense lawyers agreed.

"It's really impermissible character evidence," said defense attorney James Collins of San Francisco. "It's so prejudicial, and it had no relevance to the case whatsoever."

Lawyers who followed the news accounts were also puzzled by several other rulings, such as the judge's decision to allow into evidence Noel's letters and other material that they said appeared to be inadmissible hearsay. That included statements that Whipple's partner, Sharon Smith, said Whipple made regarding her fear of the dogs in the weeks before the fatal attack.

They also questioned him for threatening to throw Ruiz in jail for objecting during prosecutor James Hammer's closing argument.

"Lawyers object in closing arguments all the time," Fazio said. "There's nothing wrong with that."

The defendants also are likely to challenge the verdicts on the other criminal counts.

San Francisco lawyer Dennis Riordan, a veteran criminal appellate specialist, said he could not understand how a jury could convict Knoller of both involuntary manslaughter and second-degree murder, instead of choosing one or the other.

He noted a 1986 California Supreme Court decision saying a court can't accept a guilty verdict for a lesser crime unless it acquits the defendant of the more serious one.

"There's a good argument that under recent law the verdicts could be considered illegal," Riordan said. "The court should have said, 'You can't give me both.' "

Other lawyers agreed that it is unusual for a jury to convict a defendant of both charges. Typically, a defendant will be charged only with murder, and then the jury will be instructed that it can return a conviction on a lesser offense. In Knoller's case, a grand jury took the unusual step of indicting her for both involuntary manslaughter and second-degree murder.

Despite the odd result, most other lawyers said that the two guilty verdicts were not a basis for reversal and that Knoller would be sentenced only for the murder conviction.

Knoller and Noel will probably get new lawyers to handle their appeals and raise, among other things, the performance of their trial lawyers.

In this case, the appellate lawyers may argue that Ruiz provided ineffective counsel by resorting to histrionics and inflaming the jury, said Rory Little, a former federal prosecutor and criminal law professor at the University of California's Hastings College of the Law.

"It's an argument," he said. "But is it a viable argument?"

Lawyers were reluctant to publicly criticize Ruiz's performance. Even though they may not have cared for her emotionally wrought style of advocacy, they said they didn't know of any glaring mistakes she made that would warrant an appeals court overturning Knoller's convictions.

"She was different," Orloff said. "I wouldn't say bad."

E-mail the writer at hchiang@sfchronicle.com.

©2002 San Francisco Chronicle