Ex-Lawyer Again Convicted of Murder in Neighbor's Dog-Mauling Death
Convicted of second-degree murder by a California jury after her 140-pound dog mauled a neighbor to death in their apartment building’s shared hallway, former San Francisco attorney Marjorie Knoller later had her crime reduced to involuntary manslaughter by the judge in the case.
But another judge today reinstated the second-degree murder conviction, putting Knoller on a path toward a substantial prison sentence, reports the San Francisco Chronicle. She could be sentenced to 15 years to life at a hearing next month.
She and her husband, Robert Noel, who is also an ex-attorney, as well as Knoller’s former law partner, served brief sentences for involuntary manslaughter after their 2002 convictions and were released in 2004 and 2003, respectively. Although he wasn’t at the scene with Knoller when the neighbor, Diane Whipple, was attacked, he was found criminally liable because he left dangerous dogs in his wife’s care that she couldn’t control.
Today’s ruling follows a California Supreme Court decision last year that the trial judge who invalidated the murder conviction had applied the wrong legal standard. Rather than focusing on whether she knew the dog was likely to kill someone, the court said, the trial judge should have determined, under an implied malice standard, whether Knoller had “an awareness of the risk of death” posed by the dog and “acted with conscious disregard of the danger to human life,” as discussed in an earlier ABAJournal.com post.
Both Knoller and Noel, who are in their mid-50s and mid-60s, respectively, were suspended from practice in California after their 2002 convictions in the dog attack case. She subsequently resigned, and he was disbarred in 2007 for failing to comply with a rule requiring him to notify clients and opposing counsel of his suspension, the California Bar Journal reported last year.
“The judge on Friday ruled Knoller should be held in custody until her sentencing, without bail, since she faces a possible life sentence, has no community ties and can be considered a flight risk,” reports the Associated Press.
She had moved out of state since the mauling, according to the Chronicle, and is listed in California bar records as a resident of Florida.
Earlier coverage:
ABAJournal.com (2007): “CA Supreme Court: Lawyer May Be Guilty of Murder in Dog Mauling Death”
