5:04 PM: A state appeals court has upheld a second-degree murder conviction and sentence of 15 years to life for a San Francisco woman whose dogs fatally mauled an apartment neighbor.
A Court of Appeal panel ruled Friday that Marjorie Knoller, 55, “deliberately engaged in behavior that was a danger to human life” when she took her two powerful Presa Canario dogs into the hallway of her Pacific Heights apartment building on Jan. 26, 2001.
The dogs, 140-pound Bane and 100-pound Hera, attacked and killed a building resident, 33-year-old Diane Whippple.
Whipple, who was a lacrosse coach, suffered 77 wounds on her body, had all her clothes ripped off, and lost one-third of her blood, according to trial evidence.
Knoller, an attorney, was convicted of second-degree murder in a 2002 jury trial, but the original trial judge, Superior Court Judge James Warren, granted a new trial on that charge.
Warren said Knoller could be convicted of murder only if she subjectively believed there was a high probability of death. He said he believed her testimony that she didn’t think her conduct was likely to result in death.
Warren left in place an additional conviction for involuntary manslaughter, which carried a four-year sentence.
After appeals by both sides, the California Supreme Court ruled in 2007 that the correct legal standard for second-degree murder was whether Knoller acted with a conscious disregard for human life.
A new trial judge, Charlotte Woolard, found in 2008 that Knoller’s conduct met the high court’s standard and reinstated the original conviction.
In Friday’s ruling, a three-judge panel in San Francisco upheld Woolard’s ruling.
Justice James Lambden wrote that Knoller “knew that her conduct was dangerous to human life and acted with a conscious disregard” for it when she took the untrained, aggressive and uncontrollable dogs out in public without a muzzle.
“Her disregard for Whipple’s life was inferable from the fact that she never called 911 for help, never asked after the attack about Whipple’s condition and returned to the scene of the attack, not to assist the dying Whipple, but to find her keys,” he wrote.
A neighbor who heard Whipple’s shouts and the dogs’ barks and growls but was afraid to open her door called 911 to summon police, who found Whipple in the blood-stained hallway, covered with wounds and trying to crawl to her apartment. She died after being taken to a hospital.
The panel also said Knoller knew the dogs were dangerous because they had threatened or attacked people or other dogs 30 times in the previous months.
Other evidence she knew they posed a threat included a veterinarian’s warning, literature found in Knoller’s apartment about the breed’s aggressiveness, and her awareness that they were not trained.
Knoller and her husband, Robert Noel, were law partners and were caring for the dogs for a prison inmate, Paul “Cornfed” Schneider. They had registered themselves as owners in early 2001.
Schneider, a convicted attempted murderer whom the couple adopted as their son three days after the attack, was a member of the white supremacist Aryan Brotherhood prison gang and was planning a guard dog business to be called “Dog-O-War.”
Noel, who was not present at the attack, was convicted of involuntary manslaughter and spent nearly three years in prison.
Knoller could appeal again to the California Supreme Court and then in the federal court system. Her lawyer on appeal, Dennis Riordan, was not immediately available for comment.
Deputy California Attorney General Amy Haddix, who represented prosecutors in the appeal, said, “I think the court did a good job of disposing of the issues and correctly concluding she received a fair hearing on the fair trial issue.”
Knoller was released on parole in early 2004 while Warren’s new-trial ruling was being appealed, but she was sent back to prison in 2008 when Woolard reinstated the second-degree murder conviction.
She argued in the appeal that Warren, the original trial judge, should have been assigned to reconsider the new trial motion following the California Supreme Court ruling.
In 2008, Warren had retired from the state court system and was working as a private judge. Under court rules, retired judges working as private judges can return to the state courts only in unusual circumstances.
The appeals court said it didn’t matter which judge reconsidered the case because under the standard set by the California Supreme Court in 2007, there was no reasonable probability that Warren would have ordered a retrial.
The court also rejected several other claims raised by Knoller on appeal.
12:06 PM: A state appeals court has upheld the second-degree murder conviction and sentence of 15 years to life for a San Francisco woman whose dog fatally mauled her neighbor in 2001.
A Court of Appeal panel ruled Friday that Marjorie Knoller, 55, “deliberately engaged in behavior that was a danger to human life” when she took her two powerful Presa Canario dogs into the hallway of her Pacific Heights apartment building on Jan. 26, 2001.
The dogs, Bane and Hera, attacked and killed Knoller’s neighbor, lacrosse coach Diane Whippple, 33 (pictured right).
Whipple suffered 77 wounds on her body and lost one-third of her blood, according to trial evidence.
The finding that Knoller had a conscious disregard for human life provided the basis for a judgment of second-degree murder and the sentence of 15 years to life.
Knoller was convicted of second-degree murder in a 2002 trial, but the original trial judge, Superior Court Judge James Warren, granted a new trial on the ground that it wasn’t clear that she knew her conduct was likely to result in death.
After further appeals, the California Supreme Court weighed in on the case in 2007, saying that the correct legal standard in such cases should be whether a defendant had a conscious disregard for human life.
A new trial judge, Charlotte Woolard, then ruled that Knoller’s conduct met that standard and affirmed the original conviction.
In Friday’s ruling, the appeals court said Knoller “knew that her conduct was dangerous to human life and acted with a conscious disregard for human life” by taking uncontrollable dogs out into the public.
Knoller and her husband, Robert Noel, who were law partners, were caring for the dogs for a prison inmate, Paul “Cornfed” Schneider, and had registered themselves as owners in early 2001.
Schneider, whom the couple adopted as their son three days after the attack, was a member of the white supremacist Aryan Brotherhood prison gang and was planning a guard dog business to be called “Dog-O-War.”
Noel, who was not present at the attack, was convicted of involuntary manslaughter.
Knoller could appeal again to the California Supreme Court and then in the federal court system. Her lawyer on appeal, Dennis Riordan, was not immediately available for comment.
Deputy California Attorney General Amy Haddix, who represented prosecutors in the appeal, said, “I think the court did a good job of disposing of the issues.”
