Jury Has Verdicts on 4 Counts in Mauling

A Superior Court jury said Wednesday that it had reached verdicts on four of five counts in the trial of two San Francisco lawyers charged in their neighbor’s fatal dog mauling.

Judge James Warren ordered the verdicts sealed and told jurors to continue deliberating on the fifth count today. All the verdicts will be read at the same time, he said.

“The court will retain this under lock and key tonight and it will be available [Thursday],” Warren said.

The defendants, Marjorie Knoller, 46, and her husband, Robert Noel, 60, are charged with involuntary manslaughter and owning a mischievous dog. Knoller is also charged with second-degree murder and faces a sentence of 15 years to life in prison if convicted. Noel faces four years in prison.

Knoller and Noel owned two large Presa Canario dogs that attacked their neighbor Diane Whipple, a 33-year-old lacrosse coach, in the hallway outside her San Francisco apartment on Jan. 26, 2001.

The trial was moved to Los Angeles County Superior Court because of publicity in the Bay Area.

After nearly 10 hours of deliberations over two days, the jury foreman sent a note to the judge at 3:15 p.m. Wednesday.

“The jury has reached a decision on four of the five counts, and we have determined that it would be best to adjourn and reconvene tomorrow morning,” the foreman wrote. During a brief court session, Warren instructed the foreman to place the four verdict forms in an envelope, seal it and sign his name across the back.

The verdicts will not become final until they are read in court, Warren said.

The judge excused the panel of seven men and five women about 3:45 p.m., saying he was “aware that these deliberations can be trying.”

Warren encouraged them to keep an open mind and consider their fellow jurors’ points of view.

Outside the courtroom, San Francisco Dist. Atty. Terence Hallinan said that he was encouraged that the jurors decided on all but one count and that he believed they would reach a verdict on the fifth.

He declined to speculate which count was undecided.

“We’re encouraged that this case will come to a conclusion,” Hallinan said. “This is a case that must be put to rest.”

Defense attorneys did not comment.

Jurors began their deliberations Tuesday after four weeks of emotional testimony.

The jury elected as foreman a Chicago native who works as a machinist for the city of Los Angeles. The foreman, who had served on two previous civil cases, has owned 10 dogs in his lifetime and has been bitten once.

Just after jurors reconvened at 9 a.m. Wednesday, they asked for a rereading of testimony that Noel gave to the San Francisco grand jury last year about his two dogs.

Noel, who did not take the stand during the trial, denied to the grand jury that either of his dogs had ever acted aggressively. He also denied that one of the dogs had ever jumped at a pregnant woman or had lunged and bared its teeth at a neighbor.

Jurors were also read Noel’s testimony about a dog walker who warned him to muzzle his dogs.

The three people referred to in the grand jury transcripts testified in the trial about their encounters with the defendants and their dogs.

Warren also interrupted the deliberations Wednesday to clarify jury instructions relating to the charge of owning a mischievous dog.