Ruling Could Return Killer Dogs’ Owner to Prison

In a ruling that could send a defendant in a grisly dog-mauling case back to prison, a state appellate panel Thursday ordered a judge to reconsider throwing out the jury’s murder verdict.

Three years ago, San Francisco Superior Court Judge James Warren outraged victim advocates and prosecutors when he vacated the second-degree murder conviction of Marjorie Knoller, who owned the two dogs that attacked and killed neighbor Diane Whipple on Jan. 26, 2001.

At the time, Warren said prosecutors failed to prove that Knoller had demonstrated “implied malice” because she wasn’t aware that her dogs would kill.

On Thursday, justices on California’s 1st District Court of Appeal in San Francisco found that Warren had erred in applying an incorrect legal standard to determine “implied malice.”

The correct legal definition includes a “conscious disregard for life” regardless of one’s subjective knowledge, and Knoller demonstrated that she should have known that her dogs were dangerous long before the fatal attack, the panel said.

“Most people do not keep a breed of dogs historically used for fighting and therefore bred to be aggressive. Most people do not keep two large Presa Canarios -- one of them an unneutered male -- in a small apartment in an urban area,” Justice James Lambden wrote in the ruling. “Most people do not keep such ‘fighting’ dogs without providing them any significant socialization or training.”

The decision was hailed by prosecutors and Whipple’s domestic partner, Sharon Smith.

“This helps restore my faith in our judicial system,” Smith said in a statement released through her lawyer, Michael Cardoza. “I pray Judge Warren will follow the lead of the appellate court and follow the law and enforce the second-degree murder verdict.”

Jim Hammer, the lead trial prosecutor, broke into tears when he heard.

“It was a pent-up emotion of having that verdict ripped away from the victim’s family,” said Hammer, now a legal analyst for Fox News. “I couldn’t believe that justice finally happened.”

Tom Dresslar, a spokesman for the state attorney general -- whose prosecutors argued the appeal -- said his office was pleased by the outcome.

“It stands for the proposition that jury decisions should not be overturned by judges except in exceptional cases and using proper standards,” he said.

Lawyers for Knoller could not be reached for comment.

Knoller served prison time for her conviction on a lesser manslaughter charge and was released. But because Warren is now expected to uphold the murder verdict, she probably will be resentenced. The penalty for a second-degree murder conviction is 15 years to life in prison.

The ruling said Knoller had plenty of notice that her dogs were aggressive and could be deadly to people.

In the months before the attack on Whipple, the dogs had on at least 30 occasions lunged, snapped, growled or attacked people or other dogs, the ruling said, and Knoller knew about 11 of those incidents.