Murder conviction
of woman in dog-mauling case could be reinstated

The California supreme court announced in a unanimous decision that a San Francisco superior court must reconsider whether Marjorie Knoller, who served time for the fatal dog mauling of lesbian Diane Whipple, should have been sentenced under a more severe murder conviction and thereby be returned to prison, the Los Angeles Times reported on Friday.

The court ruled that while the judge who dismissed the jury's second-degree murder conviction interpreted the statute too narrowly, the standard used by the appeals court to reinstate the conviction was too broad.

"The court of appeal set the bar too low.... But the trial court set the bar too high," Justice Joyce L. Kennard wrote in the court's decision.

Knoller, who already served 33 months in prison for involuntary manslaughter, may face a 15-year-to-life sentence.

Dennis P. Riordan, who represented Knoller in her appeal, was quoted by the Times as saying that he found the decision "fair" and that he is sure a trial judge will once again throw out the case, due to insufficient evidence to support a second-degree murder conviction. Deputy Atty. Gen. Amy Haddix counters Riordan, saying that the second-degree murder conviction will be reinstated.

"We're very pleased with the result," Haddix said, according to the Times. "We are pretty optimistic about our chances in superior court."

Knoller was charged with the 2001 murder of Whipple, who was killed by Knoller's two dogs while she was trying to enter her own apartment. The dogs, both Presa Canario-Mastiff mixes, weighed more than 100 pounds each and had threatened other people in the months before the mauling. Knoller and her husband were keeping them for a state prison inmate they had befriended.

Whipple, 33, was a college lacrosse coach at St. Mary's College of California. She was living with her life partner, Sharon Smith, at the time of the attack. (The Advocate)