Marjorie Knoller mauled by courts

This is probably not a popular opinion in San Francisco, but there are quite a few defense lawyers around town who think Marjorie Knoller was railroaded.

As you probably heard, San Francisco Superior Court Judge Charlotte Woolard sentenced the familiar sour-faced, gray-skinned woman whose dogs tore apart a neighbor in Pacific Heights in 2001 to 15-to-life for second-degree murder. Though few will shed a tear for the lawyer-cum-con's abrupt turn of fortune, some in the legal community wonder whether Woolard arrived at her decision based on the evidence. As many news stories have noted, this is the first murder conviction in California for a dog mauling.

"I think the prosecution and the court's decision are motivated by San Francisco politics," says criminal defense lawyer Marc Zilversmit. "My sense is that [Judge Woolard] did what was popular and not what the law required."

Zilversmit wonders what Woolard was doing on the case at all. Judge James Warren presided over the initial trial and made the controversial decision to overturn the jury's original second-degree murder verdict in 2002 because he felt there was insufficient evidence to show that Knoller knew her dogs might kill. (He reduced the conviction to involuntary manslaughter, and she was sentenced to four years.) Although Warren is retired now, he had offered to revisit the case after the state Court of Appeals kicked it back for further review. But, well, maybe the powers that be didn't want to risk giving the case back to ol' Crazy James, so they handed it to Woolard instead. Zilversmit believes that for one judge to decide that the informed decision made by another judge is invalid and to toss it in the trash is ridiculous.

Criminal defense lawyer Paul Puri adds that bringing the case — which went to trial in Los Angeles County — back home to San Francisco was a glaring mistake. "Judge Woolard is reflecting the emotionally charged character of this community," he says. "The first verdict deserved scrutiny, but it should have received that scrutiny in the area where the trial occurred. For it to come back to San Francisco was asking for trouble."

Well, it was definitely trouble for Knoller.