We are deeply, deeply regretful that the cityblog format had not been launched back in 2001 and 2002, when we were totally obsessed with the Diane Whipple dog mauling case.
For those of you not here at the time, that was the case where a rugby lacrosse coach was killed by two fighting dogs kept as pets in a Pacific Heights apartment by two really loopy local lawyers, Robert Noel and Marjorie Knoller -- and it turned out the lawyers had adopted an adult prisoner from San Quentin and there were weird sexual drawings of them with the prisoner and the dogs? And the assistant DA prosecuting the case was one Kimberly Guilfoyle? You think Ruby Rippey-Tourk was a media circus -- now, the dog mauling trial was a circus.
Anyways, so the saga continues: the State Supreme Court has issued a ruling today confirming that Marjorie Knoller can still be convicted of second-degree murder for taking out dogs that she knew she couldn't control, if the DA can show that Knoller acted with "conscious disregard for human life" in doing so. If the DA can convince a San Francisco trial court of that, Knoller could be returned to jail for 15 years to life.
Knoller was paroled in 2004 on her four-year manslaughter charge, and now lives in Florida.