Posted on 09/22/2008 12:34:50 PM PDT by SmithL
SAN FRANCISCO -- A judge denounced Marjorie Knoller today for indifference to the fate of a neighbor who was mauled to death by Knoller's dogs in a San Francisco apartment hallway and sentenced the former attorney to 15 years to life in prison for second-degree murder.
Superior Court Judge Charlotte Woolard, who had reinstated a jury's murder verdict for the January 2001 attack at a hearing last month, rejected a defense lawyer's request for probation today and said the horrific circumstances of the crime far outweighed Knoller's previous crime-free record.
Woolard said Knoller had not bothered to put a muzzle on her aggressive 140-pound dog before taking him out of the apartment and did not call for help, retrieve a weapon or dial 911 while the animal was mauling Diane Whipple for at least 10 minutes.
Knoller "left Ms. Whipple in the hallway to die alone," the judge said. She said Knoller lied repeatedly in grand jury and trial testimony, has never expressed remorse, and "blamed the victim" in a television interview after the attack.
The 25-minute hearing included a statement from Whipple's partner, Sharon Smith, who looked at Knoller and declared that more than seven years after "the worst day of my life and the last day of Diane's life, finally there is some justice."
Knoller, 53, wearing orange jail clothing, looked straight ahead throughout the hearing and did not speak before being led away by guards. Her lawyer, Dennis Riordan, said afterward that he would appeal her murder conviction on numerous grounds, including Woolard's discounting of a finding by the original trial judge that Knoller hadn't known the dog could kill anyone.
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
Guilty!
Oh yes, on so many levels.
The more you know about her the guiltier she is.
I remember when this happened. I can’t believe it has been 7-years already.
Her and her husband are scum..liberal scum no doubt. Hopefully they have already lost the right to vote.
Good for Judge Woolard.
Her and her husband are scum..liberal scum no doubt. Hopefully they have already lost the right to vote.
So typical of a liberal...it's always someone else's fault...there's no such thing as personal responsibility to them!
Vomit away.
Does that make it A-OK in your book to watch someone be torn to bits for ten minutes and not lift a finger?
Tell you what, set a timer for 10 minutes, and imagine watching your dog tearing your next door neighbor to doll rags until it times out and rings, and then tell me that your neighbor deserved it simply because you don’t like the way she lived or loved.
Give it a full 10 minutes, and get back to us.
I’m going to dissent on this one. Knoller has already served several years of time on this, and Judge Warren was right to originally reduce the charge to involuntary manslaughter. This is a political conviction based on the victim’s lesbianism. If the dog had mauled someone other than a lesbian, the dog owner would be a free person. Anyone remember the similar case of Maureen Faibish who left her young son home with violent pitbulls who mauled him to death? A San Francisco jury deadlocked on that one and the perp walked. Too bad a little boy isn’t as sympathetic of a victim as a lesbian lacrosse coach.
It’s been so long the details of the mauling went down the memory hole. IIRC, the dogs got loose in the halway with Ms. Whipple & the owner did nothing to break it up. That’s a little more than negligent in my book. Negligent would be the dogs escaping your fenced-in yard & attacking the neighbor. Failure to intercede kinda pluses up the crime in my book.
"Knoller lied repeatedly in grand jury and trial testimony, has never expressed remorse"
I believe you.
She tried, she rilly rilly rilly tried to stop it, and managed to not get a single nip or scratch in the process.
There was no evidence to the contrary
And not so much as a single fiber to collaborate her testimony, either.
I watched the trial and it was clear she was lying and showed absolutely no remorse. I can’t agree that the victim being a lesbian was why she was convicted. The judge overturning the juries original finding was a miscarriage of justice, IMO.
She served 16 months.
A San Francisco jury deadlocked on that one and the perp walked. Too bad a little boy isn’t as sympathetic of a victim as a lesbian lacrosse coach.
What the jury said was that the prosecution failed to meet its burden that Faibish knew their was a high likelihood that her child would be injured or killed if she left him alone with the dogs. But after 30 other neighbors testified about attacks and bites, Knoller's claim that she didn't know that the dogs were dangerous was a bit more implausible.
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