Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Live Today

In San Francisco Dog Mauling Case, Surprising Turn of Events

Aired June 18, 2002 - 10:16   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
LEON HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: In the San Francisco dog mauling case, a surprising turn of events came yesterday. The judge in the case has thrown out the second-degree murder conviction against the dog's owner. Friends and family of Diane Whipple, the San Francisco woman who was mauled to death, are calling this a case of justice undone.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: To aggravate my pain neither of you could say you were sorry. You were too busy being lawyers to be human. Of course this goes beyond saying I'm sorry. It's about accepting responsibility. And again you failed. You failed to accept that your actions killed a person. And even as Diane lay dying in the hospital, you began your lies -- lies that included blaming her for her own death.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARRIS: The prosecution is now asking the judge to reconsider.

Well, with a look at the legal controversy sent off by this case, we turn now to our CNN legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin. He's in New York this morning.

Hey, Jeff, how are you doing?

JEFFREY TOOBIN, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Hey, Leon, good.

HARRIS: Were you surprised by this?

TOOBIN: I was. It is unusual, not unprecedented, but unusual for a judge to overrule a jury, and that's what happened here, and especially unusual because the precise issue on which he overruled the jury was presented to the jury. This was the defense argument at the trial, that Marjorie Knoller did not intend to murder anyone. This was a tragic mistake. That was the argument made before the jury. The jury rejected it; the judge accepted it.

HARRIS: And here's the question, then why did the judge do this or say something before it got to this point? Couldn't he have done this during the trial?

TOOBIN: Well, he certainly could have, and the usual time for him to do is at the end of the prosecution case, when the defense always makes a motion to get rid of these, to get rid of all the charges. He didn't do it at that point, and I think it there's does a lot with the way judges operate. Judges like to be let off the hook by juries. If he thought that there was a weaknesses in the case, he probably was hoping that the jury would sort of do his dirty work for him, reject the murder charge, but then he was confronted with this issue post trial, and again, that is an appropriate time to file this kind of motion.

And the judge simply said that based on what he saw of all the evidence, he did not believe that Marjorie Knoller intended to cause the death of anybody, including the woman who died.

HARRIS: Let's talk about the likelihood of an appeal and a successful appeal, because the prosecution made, what I thought was a very interesting argument, there was a 19 members of the grand jury, they insisted that this charge be added on; they were the ones who made that choice. Then a jury, an independent jury, hundreds of miles away, not even in that community, comings out with this verdict, and they are unanimous about it. For the judge to come and do this, it would seem as it would set this up for an appeal. What do you think?

TOOBIN: You are right, Leon, because most of the time the prosecution, when it loses anything at a trial, can appeal. But this is one of the unusual situations where you can as a prosecutor appeal. You can go to an appeals court and say, the judge was wrong to overturn this verdict. Reinstate the jury verdict. It often happens, that judges are reversed when they overrule juries. So I think there could be possible grounds for an appeal for the government, but the thing to keep in mind is it will take months and months and months, and the family of Diane Whipple has suffered a long time. I'm not sure how much longer they want this legal proceeding to go on.

HARRIS: If it does go on for that long, what happens to the defendant in the meantime?

TOOBIN: Well, they are in jail now. What's so poignant about this, is if the sentence is just four years, which is the maximum under the manslaughter statute, and Robert Noel was sentenced to the maximum, they will likely be out of jail for good behavior, time served before the appeal is even done.

So the only question would be, does Marjorie Knoller go back in jail to serve the murder sentence? But it looks like Robert Noel is going to be out in about six months, no matter what.

HARRIS: You know what, I hate to sound or come off as if we are taking a side on this particular case, but, you know, this couple here did something that the judge even made note of. They made absolutely no show of any kind of remorse. Even through the process yesterday, we were sitting there just watching Robert Noel jotting down notes the entire time.

TOOBIN: It's a heartbreaking story, but I think really the subtext here was that the judge was disturbed that Robert Noel was not charged with murder and Marjorie Knoller was, that he was the brains of the operations, not her, and the judge was offended by the overcharging of Marjorie Knoller.

HARRIS: Boy, what an amazing turn of events. Jeffrey Toobin, thank you very much, appreciate the insight, and of course we'll get together to talk about this no doubt down the road.

TOOBIN: Very good.

HARRIS: All right, have a good one, buddy. We'll see you later on.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com