Injustice Undone May 5, 2005 The 1st District Court of Appeal reinstated the murder conviction of Marjorie Knoller whose 100-pound-plus "Presa Canario" dogs mauled and killed neighbor, Diane Whipple, in the hallway of her San Francisco apartment building in January 2001. Whipple sustained a total of 77 bite wounds, the most serious ones being severe bites to her neck. Some of the punctures in the 33-year-old woman's neck were so deep that they nearly severed her vertebrae. Jurors found Marjorie Knoller's husband, Robert Noel, guilty of involuntary manslaughter, and found Knoller -- who stood by as her dogs attacked Whipple -- guilty of second-degree murder. The killer canines were eventually linked to inmates at California's Pelican Bay State Prison who were running an illegal dog breeding ring from behind bars. Noel and Knoller served as lawyers for one of the inmates, a 38-year-old member of the Aryan Brotherhood named Paul "Cornfed" Schneider. It was revealed that the couple had formally adopted the white supremacist. Marjorie Knoller's conviction was the first murder in a dog-mauling case in California and was believed to be only the third of its kind in recent U.S. history. Knoller's attorney -- the snarling, crawling, crying, barking, Nedra Ruiz -- vehemently contested the verdict. Ruiz, (who at one time studied at the American Conservatory Theater) argued that prosecutors Jim Hammer and Kimberly Guilfoyle Newsom (now both television stars) failed to prove the malice implied in a murder charge. Ruiz maintained there was no evidence the couple trained their huge dogs to attack people and that Whipple's death was an accident. Knoller and Noel In a surprise ruling, San Francisco Superior Court Judge James L. Warren agreed the evidence did not support a murder conviction, saying he did not think Knoller could have known when she took out the dogs, "Bane" and "Hera" on the day of the attack, that they would kill someone. "I cannot say as a matter of law that she subjectively knew on January 26 that her conduct would cause death," the judge said. Warren vacated the jury's finding against Marjorie Knoller and reduced her conviction to manslaughter. Sharon Smith was Diane Whipple's partner and shared the Pacific Heights apartment where Whipple was killed. Smith told reporters: "Obviously, I'm in shock. We're all in shock. Justice was done, now I feel as if it's been undone." Based on the hideous behavior and malevolent madness of the defendants, few disagreed with Ms. Smith, and at long last, the injustice has been undone. On May 5, 2005, the appelate court reversed the ruling by Judge Warren. Marjorie Knoller was freed after serving two years of a four-year sentence, but the second degree murder count she now faces is punishable by 15 years to life in a small cage. No matter what happens now, it cannot spare Diane Whipple from the nightmare she faced. The reversal does, however, restore some measure of public confidence in the system, and may make it a little easier for the victim's loved ones to move on with their lives.