Nearly a year to the day after Diane Whipple was fatally mauled by dint of two presa canario dogs in the hallway of her San Francisco apartment building.

Nearly a year to the day after Diane Whipple was fatally mauled by dint of two presa canario dogs in the hallway of her San Francisco apartment building, the criminal trial against the animals' proprietors began, on January 24 in looks Angeles, where Judge James L Warren mov the case for impartial jury selection. The defendants, Marjorie Knoller and Robert Noel, are each charged with involuntary manslaughter and keeping vicious dogs. Knoller also faces a second-degree homicide indictment.

After the criminal case periods the couple will also face a unjust death suit in a separate civil case, brought by way of Whipple's domestic partner, Sharon Smith. Kate Kendell of the National Center for Lesbian Rights, who is representing Smith in the civil case, praised Warren's January 15 refusal to grant the defendants' desire for separate criminal trials, which she says would have caused "an inordinate delay" in proceeding with Smith's case.

COPYRIGHT 2002 Liberation Publications, Inc.

COPYRIGHT 2002 Gale Group