Courts rule on the literary license of prosecutors

From: When Literary and Prosecutorial License Collide

Prosecutors who draw on their professional experiences to write novels and assist screenwriters can breathe a little easier after a pair of rulings issued on Monday by the California Supreme Court.

 

One decision reversed an appeals court ruling disqualifying a prosecutor who had provided filmmakers with his files in a pending case. The other reversed a similar ruling against a prosecutor who had written a novel whose plot bore similarities to a second pending case.

The case asserting a cinematic conflict of interest involved Jesse James Hollywood, who faces the death penalty for his role in the 2000 kidnapping and murder of a 15-year-old boy. While Mr. Hollywood was a fugitive in Brazil in 2003, Ronald Zonen, a deputy district attorney in Santa Barbara, gave information and documents about him to Nick Cassavetes, a director and screenwriter.

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In Monday's decision, Justice Kathryn M. Werdegar, writing for a unanimous court, said Mr. Zonen's actions were "highly inappropriate and disturbing" but did not amount to a conflict of interest likely to result in an unfair trial. The court left open the possibility of disciplinary sanctions.

The second decision also concerned a Santa Barbara prosecutor, Joyce Dudley. In 2006, while preparing for the trial of a man accused of raping an intoxicated woman, Ms. Dudley published a novel concerning the rape of an intoxicated woman. The prosecutor said the resemblance between the fictional case and the real one was coincidental.

Justice Yegan, who also ruled in the appeals court case involving Mr. Zonen, disqualified Ms. Dudley last year. Here again, the Supreme Court unanimously reversed the appellate ruling.

Justice Werdegar was a little dismissive of the novel, "Intoxicating Agent," calling it "essentially self-published" and listing its Amazon.com sales ranking as of Monday as No. 1,552,238. But she added that the court's role "is to examine the record for evidence of a disqualifying conflict, not to act as literary critic."

 

From: California Supreme Court rules for prosecutor who advised filmmakers

When a Santa Barbara County prosecutor decided to give a filmmaker his files on fugitive Jesse James Hollywood, he figured that the publicity might help catch the accused killer.

Instead, the prosecutor's work on the film "Alpha Dog" spurred an appellate court to remove him from the case on the grounds that he participated in "the public vilification" of a man who was to stand trial for an alleged murder that could bring the death penalty.

The California Supreme Court on Monday unanimously decided that the appeals court went too far. The court said Deputy Dist. Atty. Ronald Zonen should have been permitted to stay on the case because a trial judge had not found that his actions endangered the defendant's right to a fair trial.

"That is not to say that Zonen can or should escape censure," Justice Kathryn Mickle Werdegar wrote for the court. "We find his acknowledged actions in turning over his case files without so much as an attempt to screen them for confidential information highly inappropriate and disturbing."

In three rulings Monday, the state high court overturned decisions that removed prosecutors from cases because of conflicts of interest. One of them involved another Santa Barbara County prosecutor who wrote a novel about a crime similar to one she was about to prosecute.

Citing the desire of many lawyers for notoriety, the court said both a prosecutor and a defense lawyer in a high-profile trial may have an interest in "burnishing his legacy."

"Success in high-profile cases brings acclaim," Werdegar wrote. "It is endemic to such matters."

In such cases, the public must rely on prosecutors to carry out their obligations fairly and justly, Werdegar wrote.

Zonen was not paid for consulting on "Alpha Dog," which was based on Hollywood's alleged kidnapping and alleged murder of Nicholas Markowitz, 15. The prosecution contended that Hollywood was a drug dealer in the San Fernando Valley who ordered Markowitz killed because of a dispute with the boy's older half-brother over drug money.

Zonen had agreed to postpone plans to write a book on the case, the court said, and the defense also had a hand in the movie. Hollywood's father served as a paid consultant, according to the court.

James E. Blatt, Hollywood's lawyer, said Monday's ruling "sends a wrong message to prosecutors and defense attorneys" and may be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.

"This is a very troubling decision because you have a prosecutor becoming a consultant, helping develop a screenplay, getting himself on film, obtaining a movie credit and at the same time being allowed to remain on the case," Blatt said.

The state high court also sided with Santa Barbara County Deputy Dist. Atty. Joyce Dudley, who wrote a novel, "Intoxicating Agent," about "a heroine prosecutor's decision whether to try a rape case involving an intoxicated victim," the court said. The book was released months before Dudley was scheduled to try a case with similar allegations.

Massley Harushi Haraguchi, the defendant, won an appeals court ruling that removed Dudley from his prosecution. Haraguchi charged that Dudley's book gave her an incentive to refuse to agree to a plea bargain because a trial would promote her book.

The appeals court ruled for the accused rapist, contending that Dudley's prosecution of a case would be "unseemly."

But the California Supreme Court said that "only an actual likelihood of unfair treatment, not a subjective perception of impropriety" can warrant removal of a prosecutor or a prosecutor's office.