Legal Research

For Some Lawyer-Writers, Literary and Prosecutorial Licenses Collide

By David Badertscher, PLL

Source: Crime and Justice News, May 13, 2008.

"Prosecutors who draw on their professional experiences to write novels and assist screenwriters can breathe a little easier after a pair of rulings issued Monday by the California Supreme Court, reports the New York Times. 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 first case 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 Hollywood was a fugitive, Ronald Zonen, a deputy district attorney in Santa Barbara, gave information and documents about him to Nick Cassavetes, a director and screenwriter. The film, "Alpha Dog," was released last year. A unanimous appeals court said 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 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, 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."

New York Times

Full post as published by New York Supreme Court Criminal Term Library on May 13, 2008 (boomark / email).