May 2008

By Mike McKee

When their 15 minutes of fame came, two Santa Barbara County prosecutors didn’t shy away — one authored a book based loosely on a rape case she was handling and the other consulted on a movie about an alleged killer he was trying to bring to justice. But their foray into the entertainment world went awry in October 2006 when a state appellate panel threw both prosecutors off their cases. Joyce Dudley’s novel, “Intoxicating Agent,” hewed far too close to her real-world rape case, the court held, while Ronald Zonen shouldn’t have allowed producers of the movie “Alpha Dog” access to highly sensitive files in his sensational death-penalty case. As a result, the court ruled, keeping the prosecutors on the cases would deny both criminal defendants a fair trial.

Subscribers: click here for the full story

Non-Subscribers: click here to subscribe

Pay per view ($20.00)