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Case on DAs' Movie Input, Book Is at CA High Court

By Mike McKee
April 29, 2008
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. Haraguchi v. The Superior Court of Santa Barbara County, 49 Cal.Rptr.3d 590 (Cal. App. 2d Dist. 2006); Hollywood v. The Superior Court of Santa Barbara County, 49 Cal.Rptr.3d 598 (Cal. App. 2d Dist. 2006).

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