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

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. 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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