Supreme Court of California

Recusal against a prosecutor for alleged conflicts of interest, arising out of her authoring a novel with circumstances similar to a case she was trying, is reversed and the case remanded where: 1) the court of appeal gave no deference to the trial court's findings of fact or its application of law to the facts when it chose to review the case de novo since it was a case of first impression and appellate courts have an independent interest in policing pretrial error; 2) the trial court found that there was no financial incentive to prosecute the case in order to increase sales of the book; 3) the court of appeals imputed the views of the fictional character to the author; and 4) the publicity surrounding the book was not so great as to render a fair trial unlikely.

Appellate Information

• Decided 05/12/2008
• Published 05/12/2008

Judges

• WERDEGAR, J.

Court

• Supreme Court of California

Counsel

• For Appellant:
  
• Sanger & Swysen, Robert M. Sanger and Stephen K. Dunkle, Santa Barbara, for Petitioner., Bill Lockyer and Edmund G. Brown, Jr., Attorneys General, Donald E. de Nicola, Deputy State Solicitor General, Robert R. Anderson, Mary Jo Graves and Dane R. Gillette, Chief Assistant Attorneys General, Pamela C. Hamanaka, Assistant Attorney General, Steven D. Matthews, Kristofer Jorstad and David F. Glassman, Deputy Attorneys General;  Thomas W. Sneddon, Jr., and Christie Stanley, District Attorneys, and Gerald McC. Franklin, Deputy District Attorney, for Real Party in Interest., Michael A. Ramos, District Attorney (San Bernardino) and Grover D. Merritt, Lead Deputy District Attorney, for California District Attorneys Association as Amicus Curiae on behalf of Real Party in Interest.


• For Appellees:
  
• No appearance for Respondent.