by TChris

A prosecutor got herself tossed from a case because its facts were too similar to those of a crime novel she'd authored and was promoting at the time of the prosecution. The defense raised a "novel" question in seeking her disqualification.

In January, Joyce Dudley, a deputy district attorney in Santa Barbara, published a crime novel called "Intoxicating Agent." Its heroine, Jordon Danner, has the same initials and the same job as Ms. Dudley, and the novel concerns a rape case with echoes of a real one. In both, the victim said she had been sexually assaulted after being given an intoxicating drug. ...

"She has a disabling conflict of interest," Justice Kenneth R. Yegan of the California Court of Appeal wrote of Ms. Dudley for a unanimous three-judge panel. Ms. Dudley must be disqualified, Justice Yegan continued, because the defendant, Massey Haraguchi, "is being prosecuted for raping an intoxicated person while the prosecutor is promoting her novel involving the identical charge."

Justice Yegan wrote that Ms. Dudley's desire for money and fame might tempt her to throw the book at the defendant, as it were.