The California Supreme Court unanimously decided that the prosecutor who helped in the making of “Alpha Dog” may remain on the case which became the subject of the movie.

The case involved Jesse James Hollywood, who faces the death penalty for his role in the kidnapping and murder of a 15-year-old boy.

Ronald Zonen, a deputy district attorney in Santa Barbara, turned over probation reports, police files and other materials related to the case to director and screenwriter Nick Cassavetes while Jesse James Hollywood was hiding in Brazil.

The film “Alpha Dog,” a fictionalized story of the killing of a young boy starring Bruce Willis, Sharon Stone and Justin Timberlake, was released last year, long after Jesse James was captured in 2005 in Brazil after spending nearly five years on the lam.

Jesse James’ lawyers filed a motion in an attempt to disqualify the deputy district attorney from the case, arguing that he had acted unethically and had hurt Jesse Hollywood’s chances of receiving a fair trial, the New York Times noted. They said that “Alpha Dog” unfairly presented a negative image of his client in the eyes of jurors.

“Prosecutors should try their cases in courtrooms,” Justice Kenneth R. Yegan of the California Court of Appeals wrote in 2006, according to the same source, “not in the newspapers, television or the movies.”

The decision of the trial judge in Santa Barbara who concluded that the prosecutor’s behavior, even though it was “highly inappropriate and disturbing,” could not lead to an unfair trial, was correct afterwards, as the California Supreme Court concluded.

“This is not to say that Zonen can or should escape censure,” Justice Kathryn Werdegar wrote, according to the Associated Press. “We find his acknowledged actions in turning over his case files without so much as an attempt to screen them for confidential information highly inappropriate and disturbing.”

A similar case involved a Santa Barbara prosecutor, Joyce Dudley, who wrote a book, entitled “Intoxicating Agent,” about the rape of an intoxicated woman, while preparing for the trial of a man accused of raping an intoxicated woman. The Supreme Court reinstated the prosecutor who was taken off the case, saying that Dudley’s novel was not a strong reason for disqualification.