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Judge Wins $2.1 Million From Paper in Libel Case By Lay Lindsay A jury Friday ordered the Boston Herald to pay $2.1 million for libeling a Superior Court judge, saying it misquoted him as telling lawyers that a 14-year-old rape victim should "get over it." In a case closely watched by the media and legal communities, a jury deliberated for more than 20 hours over five days before finding that the newspaper and reporter David Wedge libeled Superior Court Judge Ernest B. Murphy in articles that portrayed him as lenient toward defendants. Another reporter, Jules Crittenden, was cleared. Murphy claimed Wedge misquoted him as telling lawyers involved in the case about the teenage rape victim: "Tell her to get over it." The quote was included in a February 2002 series of Herald articles that said Murphy had been criticized by prosecutors for lenient sentences, including eight years' probation for a 17-year-old convicted of two rapes and an armed robbery. Murphy, 61, sued the Herald and its writers, claiming his comments about the 14-year-old, made in a closed-door meeting with lawyers, were misquoted and taken out of context. The newspaper stood by its reporting. "I'm feeling obviously very elated and very gratified about what's happened so far," Murphy said as he left court after the verdict was read. Later, Murphy said he hoped the verdict would be a warning to journalists around the country. Patrick J. Purcell, the newspaper's president and publisher, issued a statement thanking the jury "for their diligence on this very complicated case" but added, "We have complete faith in our reporter David Wedge, and we are confident this decision will be reversed on appeal." "We believe the First Amendment allows news organizations to provide uninhibited coverage of government and public figures, and we will continue to cover them vigorously," Purcell said. The Herald's articles were picked up by media outlets across the country and Murphy was excoriated on talk radio shows. He became known as "Easy Ernie" and "Evil Ernie." He was bombarded with hate mail, death threats and calls for his removal from the bench. In an Internet chat room, someone suggested that Murphy's own teenage daughters should be raped. Two of Murphy's daughters were so frightened, they went to live with family members and friends. Murphy said he went out and bought a .357-caliber Magnum. "I was afraid that someone was going to shoot me," he testified. Citing more than a dozen articles, he accused the newspaper of waging a "malicious and relentless campaign" that destroyed his personal and professional reputation. His lawyer, Howard M. Cooper, accused Wedge of shoddy reporting and fabricating a sensational story to sell papers. "Mr. Wedge and his editors at the Herald disregarded the truth that was staring them in the face," Cooper said in his closing argument. Cooper said Murphy had actually expressed concern for the teenage rape victim and asked court personnel and the defendant's lawyer about making counseling available to her. Murphy also denied that he derided a 79-year-old robbery victim in another case, saying his quote, "I don't care if she's 109," was "ripped from context" when the Herald published it. Murphy said he meant that the age of the victim didn't matter, but the jury did not issue a verdict on that part of the case. Murphy also had sued a Herald columnist and another reporter, but they were cleared before the case went to the jury. Because Murphy is a public figure, his lawyer had to convince the jury that the Herald knew it was reporting false information, or acted with a reckless disregard for the truth -- a higher standard than the requirement a nonpublic figure must meet to win a libel case. The case was unusual because Murphy's lawyers used not only the Herald articles, but also comments that Wedge made on a national television to try to prove his "malicious state of mind." Wedge, the lead reporter on the story, appeared on Fox's "The O'Reilly Factor" about three weeks after his first story ran in the Herald, a tabloid with a weekly circulation of over 300,000. When host Bill O'Reilly asked Wedge if he was sure Murphy said that the rape victim should "get over it," Wedge replied, "Yes. He made this comment to three lawyers. He knows he said it, and everybody else that knows this judge knows that he said it." Wedge, however, later said in a deposition that only one of the lawyers heard the comment firsthand and the other two just repeated it to Wedge. The prosecutor who claims to have heard the comment, David Crowley, said in his deposition that he recalled Murphy saying the words "get over it," but couldn't remember the judge's exact quote. Murphy has not revealed what he actually said to attorneys, but Cooper said that if the quote was, "She's got to get over it," that would have shown he felt compassion toward the girl. Wedge testified during the trial that he was certain the quote attributed to Murphy was correct. He testified he never spoke with Murphy before the story ran, but said he tried to contact the judge to verify the accuracy of the remark and was turned away. "David Wedge thoroughly investigated Judge Murphy," Herald lawyer M. Robert Dushman said during the trial. "He had reliable sources. Mr. Wedge had absolutely no doubt about the truth." Dushman acknowledged "minor errors" in some of Wedge's reporting, but said he did a solid job overall. |
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A Feast
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