Legal News

Boston Judge Agrees to Step Down Over Letters Sent to Herald

By Dan Slater

In 2005, Massachusetts state court judge Ernest Murphy (pictured) won a $2.1 million libel verdict against the Boston Herald for a series criticizing his alleged lenient sentencing practices. Murphy sued over stories quoting “several courthouse sources” that allegedly heard Murphy say a teenage rape victim should “get over it.” The Herald wound up paying Murphy $3.4 million including interest after Murphy won an appeal in May 2007.

But between the original verdict and the appeal, the following bizarre events unfolded: The Herald’s publisher, Patrick Purcell, received two letters from Murphy, written on the court’s letterhead, demanding payment of $3.26 million and telling Purcell that the Herald had little chance of winning on appeal. Murphy’s first letter warned Purcell that it would be “a BIG mistake” to show the letter to anyone. Murphy’s second letter said Purcell had “ZERO” chance of winning an appeal.

Murphy won the libel battle, walking away with $3.4 million, but the letters cost him his seat on the bench. The Boston Globe reports that, in a three-page order released yesterday, the Supreme Judicial Court wrote that it has accepted an agreement between Murphy and the state Commission on Judicial Conduct that says he’s “permanently disabled from performing his judicial duties” and will no longer sit as a state judge.

Murphy’s lawyer, Michael E. Mone, declined to comment. But, in an interview with the Globe last year he said the judge had “significant physical and mental problems and significant post-traumatic [stress] disorder,” though he declined to elaborate on the source of the trauma.

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on August 21, 2008 (boomark / email).