Libeled Judge Faces Ethics Charges for Letters to Publisher

Judge says his letters were an attempt to end the case without years of appeals by the newspaper

Denise Lavoie

The Associated Press

October 16, 2007

A Superior Court judge aggressively defended himself Monday against ethics charges for sending letters to the publisher of the Boston Herald after a jury found the newspaper had libeled the judge, in part by quoting him as saying about a 14-year-old rape victim: "Tell her to get over it."

Superior Court Judge Ernest Murphy, who denied making the remark, said he wrote two letters to Herald Publisher Patrick Purcell after he won a $2 million judgment in 2005 because he wanted to end the case without years of appeals by the newspaper.

Purcell said he was incredulous when he received the letters, one of which demanded that he bring a check for $3.26 million to a private meeting with Murphy. The publisher said he saw the letters as an attempt by the judge to intimidate the Herald.

"I couldn't believe I was getting this from a judge. To me, it looked like a ransom note. It was very strange," Purcell testified before a hearing officer, retired Judge Peter Kilborn, who will make a recommendation to the state Commission on Judicial Conduct on whether Murphy should be disciplined for his actions.

A lawyer for the commission said Murphy violated the code of conduct for judges when he wrote the letters while he was in the midst of a bitter legal battle with the newspaper. One of the letters was written on Superior Court letterhead.

"Judge Murphy committed misconduct the moment he licked the stamps on those envelopes and put them in the mail," said attorney Howard Neff III.

Murphy, however, said he felt "demonized" by the Herald's coverage, which portrayed him as lenient toward defendants and unsympathetic toward the teenage rape victim.

"I didn't say 'tell her to get over it.' I said, 'How can we help her get over it?"' he said.

Murphy became choked up and had to pause several times when describing how the libel case took a severe physical and emotional toll on him and his family.

After Herald columnist Howie Carr criticized him, a posting in a Herald chat room suggested "maybe my daughters ought to be raped," Murphy recalled. The judge said after that his 14-year-old daughter began wetting the bed and both of his daughters required therapy.

He said he wrote the letters to Purcell because he wanted to spare his family a lengthy legal battle.

"It was killing me and my family," he said. "I did whatever the hell I had to do to stop it -- because my family was dying."

In his first handwritten note, Murphy asked for a private meeting with Purcell.

"You will bring to that meeting a cashiers check, payable to me, in the sum of $3,260,000," says the letter, dated two days after the jury awarded the judge $2 million. "No check, no meeting."

A separate single-page postscript -- dated a day earlier -- warns Purcell that telling anyone about the letter would be, "a big mistake." The word "big" was written in all capital letters.

Murphy testified that the jury's $2 million verdict had already increased to $2.8 million, including prejudgment interest, and was rising by $1,000 a day in interest after the verdict. He said asking for Purcell to bring $3.26 million was part of a "strategy" to persuade him to end the case without an appeal and without any additional interest charges or attorney fees.

"My strategy was to get Mr. Purcell to wake up and smell the coffee," Murphy said.

When questioned by Murphy's lawyer about why the Herald has never apologized to the judge, Purcell said: "I have believed all along that we did our job and that we had the story correct ... I stand by it to this day."

A Suffolk Superior Court jury found that the Herald had libeled Murphy in a series of articles.

The Herald appealed the decision, but the state Supreme Judicial Court affirmed the jury's verdict. Murphy received a check for $3.4 million June, which included the jury award plus interest.

The ethics hearing officer will make findings and recommendations to the commission, which will then issue a recommendation to the Supreme Judicial Court. The SJC will impose any disciplinary sanctions, which could include a fine, reprimand or censure.