And so they meet again

It’s Howard Cooper versus the Boston Herald, round two.

Cooper, you may recall, is the Boston lawyer who represented then-judge Ernest Murphy in his libel suit against the Herald, which had portrayed him as someone who had “heartlessly” demeaned a teenage rape victim. Murphy won a $2 million-plus verdict against the Herald in 2005. I don’t think Murphy was libeled, but Cooper was able to convince a jury otherwise. Here is more than you’ll ever want to know about that case.

Now Cooper is suing the Herald on behalf of Tom Scholz of the band Boston, claiming that Inside Track reporters Gayle Fee and Laura Raposa fabricated quotes attributed to Micki Delp, ex-wife of Boston lead singer Brad Delp, as well as from unnamed “insiders,” to make it appear that Delp had blamed Scholz for her husband’s suicide.

Courthouse News Service has a detailed account of the suit, though there’s a mistake in the lede — Delp committed suicide in 2007, not 1997. The story is accompanied by a copy of the complaint (pdf). I have not had a chance to do more than skim it, so I’m staying away from any detailed analysis. I do see that Cooper cites Boston magazine’s 2006 story “Gals Gone Wild,” by John Gonzalez, as example of what Cooper calls Fee and Raposa’s “unprofessional, irresponsible and reckless tactics and methods.” For good measure, Cooper calls them “so-called ‘reporters.’”

The Herald has not yet filed a response. Herald spokeswoman Gwen Gage tells the Boston Globe, “We’re aware of the complaint and we will review it. Beyond that, we have no further comment.”

In 2006 Mark Jurkowitz wrote an in-depth profile of Cooper for the Boston Phoenix (via Romenesko). The headline: “The media’s worst nightmare?” At One Herald Square, the answer to that question would be a decided “yes.”

Murphy (remember him?) is reprimanded

The gate’s still open, the horses escaped ages ago and the barn has burned down to the ground.

Nevertheless, the state’s Supreme Judicial Court, at long last, ruled today that Superior Court Judge Ernest Murphy committed an ethical violation by sending threatening letters on official stationery to Boston Herald publisher Pat Purcell after winning a libel suit against the Herald.

I have written about this case so many times that I can’t muster the passion to do it again. Robert Ambrogi offers a few highlights as well as a link to the full decision. And here’s some Media Nation background.

Saturday morning roundup

If I were Ernie Roberts, the great Globe sports columnist, I’d tell you what I had for breakfast this Saturday morning. I’m not, so herewith a few observations about this and that.

Deval Patrick’s corporate benefactors. The drip-drip-drip over Gov. Patrick’s book proposal has been more a source of amusement than a cause for genuine concern. Today’s Globe story, in which we learn that he takes credit for the 10,000 people who turned out for a Barack Obama rally on the Common, is a hoot.

But yesterday’s Globe story properly noted a real problem — Patrick’s reliance on corporations, some of which will have business before the state, to buy books by the truckload in order to hand out to employees and clients. The impression you get is of a governor so convinced of his own rectitude that he believes he’s above the rules mere mortals have to follow.

Judge Murphy’s future on the bench. A Globe editorial today urges the state Supreme Judicial Court to suspend Judge Ernest Murphy, who was may be fined earlier this week for his bizarre and threatening letters to Herald publisher Pat Purcell after Murphy won a $2.1 million libel case against the Herald. [Correction: The Commission on Judicial Conduct has recommended that Murphy be censured, suspended for 30 days and fined $25,000.]

I assume the Globe means without pay. As a Herald editorial noted on Wednesday, Murphy has been out on paid leave since sometime last year, collecting his salary of nearly $130,000. It’s hard to think of a public official who has profited so handsomely from media criticism of his performance — which, no matter how imperfectly it may have been executed, is supposed to receive the highest possible protection from the First Amendment.

Helping the fans by gouging them. The Herald goes B-I-G today with the fact that the Red Sox are auctioning off Green Monster tickets to the highest bidder, with some seats going for more than $500.

The best quote is from Ron Bumgarner, the Sox’ vice president of ticketing: “We feel it’s our civic responsibility to keep tickets affordable for fans, and at the end of the day, this helps keep other ticket prices down.” You can’t make this stuff up.

Newspaper-killing chain faces death. The Journal Register Co., known within the business as the cheapest chain on earth, is sinking in a sea of debt and is in danger of being delisted by the New York Stock Exchange. The Journal Register’s best-known paper is the New Haven Register, but it also used to own the Taunton Gazette and the Fall River Herald News, now held by GateHouse Media. It also used to own the Woonsocket Call, where I was a co-op student in the mid-1970s.

Cape Cod Today publisher Walter Brooks sent out a blast e-mail with the news, which he titled “Every tear remained unjerked in its little ducts.” No kidding.

Robert Dushman

Robert Ambrogi’s Media Law blog passes along word that First Amendment lawyer Robert Dushman has died of lung cancer. Dushman, just 59 years old, was considered one of the country’s leading media lawyers, according to this obituary (PDF) from the New England Press Association.

Dushman represented the Boston Herald in the libel case brought by Superior Court Judge Ernest Murphy. The two most impressive people in the courtroom during the 2005 trial were the lead lawyers, Dushman and Howard Cooper, who represented Murphy. Dushman had the harder task — a tough case and an unsympathetic client.

Judge Murphy’s latest money grab

Is there no end to Superior Court Judge Ernest Murphy’s greed? Apparently not. Murphy is now suing the Boston Herald’s insurance company for $6.8 million merely because it allowed the paper to defend itself against the judge’s libel suit, and then allowed an appeal of the jury’s $2 million-plus verdict (Globe story here; Herald story here). Absolutely incredible.

Murphy had already managed to squander nearly all of the goodwill he’d garnered as a victim of the Herald’s sensationalistic, flawed reporting about him — first by sending bizarre, threatening letters to publisher Pat Purcell, and then, more recently, by trying to grab a disability pension to which Gov. Deval Patrick rightly concluded he wasn’t entitled. Now this.

When this all started a few years ago, I was sympathetic to Murphy, though not to his lawsuit. As a public official, he had the platform he needed to speak out and defend himself against charges he believed were unfair and inaccurate. No need to turn it into a libel case.

Unless, that is, he saw this as a chance to cash in right from the beginning.

Patrick to Murphy: Uh, no

There’s really nothing left to say about the saga of Middlesex Superior Court Judge Ernest Murphy, other than good for Gov. Deval Patrick for refusing to approve Murphy’s request for a disability pension.

I don’t consider myself a Murphy-basher. I don’t doubt that he suffered terribly at the hands of the Herald’s sensationalistic coverage of him — although Media Nation readers know I disagree with the libel verdict that he won, and that the state’s Supreme Judicial Court upheld.

But surely the $3.41 million he pocketed recently, along with the regular pension he could receive by working for just three more years is enough — provided he doesn’t get bounced for alleged misconduct over those weird letters he sent to Herald publisher Pat Purcell.

A bad day for Judge Murphy

It looks like Superior Court Judge Ernest Murphy could be a big loser despite winning a $2 million-plus libel judgment against the Herald — a judgment that was reaffirmed this spring by the state’s Supreme Judicial Court.

The Associated Press reports that the state’s Commission on Judicial Conduct has filed charges with the SJC alleging that Murphy’s very odd and threatening post-verdict letters to Herald publisher Pat Purcell — written on Superior Court letterhead — amounted to “willful misconduct” that brought his office into “disrepute.”

Murphy, in his response, denies the misconduct charge.

It’s all online here (PDF).

End of the line?

A wise local reporter recently told me to stop wishing for Herald publisher Pat Purcell to appeal the $2.1 million libel verdict against his paper to the U.S. Supreme Court. I see his point — given the court’s recent outrageous ruling on pay equity, it’s hard to imagine (OK, it’s easy to imagine) what Roberts, Alito, Scalia et al. might do to Times v. Sullivan, the 1964 ruling that makes it difficult for public officials to win libel suits.

Perhaps this is going to end with a whimper. The Globe reports today that the state’s Supreme Judicial Court has declined to revisit its recent decision upholding the 2005 libel verdict in favor of Superior Court Judge Ernest Murphy, who’d claimed the Herald had falsely portrayed him as making demeaning statements about a 14-year-old rape victim — specifically, that he had said, “Tell her to get over it” during a meeting with lawyers.

Apparently there’s a brief in the Herald, too, but right now the paper’s Web site is down.

Not to relive this endlessly, but Times v. Sullivan and its progeny required Murphy to show that Herald staffer Dave Wedge knew or strongly suspected he was reporting false information. The jury and the SJC bought it, but I still don’t. Even though Wedge’s reporting was sensationalistic and marred by several key errors, I don’t think he ever believed he was doing anything other than passing along the honest views of his sources in the Bristol County district attorney’s office.

In Massachusetts, at least, Times v. Sullivan no longer provides journalists with the near-absolute protection they’d had to report fearlessly about public officials. Some may say that’s a good thing. I certainly don’t.

Ketter on the Herald libel case

William Ketter, a Pulitzer Prize-winning editor, former Pulitzer board member and past president of the American Society of Newspaper Editors, has written a fine op-ed piece on the Herald libel case.

Ketter goes right after the dubious notion — recently endorsed by the state’s Supreme Judicial Court — that Herald reporter Dave Wedge knew his characterization of Superior Court Judge Ernest Murphy as having demeaned a teenage rape victim was false, or that Wedge harbored serious doubts. Ketter writes:

It is reasonable to assume that reporter Wedge and the Boston Herald believed the information they were fed by the district attorney’s office was truthful. The news media frequently turn to prosecutors for details of cases they are involved in. A trust builds up. They are an official source of critical information.

But the SJC would have you believe the Herald had reason to seriously doubt the accuracy of the story after it was published because a lawyer for the judge said he didn’t say what the paper had published, and the Boston Globe carried a story with Murphy’s direct denial.

Ketter’s essential point — that Wedge reported what his sources in the Bristol County district attorney’s office told him (more or less), and that he had no reason to believe they weren’t telling him the truth — is right on target. I hope Herald publisher Pat Purcell keeps fighting this.

Herald appeals libel ruling

The Herald has asked the state’s Supreme Judicial Court to reconsider its decision to uphold a $2.1 million libel verdict against the paper. The Herald lost a 2005 trial in a suit brought by Superior Court Judge Ernest Murphy, who charged that Herald falsely and recklessly reported that he had demeaned a teenage rape victim.

You wouldn’t think there would be much chance that the SJC would reverse its own unanimous ruling. But I’ve read the brief filed on behalf of the Herald, and it makes a strong argument that the SJC completely mischaracterized the testimony of the Herald’s only eyewitness source, former Bristol County prosecutor David Crowley.

I was in the courtroom, and I’d say the brief is right on the mark. So stay tuned.