Demagogue

The jury has come back in the libel trial between a Massachusetts judge and the tabloid Boston Herald, which published a series of articles accusing the judge of being soft on crime. The most explosive example of the judge's heartless attitude was his alleged comment that a 14-year-old rape victim should "get over it."

Chalk one up (pending appeal) for the judge, a very rare winner among "public figure" libel plaintiffs. Public figures must prove not only that the defamatory statement was false, but that the speaker published the comment with knowledge that it was false or with reckless disregard for whether it was true or false. This standard gives journalists pretty free rein to print what they want; only in cases of egregious failures to check out the facts can they be held liable. As a result, politicians, celebrities, and people who become famous without meaning to (e.g., by being victims of a crime that gets a lot of publicity) rarely sue for defamation and even more rarely win. But this jury awarded the judge $2.1 million in damages.

I've blogged this case before, and I think it's shown up on more-trafficked sites like Atrios and Media Matters. But now that the jury has rendered its verdict, it's worth recalling what the right-wing echo chamber, and its more lunatic listeners, can do to a person.

The Herald's articles were picked up by media outlets across the country and [Judge Ernest B.] 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....

The case was unusual because Murphy's lawyers used not only the Herald articles, but also comments that [Herald reporter David] 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."

Anybody know if O'Reilly has said anything about the verdict? Or are visitors to the "No Spin Zone" still under the impression that Judge Murphy is a callous, soft-on-crime monster?