Jury finds Boston Herald libeled judge

The Boston Herald was ordered today to pay $2.1 million for libeling a Superior Court judge in articles that portrayed him as lenient toward defendants and quoted him making insensitive comments about a 14-year-old rape victim, AP reports.

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 had libeled Superior Court Judge Ernest B. Murphy. Another reporter was cleared.