Teen rape victim blasts lenient judge: Confessed attacker got probation (Hooray for Massachusetts)

Boston Herald | Tuesday, February 19, 2002 | Franci Richardson

[Lance Romance]

Teen rape victim blasts lenient judge: Confessed attacker got probation

by Franci Richardson
Tuesday, February 19, 2002

A 14-year-old rape victim yesterday lashed out at a lenient New Bedford Superior Court judge, calling the jurist ``an idiot'' after he sentenced her confessed assailant to probation two weeks ago.

``Now I have to look over my shoulder for the rest of my life,'' said the nervous high school freshman, who spoke on condition of anonymity, at a press conference her mother arranged in the backyard of her Mansfield home.

``I'm not the only one out there afraid. Other victims are going through the same thing I am because Judge (Ernest B.) Murphy chose to free their attackers, too. Judge Murphy made me feel that I was guilty and that Dean (McSweeney) was the victim.''

Murphy has come under heavy fire by law enforcement officials for imposing light sentences on a slew of violent criminals, including Dean McSweeney, 19, who received eight years probation after confessing to twice raping the Mansfield girl in her home last summer.

Murphy, a civil attorney appointed in 2000 to the superior court bench by former Gov. Paul Cellucci, also sentenced a convicted armed robber to five years' probation after he assaulted a 72-year-old sausage vendor and stole $1,100, and a Brockton man to five years' probation after he pleaded guilty to assault and battery with a dangerous weapon and armed robbery.

Murphy has also released four accused rapists without bail, pending their trial, including one man who police tracked for 18 months before finding him in Louisiana.

After McSweeney's controversial sentence, Murphy chastized the young girl for wanting a harsher sentence on her attacker.

``She can't go through life as a victim,'' Murphy told a prosecutor, according to courthouse sources. ``She's 14. She got raped. Tell her to get over it.''

The young victim maintained her composure yesterday as she responded to his comments.

``After he knew everything that had gone on, he said that and I thought it was really disrespectful of him,'' she said. ``Dean walked out of the courtroom a free man. I will never be free. This will follow me for the rest of my life and I will always be a victim.''

When someone asked her for a word to describe Murphy, she said, ``an idiot,'' echoing earlier comments by her adopted mother.

The girl's mother, Teri Taylor, last week filed a complaint against Murphy with the Judicial Conduct Commission, seeking to oust him from the bench.

``The more I read, the more I realized this guy's an idiot and needs to get down off . . . that bench,'' Taylor said earlier in the press conference. ``I feel sorry for all the rest of the victims that are going to come into his court.''

On Friday, Judge Suzanne DelVecchio, the head of the state's superior courts, said she wouldn't remove Murphy. Instead, she wants him to attend a ``judge rookie school.''

Murphy's attorney, J. Owen Todd, didn't return a call yesterday.

The young girl, with her hair in a pony tail and wearing heavy eyeliner and jeans, said she has not been able to live a normal life since the rape.

She didn't attend the final tryout to be a varsity cheerleader, which she described as being her ``life.''

She doesn't trust anyone except her family and friends and she finds it difficult to sleep at night.

``Every time I close my eyes, I see everything that happened all over again,'' she said. ``I (used to) have nightmares about him killing me in the courtroom.''

Taylor said about four days ago, she called McSweeney's probation officer to report him for yelling profanities out of his car window while driving by her son's employer.

``He's been warned to stop,'' Taylor said. ``He got slapped again.''

[doug from upland]

And, it is the home of William Rivers Pitt.

[BJungNan]

Perhaps you could lay out a case, where a 19 year old rapes a minor, that you think probation is an appropriate. I certainly can't do it.

I was tempted to lay out that case in an earlier post but that is really not the point I am trying to make or what I am asking. Just want to stick to the facts right now - which what is missing from the article. I certainly am not condoning sexual relationships between 19-year-olds and 14-year-olds.

[BJungNan]

...if this only fit one of the more questionable definitions, I doubt the guy would have admitted to raping her. And I don't think the girl would have been as angry and traumatized as she seems to have been if it was just statutory rape.

There are such things as plea bargains and his lawyer very well may have known the sentence would be what it was in convincing his client to admit to the rape charge.

As for the 14-year-old, can you not imagine a situation where she has gotten in trouble with her parents for her behavior and the way to avoid that is to turn on he "boyfriend." It also would not be the first time a 14-year-old that you and I would consider very complicit in the act asserted rape.

Again, we are forced into this speculation by a lazy job of reporting or a reporter that did not want us to know the circumstances.

[Little Bill]

Is it the time for manditory up or down votes on judges, say every four years? All of them, Let the Gov appoint 'em, the GC approve 'em, two years after appointment up or down, then every four years there after, up or down.

District Court by area, Superior Court by county, this includes Probate and Family court, the SJC State wide.

[PoorRider]

You wrote:
Don't be rediculas and don't assign positions to me that I do not hold and have not stated. Unless you found information in the story that I have not seen, it has not been determined in this thread that it was, as you say, statutory rape. Perhaps you are unaware of this, but having sex with a minor constitutes statutory rape...whether it was consensual or not. So yes, since the victim was 14, it has been determined that it was statutory rape.

[Lance Romance]

Amen. I don't need to know every last detail of a case in order to render a fair judgement. I don't care if he was raped as a minor or his parents burned him with cigarettes. Underage is underage and you need to know better. Nothing indicates that this was consensual sex.

[BJungNan]

So yes, since the victim was 14, it has been determined that it was statutory rape.

Now I stand corrected. And, I would say we have exhausted this thread. If anyone finds out what the actual cicumstances were, please let me know. All the Best!

[Burkeman1]

why not?

[murdoog]

Perhaps you could lay out a case, where a 19 year old rapes a minor, that you think probation is an appropriate. I certainly can't do it.

I can. Someone who just turned 19 has consensual sex with someone who will turn 17 in a month in a state where there is no "age difference" clause in the statutory rape law.(I know that's not what happened here.)

[Little Bill]

As I sit in the rather chilly sun of the Gulf Coast pondering the problem and it is this:

To run a petition campaign you need people and money, in the Mass FReeper world rather short commodidies. A petition needs about 80,00 signatures, plus support in the General Court, constitutional ammendment. The Cost judging from my experiences with the libertines is between $3 and $4 a signature, less with volunteers.

This does not include the election, I know of a lawyer in North Andover, that has drawn up a petition, interest and money lacking.

Bill