{"id":33109,"date":"2011-10-21T11:19:04","date_gmt":"2011-10-21T17:19:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/?p=33109"},"modified":"2011-10-21T12:35:24","modified_gmt":"2011-10-21T18:35:24","slug":"an-apology-to-judge-murphy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2011\/10\/an-apology-to-judge-murphy\/","title":{"rendered":"An apology to Judge Murphy"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Heath Haussamen<\/p><\/div>\n

When Judge Leslie Smith reinstated<\/a> the bribery indictment against Third Judicial District Judge Mike Murphy last week, he was essentially saying he made a mistake in dismissing it previously<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In a tersely worded order, he blamed the defense and prosecution for failing to provide him with relevant information. And then he corrected what he viewed as an error by reinstating the charges.<\/p>\n

I sympathize with Smith\u2019s frustration. The layers to this case and the dizzying stream of motions and countermotions make it among the most difficult to keep up with that I\u2019ve ever covered. And I covered courts for several years before I started NMPolitics.net.<\/p>\n

In the course of writing about Smith\u2019s reversal and other issues related to the Murphy case over the last few days, I discovered that I\u2019ve been making my own whopper of an error in reporting on the case.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve been writing, in article after article, that the indictment alleged that Murphy paid a bribe in exchange for his job and that he solicited a bribe from another potential judicial applicant.<\/p>\n

But Murphy isn\u2019t charged with paying a bribe for his job. The indictment on four felony charges is based on allegations that Murphy solicited a bribe<\/a> from potential judicial applicant Beverly Singleman, told District Judge Lisa Schultz to tell Singleman she needed to pay the bribe, and threatened to destroy Singleman\u2019s reputation for telling others that he solicited a bribe from her. I verified that with prosecutor Matt Chandler on Thursday.<\/p>\n

Separate from that indictment, Murphy faces another felony charge for allegedly offering \u201cseveral promises\u201d<\/a>\u00a0to Schultz in December 2010 if she would agree to be the tie-breaking vote to make Douglas R. Driggers the chief district judge in Las Cruces.<\/p>\n

Murphy allegedly told several people he paid money for his appointment. But in New Mexico, such an admission isn\u2019t enough for a criminal charge. To this point, Chandler and his team have come up with no additional evidence that Murphy actually paid a bribe.<\/p>\n

So he isn\u2019t charged with paying a bribe.<\/p>\n

Soliciting a bribe and the other charges Murphy faces are felonies and are serious. But they\u2019re not the same as paying a bribe. I\u2019ve been unintentionally mischaracterizing the charges against Murphy for months. On Thursday, I went back through NMPolitics.net\u2019s archives and corrected every article in which I repeated the mistake. I also noted the correction at the end of each of those articles.<\/p>\n

I could bore you with a lengthy piece about how I made such a big mistake and try to explain it away. But it wouldn\u2019t change the reality that I failed to accurately portray the indictment.<\/p>\n

You expect better from me. I expect better from myself. And all involved in this case \u2013 especially Murphy \u2013 deserve better.<\/p>\n

My apologies to Judge Murphy. I\u2019ll accurately portray the indictment in the future.<\/p>\n

Haussamen bio<\/a>\u00a0\u2502\u00a0Commentary page<\/a>\u00a0\u2502\u00a0Feed<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the course of writing about the bribery case against District Judge Mike Murphy over the last few days, I discovered that I\u2019ve been making a whopper of an error in my reporting. For that, I owe Judge Murphy an apology.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1192,10],"tags":[142,216,161,137,114,107],"class_list":["post-33109","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-commentary","category-haussamen-columns","tag-crime","tag-judge-murphy","tag-judiciary","tag-news-about-this-site","tag-public-corruption","tag-roundhouse"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33109","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33109"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33109\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33109"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33109"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33109"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}