Posted on 05/13/2003 2:01:39 AM PDT by Liz
CLEVELAND (AP) - The New York Times and a state Supreme Court justice went to court Monday over an article involving a lawsuit filed by the son of Dr. Sam Sheppard.
In opening statements in U.S. District Court, lawyer Don C. Iler said Times reporter Fox Butterfield wrote things about Justice Francis E. Sweeney that he knew were untrue and damaged the judge's reputation.
But newspaper attorney James Wooley said any errors were unintentional and without malice.
Sweeney's lawsuit alleges the April 13, 2000, Times story defamed him by falsely saying he used his influence in a case he had been involved in earlier as a prosecutor.
The lawsuit seeks unspecified damages.
Sheppard was convicted in the July 4, 1954, beating death of his wife. The doctor's conviction was overturned on appeal, and he was acquitted at a retrial in 1966. Sheppard, who died four years later, always maintained his innocence, and his story helped inspire the movie and television series ``The Fugitive.''
Sheppard's son, San Reese Sheppard, filed a lawsuit to have a court declare his father innocent, which would have qualified the Sheppard estate to make a claim against the state of Ohio.
The Times story noted that Sweeney would not recuse himself and had voted in the 4-3 minority when the Ohio Supreme Court decided against blocking the Sheppard civil lawsuit. It said he refused to step aside although he had been an assistant Cuyahoga County prosecutor when Sheppard was tried again in 1966.
Iler said Butterfield should have known that Sweeney, at the time of Sheppard's criminal retrial in the 1960s, was an assistant prosecutor in charge of juvenile cases and had nothing to do with the Sheppard case.
``What kind of a journalist would do this to an honorable, reputable justice of the Ohio Supreme Court? What Fox Butterfield did, he did intentionally, recklessly and with malice,'' Iler said.
Wooley said Butterfield was thorough in his research. He also said the fact that Sweeney was not part of the Sheppard prosecution ``was an honest mistake'' that later was corrected.
``There will be no evidence of actual malice, nothing. Everything he wrote was supported in his notes,'' Wooley said.
He also said Sweeney was and remains a well respected Ohio Supreme Court justice.
``His reputation is sound and intact,'' he said.
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On the Net:
http://www.nytimes.com
http://www.sconet.state.oh.us
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2003
Should have made it clearer.....you'd make a great assignment editor
in that you are aware of the NY Slimes and its slobola readers' interests.
NY SLIMES DIES DUE TO AN OVERDOSE OF LYING FOR DECADES!
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