Attorney: Judge Boyd didn’t talk to British tabloid about Couch case

The attorney for retired Judge Jean Boyd said Wednesday that she never talked to the media about the Ethan Couch case despite a recent report to the contrary by a London tabloid.

Roland Johnson, Boyd’s attorney, told the Star-Telegram on Wednesday that comments reportedly made by Boyd to the Daily Mail Online “didn’t happen” and that the judge has never spoken to the media about the case.

“She hasn’t given an interview about this to anyone,” Johnson said. “... She hasn’t talked to the Daily Mail. That’s false and now that falsehood is getting repeated everywhere.”

Boyd’s husband sent an email to the Star-Telegram, also denying that she talked to the British tabloid.

The Daily Mail Online reported Monday that Boyd spoke with a reporter while standing outside her Fort Worth home, claiming people who “don’t have all the facts” simply don’t understand the logic behind her decision to sentence Couch to 10 years’ probation in connection with a drunken driving wreck that killed four people.

The tabloid reported that when asked whether she regrets handing Couch probation in light of his fleeing to Mexico and being handed over to an adult court and remanded in custody, Boyd replied: “No. I have nothing else to say.”

The Star-Telegram was among publications to report the judge’s alleged comments to the Daily Mail.

The Daily Mail did not return messages seeking comment.

Johnson said a photo of Boyd that had been posted along with the Daily Mail article, which shows Boyd standing outside her pickup, “looks like a secretive photo taken from a distance away.”

“You look at that photo and it looks like a tabloid photo,” Johnson said. “That’s not an interview photo.”

Boyd has been the target of scrutiny and online bashing since sentencing Couch in December 2013 to probation and intensive therapy after he admitted responsibility — the adult equivalent of pleading guilty — to driving drunk and causing a crash that killed four people and left a teen paralyzed.

During testimony, one witness suggested that Couch was a victim of “affluenza,” which was described as a mental state of reckless behavior brought on by affluence and the behavior of his parents.

Boyd said at the time that her decision had nothing do to with the affluenza comment and said during sentencing, “Ethan, you are responsible for what you did, not your parents.”

After Couch and his mother fled to Mexico this past December, Boyd was again widely criticized.

Boyd, who was a juvenile court judge in Tarrant County before retiring, has never spoken publicly about the case.

“I think, in general, judges do not comment on cases that they have worked on,” Johnson said.

Johnson agreed to talk to the Star-Telegram after Boyd’s husband, John Boyd, sent an email to the newspaper, saying that the “interview” between the judge and the Daily Mail never occurred.

“The reporting is completely fabricated,” John Boyd wrote in the email. “Apparently, it is really true that when you repeat a lie often enough it is seen as the truth.”

Boyd called his wife “as close to ethically pure as a judge can be.”

“She would never break her ethical bond by commenting on this case or any other case,” he wrote. “Judge Boyd is and has always been dedicated to and driven by her commitment to following the law and applying it fairly and appropriately to all of her decisions — no matter how hard it is ...”

Couch, 18, has been held in the Tarrant County's Lon Evans Correctional Facility, a maximum-security adult jail, since Feb. 5. He will be randomly assigned to an adult district judge and given a fresh set of probation conditions by his 19th birthday in April. One condition could include a jail sentence of 120 to 180 days.

This report includes material from the Star-Telegram archives.

This story was originally published February 24, 2016 at 5:31 PM with the headline "Attorney: Judge Boyd didn’t talk to British tabloid about Couch case."