Four days after two judges signed court orders directing The Daily Collegian to destroy stories in its archives, one judge said Tuesday that he had made a mistake and has filed three amended orders — a move he said should fix the situation.

Centre County District Judges Bradley P. Lunsford and Thomas K. Kistler signed five expungement orders Friday that directed The Daily Collegian and The Centre Daily Times to destroy any archived stories pertaining to five defendants in criminal cases.

Lunsford said he signed the three orders by mistake and that he has already filed three amended orders that remove the clause instructing the newspapers to destroy the archived content.

The amended orders now include standard expungement order language, which directs government agencies and courts to destroy documents pertaining to defendants’ criminal records.

Kistler did not respond to phone calls by press time Tuesday.

Jeffrey Bower, The Daily Collegian’s attorney, said he has never seen an expungement order directing a newspaper to destroy stories and called the orders “very unusual.”

Collegian Editor-in-Chief Elizabeth Murphy condemned the orders and said that only criminal records kept by government agencies can be expunged.

“The Daily Collegian is a record of history as it happens from day-to-day,” Murphy (senior-journalism and women’s studies) said. “It’s not a court record. It’s not a governmental agency. We’re here to report the facts as they are and that’s what we did.”

The Daily Collegian has made no plans to destroy the stories, Murphy said.

Lunsford said most attorneys use a standard order — provided by the Centre County Prothonotary’s office — when filing a petition to expunge their clients’ criminal records.

The standard order does not include provisions to force newspapers to destroy archived stories.

In this case, however, attorney Joe Amendola modified the standard order so that it would direct The Daily Collegian and The Centre Daily Times to destroy any stories involving the cases of his five clients, Lunsford said.

“We didn’t realize that these modifications had been made to the standard order,” Lunsford said.

Lunsford said he signed the three orders with dozens of others and didn’t realize a mistake had been made.

Amendola did not respond to phone calls by press time Tuesday.

The Daily Collegian’s policy is to “amend or correct any article where it is warranted,” Murphy said.

If Amendola were to provide evidence that his clients’ records were expunged, Murphy said stories involving their sentencing would be amended to say that their criminal records had since been expunged.

But stories will not be deleted or destroyed because of an expunged record, Murphy said.

“Even though it was expunged with the court, it’s still something that happened,” Murphy said. “As much as you want to, you can’t just take that away.”