Frank Murphy

For other people named Frank Murphy, see Frank Murphy (disambiguation).

Frank Murphy
Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court
In office February 5 1940 – July 19 1949
Nominated by	Franklin Delano Roosevelt
Preceded by	Pierce Butler
Succeeded by	Tom C. Clark
56th United States Attorney General
In office January 2, 1939 – January 18, 1940
Preceded by	Homer S. Cummings
Succeeded by	Robert H. Jackson
35th Governor of Michigan
In office January 1, 1937 – January 1, 1939
Lieutenant	Leo J. Nowicki
Preceded by	Frank Fitzgerald
Succeeded by	Frank Fitzgerald
Personal details
Political party	Democratic
Spouse	none

William Francis (Frank) Murphy (April 13, 1890 - July 19, 1949) was a politician and jurist from Michigan. He served as Mayor of Detroit, Governor of Michigan, the last Governor-General of the Philippines and the first High Commissioner of the Philippines, United States Attorney General, and United States Supreme Court Justice.

Early life

He was born in Harbor Beach, Michigan, and followed in his father’s footsteps by becoming a lawyer. He attended the University of Michigan, where he was a member of the senior society Michigamua. He graduated with a BA in 1912 and LLB in 1914, and performed graduate work at Lincoln's Inn in London and Trinity College, Dublin, which was said to be be formative for his judicial philosophy.

He served in the U.S. Army during World War I, and achieved the rank of Captain with the Occupation Army in Germany and left the service in 1919.

After leaving the service, Murphy opened a private law office in Detroit, and soon became the chief Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan. He opened the first civil rights of a U.S. Attorney. He served as a Judge in the Detroit Recorder's Court from 1923 to 1930. During that time, he was presiding judge in the famous murder trial of Ossian Sweet in 1925 and 1926, where Clarence Darrow was counsel for the defense.

Politics

In 1930, Murphy was elected, as a Democrat, Mayor of Detroit, and served from 1930 to 1933. In 1933, as Mayor he organized the convention of the United States Conference of Mayors, and was elected its first president.

He helped the unemployed during the Great Depression and was also a supporter of U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal. In 1933, Roosevelt appointed Murphy as the Governor-General of the Philippines. In January 1935, a Philippine military camp which would later serve as the headquarters of the country's armed forces was named after him. It was later renamed Camp Aguinaldo after the Philippines' first president. When his position as Governor-General was abolished in 1935, he stayed on as the United States High Commissioner until 1936. That year he served as a delegate from the Philippine Islands to the Democratic National Convention which re-nominated President Roosevelt for a second term.

Murphy was elected Governor of Michigan on November 3, 1936, defeating Republican incumbent Frank Fitzgerald, and served one two-year term. During his two years in office, an unemployment compensation system was instituted. Mental health programs were also improved.

The United Automobiles Workers engaged in an historic sit down strike in Flint. The Flint Sit-Down Strike was a turning point in national collective bargaining and labor policy. Importantly, during the sit down strike, the governor brought out the national guard, but refused to order the troops to suppress it. This had an important effect upon the outcome of the strike, and an untold affect upon organized labor.

In 1938, Murphy was defeated by his predecessor, Fitzgerald, becoming the only governor from Michigan to succeed and precede the same person.

Supreme Court service

President Roosevelt appointed Murphy as his Attorney General in 1939 and he served one year before Roosevelt nominated him to be an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court.

On the Court, Murphy was a voice for protection of individual rights. John P. Frank, in "The Justices of the United States Supreme Court: Their Lives and Major Opinions" (Leon Friedman and Fred L. Israel, editors), called him the Supreme Court's "most consistent voice for kindness, tolerance and humanity." Among Murphy's most famous dissents is that in the case of Korematsu v. United States (1944), in which he charged that by upholding the forced relocation of Japanese-Americans during World War II the Court was sinking into "the ugly abyss of racism."

Mr. Justice Murphy wrote the opinion in Thornhill v. Alabama 310 U.S. 88 1940, which overturned the Alabama law which forbade all forms of labor picketing. Picketing was protected under the First Amendment as a form of free speech: He wrote: "In the circumstances of our times the dissemination of information concerning the facts of a labor dispute must be regarded as within that area of free discussion that is guaranteed by the Constitution . . . Labor relations are not matters of mere local or private concern. Free discussion concerning the conditions in industry and the causes of labor disputes appears to us indispensable to the effective and intelligent use of the processes of popular government to shape the destiny of modern industrial society."

In Wolf v. Colorado he wrote in important dissent on the issue of the exclusionary rule as a sanction for search and seizure violations. He brought to bear his perspective and experience as a trial judge and prosecutor.

In Prince v. Massachusetts he wrote a fierce dissent, in which he noted: "Religious freedom is too sacred a right to be restricted or prohibited in any degree without convincing proof that a legitimate interest of the state is in grave danger." Prince v. Massachusetts, 321 U.S. 158 (1944),

He has been acclaimed as a legal scholar and a champion of the common man..

Through the appointment of Samuel Alito, Justice Murphy is one of five Catholics that have been appointed to the Supreme Court.

Death and legacy

• Murphy died at age of fifty-nine of a heart attack during his sleep at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit. He is interred at Our Lady of Lake Huron Cemetery of Harbor Beach, Michigan. Over 10,000 people attended his funeral in Detroit. He was never married.

• The Frank Murphy Hall of Justice, named for him, was formerly home to Detroit's Recorder's Court and now houses part of Michigan's Third Judicial Circuit Court. There is a plaque in his honor on the first floor.

• Murphy's personal and official files are archived at the Bentley Historical Library of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor and are open for research.

• His old law office is the Frank Murphy Memorial Museum in downtown Harbor Beach, Michigan. His home is there, too.

• He is memorialized in three official Michigan Historical Markers:
  • The Flint Sit-Down
  • Frank Murphy
  • Dr. Ossian Sweet / Home

References

• National Governors Association
• Political Graveyard
• Find a Grave

Bibliography and further reading

• Boyle, Kevin, Arc of Justice: A Saga of Race, Civil Rights and Murder in the Jazz Age (Henry Holt & Company, New York: 2004) (National Book Award Winner) ISBN 0805079335; ISBN 978-0805079333.
• Fine, Sidney, Frank Murphy: The Detroit Years. University of Michigan Press, 1975, 618 pages. ISBN 0472329499.
• Norris, Harold., Mr. Justice Murphy and the Bill of Rights. Oceana Publications, Inc: Dobbs Ferry, NY 1965.
• St. Antoine, Theodore J. "Justice Frank Murphy and American labor law." Michigan Law Review, 6/1/2002.

External Links

• Frank Murphy quotations -- a few.
• Detroit News, Rearview Mirror, The Historic 1936-37 Flint Auto Plant Strike.
• Oyez: U.S. Supreme Court media on Frank Murphy