# Frank Murphy *American politician, lawyer and jurist from Michigan (1890–1949); Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, 1940–1949.* William Francis "Frank" Murphy (April 13, 1890 – July 19, 1949) was a Democratic politician, lawyer and judge from Harbor Beach, Michigan.[^1] His offices included Mayor of Detroit, the last American Governor-General of the Philippines and first High Commissioner to the Philippines, 35th governor of Michigan, and United States Attorney General.[^1] In 1940 he was appointed to the [[Supreme Court of the United States]].[^1] President Franklin D. Roosevelt named Murphy to the Court in 1940 to fill the seat vacated by the death of [[Pierce Butler (judge)|Pierce Butler]].[^1] He remained on the Court until he died in 1949, and [[Tom C. Clark]] succeeded him.[^1] His majority opinions include *Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire* and *SEC v. W. J. Howey Co.*, and he dissented in *Korematsu v. United States*.[^1] ## Early life Murphy was born in 1890 in Harbor Beach, then called Sand Beach, Michigan.[^1] His parents, John T. Murphy and Mary Brennan, had emigrated from Ireland and brought him up in the Catholic faith.[^1] At the University of Michigan Law School he earned a BA in 1912 and an LLB in 1914.[^1] After his 1914 admission to the State Bar of Michigan, he spent three years clerking at a Detroit firm.[^1] In World War I he served in Europe with the American Expeditionary Forces, rose to captain in the occupation army in Germany, and left the service in 1919.[^1] He then studied at Lincoln's Inn in London and Trinity College, Dublin.[^1] ## Career On August 9, 1919, Murphy took the oath as the first Assistant United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan, one of three assistants in the office.[^1] Much of the office's growing caseload came from prohibition enforcement, and Murphy won all but one of the cases he prosecuted.[^1] He resigned on March 1, 1922, and entered a Detroit law partnership with Edward G. Kemp.[^1] He lost a 1920 race for Congress as a Democrat.[^1] In 1923 voters elected him on a non-partisan ballot to the Recorder's Court, Detroit's criminal court; he took the bench on January 1, 1924, and sat for seven years.[^1] He presided over the 1925 and 1926 murder trials of Dr. Ossian Sweet and Henry Sweet, in which Clarence Darrow led the defense.[^1] Murphy was Mayor of Detroit from 1930 to 1933; a 1993 panel of 69 scholars placed him among the ten best mayors in American history.[^1] Appointed Governor-General of the Philippine Islands in 1933, he came home in 1936 and won the governorship of Michigan over the Republican incumbent, Frank Fitzgerald.[^1] Fitzgerald defeated him in 1938, and in 1939 Murphy became Attorney General before his 1940 Supreme Court appointment.[^1] ## Death and memory Murphy died of a coronary thrombosis on July 19, 1949, at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit, aged 59; more than 10,000 people attended his Detroit funeral.[^1] His grave is in Our Lady of Lake Huron Catholic Cemetery in Sand Beach Township, near Harbor Beach.[^1] Detroit's Frank Murphy Hall of Justice, formerly the seat of the Recorder's Court, now houses part of Michigan's Third Judicial Circuit Court.[^1] Outside it stands [[Carl Milles]]'s *The Hand of God*, cast in his honor with United Automobile Workers funding; commissioned in 1949 and finished by 1953, it was kept in storage and placed on a pedestal only in 1970.[^1] A museum in his former Harbor Beach residence holds artifacts from his life, and his personal and official files are open for research at the Bentley Historical Library of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.[^1] ## Personal life Murphy did not marry and had no children.[^1] According to the Wikipedia article, rumors about his sexuality followed him through his adult life, and his biographer, historian Sidney Fine, described a letter in Murphy's papers bearing on the question; the sources cited do not settle the matter.[^1] When he died he was engaged, with the wedding set for the following month.[^1] ## Notes [^1]: Wikipedia contributors, *Frank Murphy* (revision 1379301003, retrieved 2026-10-26) — Murphy's birth, education, military service, federal and judicial offices, mayoralty, governorships, Supreme Court service, death, memorials and personal life. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Murphy