ABSTRACT
Frank Murphy was President Franklin Roosevelt's fifth Supreme Court nominee. Murphy was born in Sand Beach, Michigan, on April 13, 1890, to a devoutly Catholic and politically active family. He briefly undertook private practice, but returned to public life with his election as judge of Detroit's Recorder's Court in 1923. He demonstrated unusual sensitivity to the interests of racial minorities and the economically disadvantaged. Soon after Roosevelt's inauguration, Murphy was appointed governor general of the Philippines, returning to be elected governor of Michigan in 1936. He moved to Washington, D.C., and Roosevelt appointed him US attorney general, a position he used in aggressively seeking to protect the interests of organized labor and racial minorities. Murphy served on the Supreme Court for about a decade and has been characterized as the most liberal justice ever. He was ends-driven and viewed law as a means to advance freedom and justice.
