Frank Murphy - Death and Legacy

Death and Legacy

Murphy died at fifty-nine of coronary thrombosis during his sleep at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit. Over 10,000 people attended his funeral in Detroit. He was engaged to be married in August to Joan Cuddihy.

His remains are interred at Our Lady of Lake Huron Cemetery of Harbor Beach, Michigan. The Frank Murphy Hall of Justice was 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, which is recognized as a Michigan Legal Milestone.

Outside the Hall of Justice is Carl Milles's statue "The Hand of God". This rendition was cast in honor of Murphy and financed by the United Automobile Workers. It features a nude figure emerging from the left hand of God. Although commissioned in 1949 and completed by 1953, the work, partly because of the male nudity involved, was kept in storage for a decade and a half. The work was chosen in tribute to Murphy by Walter P. Reuther and Ira W. Jayne. It was placed on a pedestal in 1970 with the help of sculptor Marshall Fredericks, who was a Milles student.

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. This also includes an oral history project about Murphy. His correspondence and other official documents are deposited in libraries around the country.

In memory of Murphy, one of three University of Michigan Law School alumni to become a U.S. Supreme Court justice, Washington D.C.-based attorney John H. Pickering, who was a law clerk for Murphy, donated a large sum of money to the law school as a remembrance, establishing the Frank Murphy Seminar Room.

Murphy was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Law degree by the University of Michigan in 1939.

The University of Detroit has a Frank Murphy Honor Society.

The Sweet Trials: Malice Aforethought is a play written by Arthur Beer, based on the trials of Ossian and Henry Sweet, and derived from Kevin Boyle's Arc of Justice.

The Detroit Public Schools named Frank Murphy Elementary in his honor.