Frank Murphy Hall of Justice - Detroit, MI
N 42° 20.242 W 083° 02.558
17T E 331727 N 4689255
The Frank Murphy Hall of Justice was built in 1970 in downtown Detroit, Michigan filling various courthouse roles in its history. It is named for Frank Murphy, a local politician and judge who eventually ended up on the United States Supreme Court.
Waymark Code: WM1C12P
Location: Michigan, United States
Date Posted: 05/13/2025
Views: 2
The Place
Detroit's Frank Murphy Hall of Justice houses the Criminal Division of the Third Judicial Circuit of Michigan, also known as Wayne County Circuit Court, the Wayne County Prosecutor's Office and formerly housed Detroit Recorder's Court. Located in the Greektown district, the twelve-story Brutalist architecture building, designed by Eberle M. Smith, was completed in 1970 and is named for jurist and politician Frank Murphy, who was a Recorder's Court judge, Mayor of Detroit, Governor of Michigan, United States Attorney General and Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court. As of 2019, the building remained in use, but was slated for demolition as part of area redevelopment when the circuit court moves to a new Wayne County criminal justice campus.-
Frank Murphy Hall of Justice
The Person"William Francis Murphy (April 13, 1890 – July 19, 1949) was an American politician, lawyer, and jurist from Michigan. He was a Democrat who was named to the Supreme Court of the United States in 1940 after a political career that included serving as United States Attorney General, 35th governor of Michigan, and Mayor of Detroit. He also served as the last Governor-General of the Philippines and the first High Commissioner to the Philippines.
Born in "The Thumb" region of Michigan, Murphy graduated from the University of Michigan Law School in 1914. After serving in the United States Army during World War I, he served as a federal attorney and trial judge. He served as Mayor of Detroit from 1930 to 1933. A panel of 69 scholars in 1993 ranked him among the ten best mayors in American history.[7] In 1933 he was appointed as Governor-General of the Philippine Islands. He returned home in 1936 and defeated incumbent Republican governor Frank Fitzgerald in the 1936 Michigan gubernatorial election and served a single term as Governor of Michigan. Murphy lost re-election to Fitzgerald in 1938 and accepted an appointment as the United States Attorney General the following year.
In 1940, President Franklin D. Roosevelt appointed Murphy to the Supreme Court to fill a vacancy caused by the death of Pierce Butler. Murphy served on the Court from 1940 until his death in 1949, and was succeeded by Tom C. Clark. Murphy wrote the Court's majority opinion in
SEC v. W. J. Howey Co., and wrote a dissenting opinion in
Korematsu v. United States."-
Frank Murphy