Born in Haralson County, Georgia, on March 31, 1927, Murphy was in the United States Navy towards the end of World War II, from 1945 to 1946. He received a Bachelor of Laws from the University of Georgia School of Law in 1949, and was then in private practice in Buchanan, Georgia, until 1958, and in Buchanan and Tallapoosa, Georgia, until 1971. He was a Georgia state representative from 1951 to 1961. He was an assistant state solicitor general of the Tallapoosa Judicial Circuit in 1956. He was a Superior Court judge for the Tallapoosa Judicial Circuit, Georgia from 1971 to 1977.[3]
In 2014, the Alabama State University board of trustees voted to name its school of graduate studies after Murphy, in honor of his ruling in the civil rights case Knight v. Alabama.[4][5] He died on December 28, 2022, at the age of 95.[6]
