Group seeks to have Rome’s federal building named in honor of Murphy
Only one portrait hangs on the third floor of Rome’s federal building, where Harold L. Murphy presided over court cases for over four decades, and it is of Judge Murphy.
A group of locals is seeking legislation to have the federal courthouse in Rome named after its most longstanding resident.
The large federal building has served many roles since its construction in 1974, including serving as the U.S. Post Office downtown, but the longest use was as a courtroom for Judge Murphy.
“It is only appropriate that the federal courthouse in Rome, Georgia, which has been occupied by Harold L. Murphy for almost its entire history to be named after him,” attorney J. Anderson Davis with Brinson, Askew and Berry law firm wrote in a letter to senators and representatives from Northwest Georgia.
Murphy was appointed as U.S. District Court judge for the Northern District of Georgia by President Jimmy Carter in July 1977, and soon the Haralson County native made that courtroom his own. He passed away on Dec. 28, 2022.
An open letter from 50 of his former law clerks in tribute to Murphy’s memory, published in the Fulton County Daily Report, described his wit, character, good times going to lunch and, most of all, his fairness. One excerpt from that letter gives an example of how people, even those sentenced to prison, felt they’d been given a fair trial by Judge Murphy:
“Even people who were sentenced by Judge Murphy sensed the fairness and decency with which he treated all who came before him. One of us remembered that court stationary was formerly printed in a federal prison in the Midwest. One day, a box of stationary was delivered to chambers and inside was a personal note written by an inmate: ‘Dear Judge Murphy, I was tried and convicted in your court. Now I am making your stationary. I know you gave me a fair trial.”’
An article penned by former Georgia Supreme Court Chief Justice Norman S. Fletcher and Lee B. Carter notes that the building is one of more than 700 building projects that the United States government undertook from 1960 to 1976. It replaced the old federal courthouse, now home to Floyd County government offices, on the corner of Fourth Avenue and East First Street.
The article describes the architecture of the “new” courthouse in contrast to the “old” courthouse, then shifts to Judge Murphy, who is describes as the courthouse’s “longest inhabitant.”
“In his 40+ years on the federal bench, Judge Murphy established himself as one of its most respected members. He was known for his industry, energy, fairness to all and, of course his dry wit,” Fletcher and Carter wrote in the article concerning the history of the courthouse. “As many who have practiced before Judge Murphy can attest, his mid-witness examination quips were legendary.”