James A. Murphy III, a Republican (also endorsed by the Independence and Conservative parties), is the elected District Attorney for Saratoga County, New York. Murphy is responsible for prosecuting all crime, including felonies, misdemeanors and violations in Saratoga County. In addition to his prosecutorial duties, he supervises assistant district attorneys, an investigations unit, a crime victim unit, and a large support staff. The district attorney represents the People of the State of New York in 44 justice courts across the county, in superior court, and before the grand jury. Under the constitution, the district attorney is the chief law enforcement officer of the police agencies having jurisdiction within the county. His office prosecutes nearly 10,000 criminal cases each year and nearly 90,000 vehicle and traffic offenses in a county with a population of more than 220,000 people, immediately north of Albany, NY the state capital.
Murphy first joined the Saratoga County District Attorney's Office in 1988 as an assistant district attorney. He was appointed First Assistant District Attorney in 1996. He ran for the position of district attorney in 1997 and was sworn in on January 2, 1998, becoming one of the youngest district attorneys in New York State. He successfully ran for re-election in 2001, 2005, and 2009. In all, he has served for over 23 years as a prosecutor. His grandfather, former United States Congressman Carleton J. King served as the Saratoga County District Attorney from 1956-1960.
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Murphy graduated from Saratoga Springs Schools in 1979. He earned his bachelor's degree from Bates College in Lewiston, Maine in 1983. He received a Juris Doctor from Pace University School of Law in New York in 1986. During his second year of law school he attended University College London Law Faculty, England, where he took courses in international law, company law and law of the European Economic Community.
During that time he was employed by the House of Commons of the United Kingdom and worked in particular for a Member of Parliament, Jim Wallace, Baron Wallace of Tankerness, of Orkney and Shetland (UK Parliament constituency), ultimately becoming his assistant and part time speech writer. On 13 September 2007 it was announced that Wallace was to be appointed to the House of Lords.
In 2000 Murphy graduated from the FBI Citizen’s Academy and was presented his credential by FBI Director Robert Mueller.
In 2011 Murphy he earned an Executive Education Certification from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
James A. Murphy III was born in Saratoga Springs on October 13, 1961 to Constance King Murphy, who earned her bachelor's degree from The College of St. Rose and attended Albany Law School and is an educated but non-practicing attorney, and James A. Murphy, Jr. of Brooklyn, NY, who earned his bachelor's degree from Williams College in Massachusetts and his juris doctor from Albany Law School an attorney practicing at the time in Saratoga Springs for the firm of King and Duval and later serving as mayor of Saratoga Springs. He later was a principle of the firm of King, Murphy, Adang, and Arpei, a general practice firm in Saratoga Springs, NY.
Murphy is the grandson of the late former Congressman Carleton J. King, who served as a member of the United States Congress from 1961–1974, after which President Gerald Ford appointed him Chairman of the Board of Visitors of West Point Military Academy.
Prior to joining the district attorney's office Murphy was a law clerk and then a summer associate at the firm of Kane, Dalsimer, Kane, Sullivan, Kurucz, Levy, Eisele and Richard, one of the oldest international antitrust and trade regulation law firms in New York City. Upon being admitted to the New York State Bar, he became an associate of the firm, specializing in domestic and international intellectual property law.
Since 1998, the office has one of the highest conviction rates for felony indictments , April 2010 and one of the lowest rates of violent crime in New York State.
He has been a leader in establishing misdemeanor and felony drug court for offenders who are addicted to controlled substances or alcohol. He has instituted these courts, along with NY State's Road to Recovery program, for repeat, nonviolent felony offenders. These courts are not available to defendants who are dealers and profiting from the sale of narcotic drugs. During Murphy's tenure, the Saratoga County Drug Treatment Court has diverted hundreds of participants into treatment and away from correctional facilities, helping individuals rejoin the work force and saving incarceration expenses. He works closely with members of the judiciary to appropriately screen addicts for judicial diversion to keep jail cells available for those who commit violent crime.
Murphy has also created specialized domestic violence prosecution courts in the cities of Saratoga Springs, Mechanicville and the town of Clifton Park. These courts handle hundreds of cases each year and defendants serve longer sentences because of Murphy's focus on domestic violence prosecution., April 2010 Murphy has a unit of special assistant district attorneys and victim advocates to work with victims of domestic violence. Additionally, he has adopted the Integrated Domestic Violence Court model, which allows matrimonial, criminal and family court actions to be consolidated before one judge. This one family-one judge standard for victims of domestic violence has been called one of the "best practices" in NYS by the Center for Court Innovation.
Murphy serves as the chair of the Domestic Violence Task Force, the Crime Victims Advocacy Unit, and the Sexual Assault Forensic Nurse Examiner Program to help victims of rape and sexual abuse. He has developed specialized prosecutorial units, including Domestic Violence, Sexual Assault, Guns, Gangs and Violent Crime, DWI, White Collar Crime, and Fraud.
During his tenure, Murphy has created a Narcotics and Forfeiture Prosecution Unit and created a Drug Enforcement Task Force of local law enforcement agencies, the Saratoga County Sheriff's Department, and the New York State Police. This initiative developed into a specially designated Northern Branch of the Drug Enforcement Task Force, focusing on the Capital District and Saratoga, Washington, and Warren counties. It is supported in large part by the sheriffs of those counties and brings millions of dollars in forfeited funds to law enforcement and government agencies taken from drug dealers.
On a routine basis, Murphy brings county law enforcement professionals together for collaboration and sharing of equipment and personnel to more efficiently deliver investigative and prosecutorial resources to the residents of Saratoga County, New York.
He has strengthened the DA’s office’s relationship with the largest law enforcement agency in the state, the New York State Police., April 2010 With the assistance of the Superintendent of the New York State Police, he established the new position of a NYSP Senior Investigator assigned to the District Attorney's Office.
Murphy is a graduate of the FBI National Citizens' Academy, which involved an eight-week curriculum focusing on federal law enforcement issues.
Perhaps the best-known case Murphy prosecuted was against notorious murderer, Sylvain Turcotte, who was sentenced in 1995 to back-to-back life sentences for the brutal murder of his wife and mother-in-law. To this day, this is the single longest sentence in the history of Saratoga County.
Murphy has transformed the district attorney's office from a group of part time assistants with limited technology in 1997 to a large number of professional full-time assistant district attorneys who operate in a state-of-the-art facility.
During his tenure, Murphy has partnered with the Saratoga Springs City School District, the South Glens Falls School District, the Ballston Spa School District and other school districts in the county to combat school truancy. By identifying parents who need help with parenting skills, utilizing the Strengthening Families Program, and working with school truancy officers, Murphy has helped increase school attendance and participation in school activities by parents and students alike. The program has been successful in reducing truancy by enabling parents to take a more active role in their child's education, identifying issues and helping to solve them on a non-criminal basis, as well as fostering better family relationships.
The multi-step program involves an escalating series of responses to chronic truancy. The most serious cases result in contact with the DA's office, which informs students and parents about the possibility of prosecution. More than 225 families have complied without the need to file criminal charges. The program has resulted in marked improvement in student attendance and academic achievement and a reduction in the dropout rate. School truancy experts have called the program “one of the most non-traditional relationships we have seen between the district attorney’s office and school truancy,” the program is not about putting people in jail, but is instead about prevention.
Murphy has also led the Saratoga County School Violence Task Force to help ensure the safety of school children. He initiated an anti-gang collaboration among law enforcement, schools, and the community to keep gang violence from spreading to Saratoga County.
Locally, he collaborated with the Saratoga Springs City School District Superintendent in 2007 to co-host a first-of-its-kind Educational Summit. Together with the Partnership for Prevention, the summit helped the school community identify risks associated with substance use, learn more about the developmental reasons for risk-taking behavior by adolescents, and engage in ongoing conversations about youth and the challenges they face today.
At the post-graduate level, Murphy has reached out to area law schools to recruit interns to help assistant district attorneys with special research and writing projects, and to allow interns an opportunity to become certified by the appellate division to prosecute criminal cases as students while being supervised by the prosecutors.
Murphy has collaborated with the Parents Who Host Lose the Most initiative, an anti-underage drinking campaign with the goal of educating parents and teens about the dangers of underage drinking. The campaign raises awareness about the legal implications of hosting underage parties - specifically that providing alcohol to a minor is a crime punishable by up to a year in jail.
He has co-sponsored the "Safe Haven" program, encouraging mothers to place unharmed infants at medical facilities within a short period after birth without fear of criminal prosecution. He joined with the 62 other district attorneys in the state and as a result of this legislation, 8 newborns have been saved and turned in to one of the safe havens rather than being the victim of abandonment and possible death., April 2010
He has promoted gun safety through a Trigger Lock Giveaway, in which free trigger locks were distributed in Saratoga County along with gun safety literature.
He has distributed over 10,000 donated cell phones for domestic violence victims and senior citizens to quickly make 911 emergency calls.
Murphy serves and has served on many boards of directors, including the State University of New York and its affiliate, The Empire State College Foundation, Domestic Violence Services-Rape Crisis of Saratoga County,The Prevention Council, CAPTAIN Youth and Family Services,Leadership Saratoga, and Saratoga Center for the Family.
DA Murphy is a member of the NYS Supreme Court's 4th Judicial District Law Library Board and a New York State co-chair of Fight Crime-Invest in Kids Inc., a statewide, bi-partisan, non-profit, anti-crime organization of more than 300 police chiefs, sheriffs, prosecutors, other law enforcement leaders, and violence survivors whose efforts include combating bullying and cyber crime. Through this organization, Murphy promoted the Safe and Stable Families Program, preschool programs for crime prevention, and other educational initiatives.
Murphy is also active in the New York State Bar Association and has served on its Executive Committee for Criminal Justice. He has served as a member of the House of Delegates of the New York State Bar Association and is a past president and executive board member of the Saratoga County Bar Association.
As Chairman of the Board of Directors and as past President of the New York State District Attorneys' Association, Murphy led the state's 62 district attorneys to work on statewide criminal justice initiatives. His efforts resulted in criminal justice reform and Rockefeller Drug Law Reform., April 2010 He has testified on a number of occasions before the New York State Legislature, the Sentencing Reform Commission, and the Juvenile Justice Reform Task Force and is a frequent lecturer at Albany Law School, the Federated Bar Association, District Attorneys Association of the State of New York, and the New York Prosecutors' Training Institute.
Murphy is a former board member of the New York Prosecutors' Training Institute, which trains prosecutors across the state in evidence, trial tactics, skills and writing.
Murphy also sits on the Jane Doe No More Advisory Board, an organization that works to ensure proper treatment of the victims of sexual assault; provide education and training tools for use by law enforcement, medical and legal professionals; and provide guidance to victims and their families. In April 2007, Murphy and Palomba appeared on Dateline NBC’s segment entitled "The Man Behind the Mask", detailing the attempted abduction of Saratoga Springs High School track star Lindsey Ferguson. DA Murphy was closely involved in the case of now-convicted kidnapper John Regan for crimes he committed in Connecticut and New York States.
In 2003, Governor Pataki appointed him to the prestigious NYS Commission on Forensic Science, which monitors forensic laboratory compliance with state accreditation standards. He was re-appointed to this post in 2009 by Governor Patterson. As a member of the NYS Commission on Forensic Science, Murphy assisted in creating standards and protocols for the DNA databank.
Governor Pataki and Governor Spitzer appointed him to serve on the New York State Domestic Violence Advisory Board in 2001 and 2007, respectively in an effort to assist the Office for the Prevention of Domestic Violence to establish best practices for police and victims in order to hold batterers accountable for their criminal conduct.
Murphy joined the faculty at Albany Law School as an adjunct professor in 2005, teaching courses in investigation, charging decisions, preliminary hearings, grand jury presentations, suppression hearings, trial advocacy, trial practice, plea bargaining and summation strategies. He teaches Criminal Trial Practice I and Criminal Trial Practice II for upper level students.
He serves as NYS Co-Chairperson of Crime: Invest in Kids, Inc., investing resources to combat bullying and cyber crime. Promoted the Safe and Stable Families Program and pre-school programs for crime prevention and other educational efforts
Murphy is a member of Bethesda Episcopal Church. He and his wife Laurie, a graduate of Duke University live in Saratoga Springs with their two daughters and their black Labrador retriever.