William P. Murphy (1898–1986) was an Associate Justice of the Minnesota Supreme Court from 1955 to 1972.
Murphy was born in Saint Cloud, Minnesota on July 6, 1898. He graduated from Cathedral High School, a parochial school in St. Cloud, and obtained his legal education from the St. Paul College of Law, a predecessor to the William Mitchell College of Law in Saint Paul, Minnesota.[1]
He then worked in the legal department of the Capitol Trust & Savings Bank in St. Paul between 1922 and 1924, and was in private practice in St. Cloud from then until 1939. In 1939, he became an assistant U.S. attorney, and from 1952 he served as regional director of the Office of Price Stabilization.[1]
Murphy left government service in 1953 to practice with a St. Paul law firm. Two years later, Governor Orville Freeman appointed him to the Minnesota Supreme Court.[1] Murphy left the court in 1972, and in 1975 he was appointed a special agent for the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to investigate allegations of illegal contributions to President Richard M. Nixon's 1972 campaign.
Justice Murphy died on April 22, 1986.[1]