91ÃÛÌÒ¸ó

In August, Professor Justin Murray will join the Colorado Law Faculty as Associate Professor. Prior to joining Colorado Law, Professor Murray served on the faculty of New York Law School since 2019. He teaches or has taught criminal law, criminal procedure, constitutional law, and race, bias, and advocacy. He also co-directed NYLS's Criminal Justice Institute.Ìý

Professor Murray's scholarship focuses on prosecutorial institutions and decision making, and on strategies for preventing and penalizing illegal conduct on the part of prosecutors and other criminal justice actors. His academic work has been published in a number of law journals, including the Harvard Law Review, the University of Pennsylvania Law Review, the Virginia Law Review, and the Washington University Law Review. His scholarship has been cited by the U.S. Supreme Court and by judges on other courts, and he received the Otto Walter Award for best article by a full-time faculty member from the NYLS faculty for his 2021 article, "Policing Procedural Error in the Lower Criminal Courts."Ìý

Professor Murray has served as Chair of the Association of American Law Schools Criminal Procedure Section and remains a member of the Section's executive committee. He is a Special Editor for the Journal of Legal Education, a member of the Advisory Board for Criminal Law and Criminal Justice Books, and a member of the planning committee for the Decarceration Law Professors group, among other institutional and service roles.Ìý

Professor Murray began his career as a clerk on the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. After that, he spent four years as an appellate lawyer at the Public Defender Service for the District of Columbia, followed by a year at the Consumer Fraud Bureau of the Illinois Attorney General’s Office.ÌýÌýÌý

Learn more about Professor Murray, his work, and career accomplishments in the Q&A below.ÌýÌý

What excites you most about life in Colorado?ÌýÌý

JM: 91ÃÛÌÒ¸ó is my hometown. In fact, my mother went to CU for law school, and my earliest and most treasured memories took place on and around this very campus. The natural beauty, the arts and culture scene, and above all the fun and quirky people who live here -- all of these make 91ÃÛÌÒ¸ó a wonderful place to live and learn.ÌýÌý

What drew you to pursue a legal career?ÌýÌý

JM: I chose law as my profession out of a desire to represent and assist people experiencing poverty or other kinds of marginalization. When I first started law school, I did not yet know exactly what shape this would take for me (and I often remind my students that it's okay to take some time figuring this out!). But the same core commitments that brought me to law school also informed my later professional trajectory, from becoming a judicial clerk to working as a public defender and ultimately becoming a professor.ÌýÌý

Can you share a bit about any current projects you are working on?Ìý

JM: My research concentrates primarily on criminal prosecutors, since prosecutors play a large role -- I would say too large a role -- in determining the outcomes of the adjudicative process. I am particularly interested in such questions as: How do prosecutors make the decisions that are entrusted to their discretion? How can they be held accountable for those decisions? How can we reform prosecutorial institutions to make the criminal justice system more equitable? My current academic projects investigate these questions from varying angles.Ìý

What is your proudest career accomplishment so far?ÌýÌý

JM: My proudest professional achievement lies in the role I have played, however modest, in helping to cultivate in my students the legal knowledge, critical thinking skills, and thirst for justice that will prepare them for successful and rewarding careers in law.ÌýÌý

How does your experience as a former legal practitioner shape your work as a professor?Ìý

JM: As a lawyer I was constantly producing written work. Lawyers are writers, and so law schools must do everything they can to sharpen to a knife's edge their students' legal writing capabilities. Though I teach doctrinal courses, not writing courses, I try to incorporate opportunities for students to write -- and to acquire feedback on their writing -- wherever I am able.Ìý