Адвокат Адам Мерфи возглавит новую клинику в Фордхэмском университете для защиты осужденных

Adam Murphy, who is leading a new Federal Habeas Clinic at Fordham Law School, always knew his calling was to stand up for people who needed help within the legal system. As a lawyer, he shared the first time he knew he wanted to make a change for incarcerated people who may have been failed by the justice system within the United States. “My interest in this work started when I was very young, well before law school,” the associate professor at Fordham Law said. “I learned about the case of a man named Rickey Ray Rector who was executed by the state of Arkansas in 1992. “At the time of his execution, he was so cognitively impaired that when he was given his last meal, hours before his execution, he took a few bites of it and said, ‘I’m going to save the rest of it for tomorrow.'” Murphy remembered being so upset that Rector had no understanding that he was going to die. The impression lasted into adulthood, but it sparked a successful legal career. From Midwood High School to NYU Law and beyond Murphy is a native New Yorker. Born and raised in Brooklyn, he played baseball for Midwood High School in Flatbush, located not-too-far from Brooklyn College. He then headed to Poughkeepsie’s Vassar College. The story of Rector still etched in his mind and in his heart from his childhood, he then headed to NYU School of Law. “I became very interested in the death penalty,” Murphy shared. “And then as I got older, I expanded my purview to other part of the criminal legal system, especially aspects dealing with access to counsel issues, ineffective assistance with counsel, people being wrongfully convicted, people being sentenced in ways that I found to be cruel.” The passionate legal eagle said he went to law school knowing that he wanted to work within the criminal legal system. Right out of NYU, he moved to Alabama and worked with a civil rights lawyer to help people on death row. He then moved back to the Big Apple and worked as an Appellate public defender and the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. Leading the new Federal Habeas Clinic at Fordham Law School Murphy, who recently joined the faculty at Fordham Law, will run the school’s new Federal Habeas Clinic, which opens on Aug. 26. The clinic will provide free legal representation to incarcerated people seeking to challenge their convictions or sentences on federal constitutional grounds. The work addresses a significant gap in legal representation, Murphy said, because people pursuing federal habeas relief generally do not have a constitutional right to appointed counsel. Murphy will lead students as they take on cases involving alleged constitutional violations and potentially wrongful imprisonment. The clinic has already begun work on several cases, including one involving a client whose trial attorney allegedly failed to interview two witnesses whose testimony could have exonerated him. “The clients we represent now are people who have been convicted, mostly in state court, who have gone through the state court process and who have made a substantial showing or can make a substantial showing that their federal constitutional rights have been violated in some way,” Murphy explained. “And so we’re asking the federal courts to step in and say yes, actually your federal constitutional rights have been violated, and you’re entitled to some form of relief.” The professor said he hopes students enrolled in the clinic learn to become great writers, which is a pivotal skill for lawyering. He also wants them to work on client skills such as building trust, especially with clients who may have been disappointed with their previous counsel. Murphy also said he is excited about leading the new clinic and helping his clients. “I think it’s important to help people who have been abandoned by the rule of law,” he said. “I think a commitment to the rule of law is part of what makes a civilized society. The clients who we represent, at least from my perspective of least, have all been failed by the legal system, abandoned by the rule of law, made vulnerable as a result and they need advocacy. In many ways it’s the system that needs some credibility back.”