Kevin Mark Murphy

{{short description|Canadian musician and criminal lawyer (born 1957)}}

{{Infobox person

|birth_date= {{birth date and age|1957|5|24}}

|birth_place=Toronto, Ontario, Canada

|occupation=Lawyer, musician

}}

Kevin Mark Murphy (born May 24, 1957) is a Canadian musician and criminal lawyer, best known as a co-founder of the Ottawa-based music group, Singing Fools.

The non-performing duo gained national prominence in 1985 with their nuclear-themed dance record, "The Apocalypso" and were signed to a short-lived recording contract with A&M Records.

Murphy also gained notoriety as an outspoken criminal defence lawyer{{cite news|title=Child-porn charges over family snaps withdrawn: Photolab workers alerted police to naked shots of a boy taken by his father;|newspaper=Vancouver Sun|date=April 13, 2000}}
- {{cite news|last=Lawton|first=Valerie|title=Crown drops child-porn charge; Photo lab turned in father's shots of naked 4-year-old son;|date=April 13, 2000|newspaper=Toronto Star}}
- {{cite news|title=Man carrying grenade remanded in custody;|newspaper=Windsor Star|date=Dec 4, 2002}}
- {{cite news|last=Murphy|first=Kevin|title=Legal-aid system an attack on justice|newspaper=Toronto Star|date=January 10, 2003}}
- {{cite news|last=Murphy|first=Kevin|title=Politicians defend racial profiling by denying it;|newspaper=Ottawa Citizen|date=March 5, 2003}}<- r>{{cite news|last=Rupert|first=Jake|title=Murder trial hinges on one disputed word: Crown's key witness spars with defence over police tape|newspaper=Ottawa Citizen|date=October 31, 2001}}
- {{cite news|last=Murphy|first=Kevin|title=Justice is falsely accused|newspaper=The Globe and Mail|date=November 12, 2000}}
- {{cite news|title=Defendant accused of forcing Newfoundland student onto the street: Defence lawyer confronts judge, witness;|newspaper=St. John's Telegram|date=June 22, 2000}} and was publicly rebuked for his controversial conduct in a 1998 Ontario murder trial which led to the public disciplining and eventual censure of the presiding judge, Paul Cosgrove.{{cite news|last=Makin|first=Kirk|title=Fire judge, inquiry urges|newspaper=The Globe and Mail|date=December 5, 2008}}

Murphy obtained a B.A. in political science from Carleton University in 1976 and a M.Sc.(Econ.) in comparative government from the London School of Economics in 1979. He completed a law degree at the University of Ottawa in 1991 and was admitted to the Bar of Ontario in 1993.

In his third year of practice as a defence lawyer in 1995, Murphy defended a Barbados business woman, Julia Elliott, who was charged with the grisly murder and dismemberment of a Kemptville, Ontario man, Lawrence Foster. After a protracted series of defence motions, he persuaded Cosgrove to stay the charges after convincing him that his client's rights to a fair trial under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms had been violated 150 times by police and prosecutors.{{cite web|title=Reasons for Judgment, R. v. Elliott, [1999] O.J. No. 3265, 105 O.T.C. 241, O.J. No. 3265 105 O.T.C. 241 43 W.C.B. (2d) 417 (Ont. Sup. Ct. J.), Reasons for Judgment in R. v. Elliott, September 7, 1999, Appendix "A" to the Inquiry Committee Report.|url=http://www.cjc-ccm.gc.ca/cmslib/general/Appendix%20A.pdf|work=Report of the Inquiry Committee concerning the Hon. Paul Cosgrove|publisher=Canadian Judicial Council|accessdate=November 27, 2008}}

Cosgrove's ruling provoked an immediate appeal by senior lawyers in the Ontario attorney general's department, some of whom had been impugned by name in Cosgrove's written reasons. In 2003, the stay was overturned by the Court of Appeal for Ontario.{{cite book|title=(2003),181 C.C.C.(3d) 118, 114 C.R.R.(2d) 1,179 O.A.C. 219.|url=http://www.canlii.org/en/on/onca/doc/2003/2003canlii24447/2003canlii24447.html}} Elliott was extradited to Canada in 2005 where she eventually pleaded guilty to manslaughter for the killing.{{cite news|last=Rupert|first=Jake|title=Elliott's guilty plea ends long legal saga: Kemptville man's killer to serve 7 more years|newspaper=Ottawa Citizen|date=December 17, 2005}}

The Ontario attorney general, Michael Bryant, filed two disciplinary complaints in relation to the case — the first against Cosgrove to the Canadian Judicial Council and the second against Murphy to the Law Society of Upper Canada. Cosgrove was subjected to a scathing public inquiry into his handling of the case in 2008 and soon after resigned from the bench.

In January 2010, a decade after Cosgrove's controversial ruling, Murphy was disciplined by a Law Society disciplinary panel for "uncivil" conduct towards Crown lawyers and witnesses in the case, despite an acknowledgment by the panel chair that Murphy's conduct during the trial had been condoned, if not encouraged by the presiding trial judge.{{cite web|last=Krishna|first=Vern|title=Law Society of Upper Canada v. Kevin Mark Murphy, 2010 ONLSHP 23 (CanLII)|url=http://www.canlii.org/eliisa/highlight.do?text=kevin+mark+murphy&language=en&searchTitle=Search+all+CanLII+Databases&path=/en/on/onlshp/doc/2010/2010onlshp23/2010onlshp23.html|publisher=Canadian Legal Information Institute (CanLII)|accessdate=March 23, 2010}} In the result, Murphy was suspended from practising law — having become a federal drug prosecutor in 2008 — for six months and fined $10,000 in costs.{{cite news|title=Misconduct draws six-month suspension|newspaper=The Globe and Mail|date=January 6, 2010}}

Murphy has served as senior counsel with the Public Prosecution Service of Canada since February 2020.