Canadian Lawyer

24 A P R I L 2 0 1 7 w w w . C A N A D I A N L a w y e r m a g . c o m hris Murphy's website for Murphys Criminal Law consists of about three pages that include a brief bio and photo of himself, some contact information and a photo from the movie To Kill A Mockingbird. The photo is of Gregory Peck as Atticus Finch, the fictional lawyer in Harper Lee's novel of 1960, standing alone in a courtroom. Although Murphy practised corporate com- mercial law right out of law school, Finch is more the kind of lawyer Murphy has always aspired to be and evolved into in the last 13 years. The Toronto criminal lawyer splits his work between criminal retainer work and those who may not otherwise get legal representation. "I do a lot of work with people with mental illness and I've done a number of murder cases where Not Criminally Respon- sible was an issue," he says. "I don't turn many people away." In law school, he was pulled toward taking corporate law courses. He clerked at the Supreme Court of British Columbia and then articled at Macleod Dixon (now Norton Rose Fulbright LLP) where he tried civil litigation. "I didn't like it," he says. He applied to be a drug prosecutor and took a 50-per-cent pay cut to go from MacLeod Dixon to the department of Justice in Calgary. A few years later, he left for Toronto to do defence law. Last year, Murphy represented former Oshawa city councillor Robert Lutczyk who kidnapped city solicitor David Potts at gun- point in a violent incident in October 2012. Murphy was appoint- ed amicus curiae in Lutczyk's case in 2015 and represented him at sentencing. Lutczyk had been self-represented and in custody since his arrest in 2012. In a psychiatric assessment, Lutczyk was diagnosed with adjustment disorder, but he did not qualify for the Not Criminally Responsible defence. "I had a lot of sympathy for the guy," says Murphy. "His treatment in custody was disgusting." Lutczyk pleaded guilty in 2015 and was sentenced to more than eight years in jail. Murphy says it's another example where he just wanted to see someone get a fair trial. "I think the kind of cases Atticus Finch did are the type of cases I do quite a bit — a person whether wrongfully accused or just under-represented or without sufficient resources. I'm a strong believer that everybody is entitled to a defence whether they are guilty or not," says Murphy. C R O S S E X A M I N E D ROBIN KUNISKI In search of fairness Toronto criminal lawyer Chris Murphy is seeking justice for the family of a Saskatchewan First Nations man who was fatally shot last August By Jennifer Brown C

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