Justin Murray

Justin Murray joined the faculty of Colorado Law in 2026. He previously served on the faculty of New York Law School. He teaches or has taught criminal law, criminal procedure, constitutional law, and race, bias, and advocacy.

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.”

Professor Murray has served as Chair of the Association of American Law Schools Criminal Procedure Section, a Special Editor for the Journal of Legal Education, a Contributing Editor for Crimprofs Blog, and on the planning committee for the Decarceration Law Professors group, among other roles. Professor Murray began his legal career as a clerk on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit and the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland. After clerking he worked for 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, before pivoting to the academy.

Professor Murray lives in Boulder with his wife, Dr. Sarah Murray, their three children, and two beloved furry friends named Sugar and Cupid.