Brian Murray

Professor Brian Murray is a faculty member at Seton Hall Law School, where he holds the rank of Professor. His research and teaching focus on criminal law, criminal procedure, punishment theory, expungement, collateral consequences, jurisprudence, and professional responsibility. Prior to his current role, he served as a fellow at the Quattrone Center for the Fair Administration of Justice at the University of Pennsylvania Law School and as an Abraham L. Freedman Fellow at Temple University’s Beasley School of Law. He has also worked as an Assistant Public Defender in Pennsylvania and a staff attorney at Community Legal Services of Philadelphia.

Professor Murray earned his J.D. magna cum laude from Notre Dame Law School, where he served as Executive Articles Editor of the Notre Dame Law Review. He holds a B.A. summa cum laude from Villanova University and an L.L.M. in Legal Education from Temple University.

His scholarship critiques the constitutional and jurisprudential foundations of criminal punishment, particularly focusing on expungement reform and the philosophical justifications for collateral consequences. Recent work examines historical understandings of punishment, the role of retributivism in modern legal frameworks, and the ethical obligations of prosecutors. His articles frequently analyze systemic inequities created by current expungement and collateral consequence regimes, advocating for reforms that align with principles of desert and fairness.

Notable publications include Participatory Expungement (2024), which proposes procedural reforms to democratize expungement processes, and Original Understanding, Punishment, and Collateral Consequences (2024), which challenges modern Supreme Court interpretations of punitive aims. His research has appeared in top-tier law reviews such as the Columbia Law Review, Notre Dame Law Review, and University of Pennsylvania Law Review.

Murray’s advising and grants involve collaborations with research assistants and librarians at Seton Hall Law, focusing on empirical and doctrinal analyses of criminal justice policies. He has no listed grants but emphasizes practical legal advocacy in his work.