[2] On March 9, 2005, Murphy began serving as the United States Attorney in Detroit, Michigan, pending full Senate confirmation.

Overseeing operations in Detroit, Flint, and Bay City, Murphy led one of the largest and busiest US Attorney's offices in the country.

During this time, Murphy also chaired the local U.S. Attorney General's Anti-Terrorism Advisory Committee and the Michigan High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area ("HIDTA") group.

[citation needed] On June 28, 2006, President George W. Bush nominated Murphy and Raymond Kethledge to fill two vacancies on the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit.

[2] Since early in his tenure on the bench, Murphy has occasionally appeared as a speaker at events held by the Federalist Society, an American conservative and libertarian legal organization that advocates for a textualist and originalist interpretation of the U.S.