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'Murphy's Law' - Defense attorney Stephen Murphy is last of the great Queens trial lawyers

Denis Hamill

And so with spring comes another episode of "Murphy's Law."

After delivering a summation that tops anything in "The Lincoln Lawyer," or any of the TV lawyer shows, defense attorney Stephen Murphy recently brought in acquittals on a gun-and-drugs case - with six felony counts - in Queens Supreme.

Murphy really is the last of the great Queens trial lawyers.

He started as a Queens assistant district attorney before hanging a defense shingle, a big loud voice in a compact James Cagney-sized package with an aggressive attitude forged in the fires of Hell's Kitchen.

Murphy brought in the only not guilty verdict in the infamous Howard Beach trial. Only his guy beat the murder rap in the notorious Bensonhurst race trial. He's defended wiseguys, jammed-up cops, members of 50 Cent's trouble-prone G-Unit and is a legal legend in the Albanian community. In one case a couple of years back Murphy's client went on the lam and he brought in an acquittal for an empty chair.

Murphy, an avid Mets, opera and ballet fan, is 42-1 on homicide trials.I had dinner with Jimmy Breslin the other night, who knew more of the great Queens trial lawyers than anyone in the last century. "Stevie Murphy is the last of his kind," Breslin said. "One of the best ever. What's Stevie up to these days?"

I told him Murphy had just defended a client named Dioris Lopez before Judge Salvatore Modica battling one of the Queens DA's office's best ADAs, Joseph Palazzolo.

Three cops in the case say that on the night of Sept. 4, 2010, Lopez was driving past the intersection of 88th Ave. and 76th St. in Jamaica when one cop in a patrol car noticed that Lopez had a missing insurance sticker.

Cops say Lopez then led them on a 65-70 mph chase in tandem with two other cop cars, one carrying a sergeant, during which Lopez allegedly tossed out a bag containing heroin, a loaded gun and $24,000 in cash. Before Lopez allegedly crashed into a pole and fled on foot.

This looked like a slam dunk for the prosecution.

Until Lopez hired Murphy.

"It was a tough case," Murphy said. "But I had a very fair judge and terrific ADA so this would at least be a fair trial."

On the stand Murphy proved Lopez had insurance at the time of his arrest. He made cops admit that there were no notebook entries of a high speed chase. No official radio communication of such a chase. He proved his client had one arm in a sling. One cop said it was his left arm. Two said it was his right arm. So, Murphy said, in the 70-mph chase Lopez could only be driving with one hand. So how could he throw the bag out the window? With a third arm?

This is when Murphy turns to a jury, impish leprechaun's twinkle in his blue eye, before spinning and bellowing at a stuttering police witness, calling him a liar in open court.

Cops testified that it took three of them to put handcuffs on a diminutive one-armed Lopez. One cop said the sergeant was parked 10 feet behind him at the time of the first encounter. The sergeant said he was three blocks away. The arrest report says it took 26 minutes between when cops handcuffed Lopez and when they retrieved the alleged bag of money, drugs and loaded gun. And a fourth cop, in the area on an unrelated investigation, said he received the cell phone number of a witness. This fourth cop couldn't remember if the witness was a man or woman. And he never asked the witness' name. And this potential prosecution witness never testified.

Hmmm. ...

One classic piece of Murphy's summation went like this:

MURPHY: "Well, see, that shows he [fourth cop] is a moron. Besides being a liar. .. ."

ADA PALAZZOLO: "Objection, Judge, moron."

THE COURT: "Overruled."

Neither Lopez's fingerprints nor DNA were found on the bag, drugs, money, gun. And nowhere did cops say that Lopez wore gloves.

Murphy told jurors, "Well, you know that would almost be funny if somebody's life wasn't on the line. ... These people are lowlives for doing this."

"Let me remind you," Murphy continued, "that you all promised me at the beginning that you would give him [Lopez] the same fair trial you would want."

The jury went out.

When the jury came back they announced acquittals on all six charges against Dioris Lopez. In another case of Murphy's Law.

Murphy's Law.  - Denis Hamil

That's what I was discussing over lunch with Stephen G. Murphy, Esq., who handles many of his biggest cases here in Queens Supreme.

Murphy enjoys a reputation as one of the best criminal defense lawyers in New York, unequaled in cross-examination skills.

"I'm a criminal defense attorney," says Murphy, "When I take a case, prosecutors
know I'm ready to wage all-out war for my client. I'm very aggressive. I always ask prospective jurors, 'Listen, I'm not going to be nice to some of the witnesses. The defense is that some of the witnesses are lying. If someone were lying about you, would you want me to be nice to them?' No juror yet has said they would."

Because he's always ready to go to trial, Murphy says, prosecutors often offer his clients great plea deals. I first met Murphy in 1986, while covering the infamous Howard Beach race trial where this tough, scrappy welterweight from Hell's Kitchen in the impeccable designer suits moved across the courtroom
like Roberto Duran stalking in the ring, looking for the knockout. I'd never before
watched a lawyer so aggressive, tearing into witnesses with loud, animated, rapid-fire questions that came like seven-punch combinations. 

I saw witnesses sputter. Change stories. Saw one storm off the stand.

"When my son was sitting in jail awaiting trial for murder, I remembered seeing
Murphy on TV," says a Corona guy named  Rocco Panetta. "I wanted a real fighter to defend my son. I called him up and hired him. I was right. Murphy fought like hell and got him acquitted."

That's why other defense lawyers and ADAs often fill the gallery to take in a
master class in Murphy's Law. Joe Hynes, the longstanding Brooklyn DA, was the special prosecutor in the Howard Beach case - in which only Murphy's client, out of five defendants, was acquitted. Hynes said of Murphy, "He's the single best cross examiner I have ever worked against."

He's holding court at murder trials

You know summer has arrived when Stephen G. Murphy is doing another murder trial in Queens Supreme.

"Do you consider heroin and cocaine recreational drugs?"

"No."

"On Jan. 6, 2006, the night Ervin Zimonjic died, were you doing heroin and cocaine with him?"

"Yes," says Agron Lunja, 25, the prosecution's star witness.

Now defense attorney Murphy's voice rises to the high ceilings of Judge Robert McGann's crowded, wood-paneled courtroom.

"SPEED BALLS, RIGHT?"

The jury pays strict attention. Not even narcoleptics doze at Murphy trials.

"Yes."

"SO YOU WERE FLYING, RIGHT?"

Assistant District Attorney Karen Ross stands: "Objection, your honor, again to the volume of Mr. Murphy's voice."

Judge McGann: "Sustained. Lower your voice, Mr. Murphy. But the witness will answer the question."

"High, not flying," answers Lunja, an admitted junkie and ex-con who has done time for armed robbery and drugs.

"All riiiight, and so you're saying that as your close friend lay on the sidewalk in front of the Santorini Café dying, moaning, 'I've been stabbed! I've been stabbed!' ALL YOU COULD THINK OF DOING WAS GOING THROUGH HIS POCKETS?"

"Yes. So I could find his cell phone and car keys to call his wife and give her the car keys so she could bring their kids to school in the morning."

"DID HE HAVE HEROIN AND COCAINE IN HIS POCKETS?"

"No, we already finished all the heroin. The cocaine was in the car . . ."

Uh oh. Ah ha. He's said too much. Now the witness sounds like a junkie who was more concerned about his next fix than his dying friend. Murphy pauses, his back to the defendant, and glances at the jury with a leprechaun's twinkle in his eye. Standing 5-feet-7, Murphy has shrunk the prosecution's 6-foot-7 star witness so low in character, veracity and relevance that it's now like watching a dwarf-tossing contest. Lunja slumps in the witness box, his face a bag of tics, his fidgety body language as loud as Murphy's voice.

Over the next several hours, Murphy catches the witness contradicting his own grand jury testimony on so many vital points as to make anything he says in this courtroom sound like the lyrics for a new Phil Spector song.

The prosecution, led by feisty and skilled Ross, contends that Zimonjic was killed after a silly macho argument in the café on Steinway St. spilled into the street around 2:30 a.m. on Jan. 6, 2006. Murphy contends that his client, Elvis Durovic, acted in self-defense after Zimonjic assaulted him with a glass Coca Cola bottle.

It is one of those insane little incidents that make a one-day news story, but a story in which one man is dead and another's life hangs in the balance.
 
Murphy's courtroom flair elevates a squalid melodrama like this into a courtroom classic.

After making the defendant say more than he wanted to say, Murphy paces past Ross to the lectern, where he continues to hammer away at Lunja, an immigrant from Montenegro, defending the life of his client, an Albanian immigrant.

Friends and family of the deceased and the accused fill the courtroom, as do other lawyers who have come to watch Murphy stage another clinic in the art of cross-examination, at which some legal experts, like Brooklyn District Attorney Joseph Hynes, have said Murphy is the best they've ever seen.

Murphy, who roared to fame with an acquittal for his client in the explosive Howard Beach murder case in 1986 and who boasts a 40-1 record in murder trials, and who has plied his trade of late defending rappers from 50 Cent's G-Unit and people from the Albanian community who appreciate his aggressive style, has several other murder trials on his calendar.

"Today was like David and Goliath," Murphy says during a break.

"The star prosecution witness walks in like a giant, but when you throw his own grand jury words at him he starts to collapse in front of the jury. If he can't remember what he said under oath to the grand jury under calm and orderly circumstances, how the hell can he remember what happened the night of the incident in the middle of mayhem when he admits he was smashed on drugs? He has zero credibility."
Murphy likes good adversaries.

"Judge McGann is a former prosecutor, very smart, tough, but fair," says Murphy. "The prosecutor is very sharp, well-prepared. She makes me work harder. I do whatever I have to do for my client no matter how long it takes. That's why I charge a lot. After five hours I finally got the prosecution's star witness to admit that his friend had a glass Coke bottle wrapped in a hat when he went outside the club. When he hit my client with it, my client defended himself. Like anyone on the jury would if given the chance."

In Queens Supreme, that's called Murphy's Law.

Murphy Battles In Court Like A Boxer

Most people will agree that Stephen G. Murphy is the most pugnacious criminal defense attorney in the city of New York. For decades he has walked one client after another out of courtrooms after getting them acquitted of such charges as murder, racketeering, hijacking and kidnapping. 

A longtime member of the Veteran Boxers Association, Ring 8, in New York, Murphy has never fought in the ring, but his demeanor in the courtroom has been described as gladiatorial.

In the New York Daily News, columnist Denis Hamill wrote, “Murphy’s trials are high drama – funny, ferocious, full of surprises, emotional, convincing.” 

“Trying a case in a media city like New York can be like fighting for the heavyweight title. I’m fighting so hard because I believe in my client’s innocence. It’s my job to believe in their innocence.” 

Murphy’s clients have included rapper 50 Cent, as well as Jimmy “The Gent” Burke, the mastermind of the fabled Lufthansa heist at JFK Airport who was portrayed so brilliantly by Robert DeNiro in the classic film “Goodfellas.” 

“If I was going to hire a lawyer, I’d want to hire me,” said Murphy. “I’m not saying I’m the smartest or even the best lawyer out there. But I guarantee that no one wants to win more than I do.” 

Murphy has always been competitive, but his intense desire to win was honed during the years he spent working as an assistant district attorney in Queens. While there, he won conviction after conviction, including one against a man who belonged to a militant group that wanted to overthrow the government. 

Throughout the trial, the defendant’s brother glared at Murphy. When the man was convicted and sentenced to a long prison term, the brother vowed to seek retribution in ways that can’t be mentioned here. 

Several years later, after Murphy had become a defense attorney, he and Burke, who was by then a client, visited a mutual acquaintance at a hospital in Queens. While there they encountered the brother of the defendant who had made such violent threats against Murphy years before. Upon seeing Murphy, he immediately picked up where he had left off.

Burke, who at first glance appeared somewhat harmless, quickly interceded. His eyes turned feral as he instantly transformed into the criminal mastermind that he was. 

“You better go the next floor before you get yourself killed,” Burke warned the man, who hurriedly and meekly ambled away. 

“Jimmy had crazy eyes,” recalled Murphy. “Robert DeNiro played him perfectly in the film. 

As a young man Murphy worked long enough in elevator construction and as a wire lather to realize he didn’t want to toil with his hands for a living. Although he is now a high-priced attorney, and the first to tell you that he is worth every penny, he still comes off as a feisty, blue collar, street guy. 

Perhaps that is why he is so fond of fighters. He realizes that continual success never comes easy or without great preparation. That is especially true of battling opponents in a courtroom or in a boxing ring. 

He chides multi-mullion dollar athletes who don’t give their all during every second of play. He would never shortchange a client in that way, so he can’t accept athletes who shortchange the fans with lackluster efforts. 

“They, like me, are not getting paid a lot of money to give their best effort and get a pat on the butt,” he said. “They are paid to give their best all the time. Out of all athletes, I love fighters the most because, win, lose or draw, most give their all every time.” 

Counted among his favorite fighters of all time are Sugar Ray Robinson, Carmen Basilio, Sugar Ray Leonard, Salvador Sanchez, Marvin Hagler, Thomas Hearns, Alexis Arguello and Aaron Pryor. He was ringside in Miami’s Orange Bowl for the sensational first matchup of Arguello and Pryor. He went home with $2,500 more than he came with.

“I bet the guy behind me that the fight wasn’t going the distance,” said Murphy. 

Like many observers, Murphy is still suspicious of “The Mix,” the unknown concoction that Pryor’s trainer, Panama Lewis, kept administering between rounds. Many people believe that the mix is what enabled Pryor to bounce back from punches that would have knocked out heavyweights. 

“Pryor would look half dead at the end of the round, and then come roaring out for the next one,” mused Murphy. 

Like most people, Murphy was a tremendous fan of Arturo Gatti because “he always came to fight.” He also says that Floyd Mayweather Jr. “always gives his best” but believes that Oscar De La Hoya did enough to beat him. 

He says that Muhammad Ali was “the greatest fighter who ever lived” and believes that if Salvador Sanchez had not died tragically in an auto accident he “would have been one of the greats of our time.” 

What makes a great fighter, says Murphy, are the same qualities that make a good defense attorney.

“You have to stand up to the bully and take the heart out of him,” said Murphy. “You can compare it to barroom fighting. Anyone can go outside and fight. But if you know you’re going to lose, or the odds are stacked against you and you go out anyway, that’s what separates the good from the bad.” 

That analogy can be used in all aspects of life. “If I’m hiring a lawyer or I’m betting on a golf tournament or a fight, I want the guy who wants to win the most,” said Murphy.

“Fighters like Ali, Sugar Ray Leonard, Arturo Gatti, they always wanted to win the most. I will never forget Leonard’s fight with Tommy Hearns. Angelo Dundee (Leonard’s trainer) said, ‘You’re blowing it, son.’  Leonard came back and knocked Hearns out.”

That type of mindset is the mantra that Murphy lives by. “The reason why I win so many cases isn’t because I’m smart or good looking,” he explained. “It’s because jurors realize that no lawyer would be trying this hard if he didn’t believe in his client’s innocence. 

“Some people tell me I could be more popular if I was nicer to the judge,” he continued. “I couldn’t live with myself if I did that. I’d never lie down and be a nice guy so everyone would like me. I would hate to hear people say I’m a sweetheart, because that would mean I sold my client out.

SHARP LAWYER TAKES CHAIR FOR CLIENT

Criminal defense attorney Stephen Murphy can make an empty chair walk.

Murphy's latest criminal case that played out in the courtroom of Justice John Latella in Queens Supreme Court started back on Aug. 27, 2007, when police arrested two men - Elvis Durovic, 27, and Mirza Huskic, 28 - for burglary at an empty townhouse at 170-40 Cedarcroft Road in Jamaica.

A first-time offender, Huskic copped a plea to five years' probation for felony burglary and misdemeanor charges of possession of burglary tools and criminal trespass.

But because of Durovic's long rap sheet, the Queens district attorney's office wouldn't accept anything less than two to four years of felony prison time. If Durovic "blew trial," he faced 3-1/2 to seven years.

"I won Elvis Durovic an acquittal last year on a murder at a nightclub in Astoria," says Murphy, who has an impressive 42-1 record in murder trials and shot to fame in the notorious Howard Beach murder case 20 years ago in which his client was the only one of five defendants found not guilty.

At the burglary arraignment, Durovic pleaded "not guilty" and was released on $25,000 bail.

"The prosecutors had Durovic's DNA on [the] inside of the mask [used in the burglary]," Murphy said. "They had the biggest collection of burglary tools I've ever seen in my 30-year career as a Queens prosecutor and defense lawyer. The prosecution had what they thought was a very strong case."

Obviously, Durovic agreed, because as the trial date approached, he didn't show up in court.

"Judge Latella is a very good, and tough but fair judge," says Murphy. "He issued a bench warrant and held a 'Parker hearing.'"

Which meant that Durovic would be tried in abstentia.

"I'm sure everyone expected me to go through the motions in a two-day trial," says Murphy. "But I was already paid for my services. So I intended to walk the empty defendant's chair. We picked a jury and Assistant District Attorney Christine Corbett, a smart and very talented prosecutor, presented her case."

The two arresting cops took the stand and testified that when they reported for work at the 107th Precinct stationhouse at 8 a.m. on Aug. 27, they fielded a report of an attempted

2 a.m. burglary at a CVS store on Hillside Ave. the night before.

The cops canvassed the surrounding area and saw a ladder leading from the roof of the CVS to a series of townhouses on Cedarcroft Road with a stop-work order posted. They saw that one door was jimmied. Inside they discovered burglary tools and masks. The cops lay in wait on the theory that the burglars who fled when the CVS alarm sounded would return to retrieve them.

Seven hours later, the cops claimed Durovic and Huskic returned and they arrested them at gunpoint.

The prosecution also presented a DNA expert who said that Durovic's DNA was found on the inside of a homemade blue mask.

Then it was Murphy's turn.

In his book on the Howard Beach trial, Brooklyn District Attorney Joe Hynes - who was the special prosecutor in that case - said Murphy was the best cross-examiner he'd ever seen.

"I've defended a lot of jammed-up cops," Murphy said. "But when they're prosecution witnesses, it's my job to confront them."

Over the next 10 days Murphy caught both cops in repeated contradictions between their grand jury testimony and their trial testimony. "The written police report stated that my client was arrested in the backyard," Murphy says. "On the stand one cop said the arrest took place inside. He explained it as 'a sloppy mistake.'"

Murphy rattled off a list of sloppy mistakes in the evidence collection, written reports, grand jury testimony, and trial testimony.

"The jury was very smart and attentive," Murphy said. A call to Corbett was not returned.

Then Murphy asked the DNA expert if she had ever tested the "outside or the bottom of the mask." The expert said she'd only tested the inside.

"If my client put the mask on his head he would have had to grab it from the outside bottom with sweaty fingers on a sweltering summer night," said Murphy. "His DNA would be all over the bottom of the mask. But there is no DNA there because it was placed on his head after he was handcuffed by the cops!"

Cops who'd already admitted in front of the jury to being inconsistent and sloppy.

Murphy knocked on the wood of the empty chair as the defense rested.

Last Tuesday, after two days of deliberation, the jury found Elvis Durovic not guilty of the top felony charge of burglary. He was convicted of the misdemeanor charges, which carry a year in jail.

Afterward, each of the 12 jurors asked Murphy for a business card because if they ever got in trouble they knew who they'd call after watching him walk an empty chair walk.