Murphy was born in Baltimore's Cherry Hill neighborhood to William H. Murphy Sr., one of the first African-American judges to serve on Baltimore's district court, and community and political activist Madeline Wheeler Murphy. Murphy attended Baltimore City Public Schools, graduating from the Baltimore Polytechnic Institute. In 1965, he completed a B.S. in electrical engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, before going on to the University of Maryland School of Law, where he was a member of the Law Review and earned his J.D. in 1969.
