INTERVIEW WITH MATT MURPHY, senior deputy DA (Ret.)

SHORT BIO:

Matt Murphy was a Senior Deputy District Attorney in Orange County California and spent 21 years assigned to the sexual assault and homicide units where he prosecuted some of the most notorious murder cases in the state of California. He completed 132 jury trials in his career as a prosecutor, including 52 while he was assigned to the homicide unit. He worked as an adjunct professor of law for 7 years. In addition, he has worked as a consultant with ABC news and is now in private practice representing victims of sexual abuse and some select criminal defense cases. He's also been regularly appearing on NewsNation with Elizabeth Vargas, Chris Cuomo and Ashleigh Banfield providing analysis on Criminal cases in the news. Matt published his first book, The Book of Murder - A Prosecutor's Journey Through Love and Death, in 2024, which was an instant Best Seller, and is working on his next book proposal.

INTERVIEW

LYNN: Welcome Matt. In your book, you talked about your mentor, Lou Rosenblum, and a term he coined, ‘degrees of badness.’ Can you explain what that means when it comes to prosecuting a murder case?

MATT: Well, you know, humans have been killing each other forever, right? Today, though, we're caught up in a time when we're dealing with wonderful technology that helps us solve these cases. But murders have remained mostly unchanged for thousands of years. People have killed for jealousy, rage, and financial incentive. In the case of serial killers, they kill for fun and sexual thrill. So, it's been the same thing forever.

This is part of the human condition. And since the time of Hammurabi and the cuneiform, when they got into those clay tablets, some of the stuff they dug up from the old Sumerian civilization were laws. No kidding. Where people back then were trying to sort out what to do in the case of murder. We've also been trying to sort it out. And when you really break it down, it comes down to degrees of badness. And, so, in the common law tradition, we ascribe degrees--first-degree, second-degree manslaughter, gross manslaughter versus simple manslaughter. And we assign a degree to the level of badness.

I talked in the book about two cowboys in the bar getting into an argument or fist fight. They could fight, finish, and then just walk away. But if one of them stops to think about it and then goes out to his car and grabs a gun, comes back into the bar and shoots and kills the other guy, you can assign a degree to that act. It's almost on a spectrum.

For example, homicide is the umbrella description for murder. One human being killing another. On one end of the homicide spectrum, you've got perfect self-defense. This is where somebody breaks into somebody else's house, and the homeowner fearing for their life, shoots and kills the thief. That's an intentional taking of human life. But it is lawful. An example from my book would be when Terra Newell killed her stepfather, John Meehan, after he attacked her. That is also completely lawful and morally sound. Still homicide, though, right?

And then we've got guys like Rodney Alcala or Joseph D'Angelo, the Golden State killer, or Ted Bundy who belong on the other end of the spectrum. Other peopole who would be close to them on that spectrum would be Skylar de Leon or Nanette Johnston, who orchestrated murders for money.

I don't know which is worse, to be frank, between the serial killers or people who decide that killing someone is the right way to get something they want. When someone kills for money, there's nothing wrong with their moral compass. They know that what they're doing is bad; they just don't care.

Then, in the middle, you've got the cowboy scenario. This might be a rash action, where the killer doesn’t really contemplate the consequences, versus a first-degree murder with premeditation and deliberation. But like I said, if that cowboy has time to think about it and goes into the parking lot to find his gun and then seeks out the man who insulted him and pulls the trigger, well, that's what Lou meant. One act is a reaction, while the other is a conscious decision. And there’s degrees of badness to that.

LYNN: I was fascinated by your discussion in the book on serial killers and serial rapists like Rodney Alcala. What I came away with was that so many of the serial killers are highly intelligent. And it’s their intelligence that partly allows them to blend in with society. But they also feel superior to others… especially women, and they want to exert control and power over them. So, in the case of many of these guys, they rape and kill because of that. Do I have that right?

MATT: Well, the misogyny part is interesting, and it's tricky because, on the surface, I don't know how much of it is driven by hatred for women as much as it is just the pure sexual thrill they get out of dominating and controlling. And it probably lands somewhere different for all of them.

You know, the FBI definition of a serial killer is so broad that I think we're almost missing the mark when we're trying to drill down on the sexual nature of guys like Ted Bundy and Jeffrey Dahmer. There's just so many that fit that mold. But the FBI has made a real effort to get a grip on these guys. Unfortunately, they tend to focus their interviews on the guys that are in prison… the bona fide serial killers. That’s not a bad place to start, but the problem is that they leave out the serial rapists that don't murder anybody. I mean, essentially, they're the same guy, right? One of them gets off on the killing part, and one of them is happy with the sadism and the fear but they don't murder anybody. And, of course, there's a whole class right in the middle that when they put the knife to a woman’s throat, they mean it. They will kill her if the woman doesn’t do what they want.

LYNN: You also said that regardless of whatever it is that allows the Ted Bundy's and Rodney Alcala's of the world to do what they do and get away with it, they also can’t read a room. I thought that was fascinating. Can you explain?

MATT: Yes, it’s interesting, because many of these guys want to defend themselves in court. Some don't, but many of them do. It's their narcissism or total arrogance at play here. As you said, a lot of them are highly intelligent, and they really think they're smarter than their lawyers. Part of it is that they love the control they get when they represent themselves. It’s a siren song that they can’t seem to resist. After all, they get the ability to subpoena people and make them come to court and then force them to sit in a chair and answer their questions. They love it. It's a power trip. They are also given discovery, so they get to see all the photos of the crime scenes.

LYNN: That’s another power trip.

MATT: Sure. When they represent themselves, they get to keep all the case information in their cell. Just imagine. You know, we've seen this from Rodney Alcala to Ted Bundy, and so many others. When they decide to represent themselves, there is no ‘you’ anymore. In other words, they don't get any breaks from the judge just because they're not a lawyer, and they're informed of that if they choose to represent themselves.

For instance, Alcala kept threatening to fire his lawyer. His lawyer was a guy named George Peters, who's an outstanding defense lawyer and very experienced. The court appointed him. And finally, he was like, “You know, Mr. Alcala, you are a brilliant man. You've got a super high IQ. You've gone through this twice before. Nobody knows the evidence better than you. And I'm gonna let you do it.”

And Peters knew that, appeal wise, that decision pretty much sealed Alcala’s fate. And it was one of those moments where my co-counsel, Gina Satriano, from the DA's office, said, “What are we going to do?”

She meant, what do we do now? He's representing himself. I mean, he's got the power to substantially gum up the gears. So, Gina and I put together a plan, where I would be Alcala's buddy and do all the interviews and discovery with him. That way, she didn’t even have to talk to him. And she's like. Great. It worked fantastically.

LYNN: Well, I would assume part of it is that they just can't stop talking. I mean, narcissistic people just love to hear themselves talk. 

MATT: Yes. They just can't stop. Like Alcala. He was technically doing a good cross examination, but he worked hard to make Robin's mother (mother of his victim) look like this monster. Calling the mother of the girl he murdered a liar, looks really bad to the jury. So, he's doing a great job, but he can’t read the room. On the record, the jury was repulsed by that. So, these guys all want to defend themselves, and without exception, they are lousy lawyers.

LYNN: You talked about the vertical nature of your unit. That you were getting calls at the same time the detectives were at the crime scene with the body. I wasn't aware that DAs did that.

MATT: Judge Verzenio created that system when he was in the DA's office, along with a guy named Ed Freeman. This goes back to the early eighties when they decided to do this. The idea is to get the right prosecutors in the right positions. Assign them to entire cities so the detectives have the same person to call and work with for every case. It's a superior way of doing it. You build a relationship with those detectives as a prosecutor. You know their strengths and weaknesses, and they know yours. Together, as a team, you put together cases that will hopefully convince juries and survive the appellate scrutiny. It's just a better way of doing it.

LYNN: That means that you're involved right at the beginning. That’s not the way it’s portrayed on TV.

MATT: You’re right, like Law and Order. They portray the process the way it is in almost every other DA office. And for me, it's amateur hour. The vertical approach is just the way Orange County does it to this day. It's better for the juries, for the system, for the victims, and it's also better for criminal suspects. Especially if they are innocent, because you’ve got a pro in there who's going to ensure that the search warrants are perfect. It also ensures the police are doing everything right. Because you have somebody in there who understands the correct process from top to bottom. And this way, you develop relationships with those cops. In other words, when I ask one of them to get a warrant or secure the constitutional rights of a criminal defendant, we’re all good because we’ve been through a couple of murder trials together, and they trust you. They understand why you're there. You're there for their benefit--to make sure they don't make any mistakes. It's just a better system for everybody, including the integrity of the process and the integrity of the convictions if secured.

LYNN: Stay tuned for the second half of Matt's interview in the next issue.