Prof. Murray Co-Chairs First Amendment Celebration at Federal Hall in New York City

Professor JaneAnne Murray co-chaired the annual Bloomsday Celebration of the Irish American Bar Association at Federal Hall in New York City on Monday, June 11, 2018. The celebration, founded by Murray in 2008, celebrates James Joyce’s masterful novel, Ulysses, and his contribution to First Amendment jurisprudence in the United States. Its centerpiece is the John Quinn Memorial Lecture (named after John Qunn, the Irish American lawyer who defended Joyce’s publishers, Margaret Anderon and Jane Heap, pro bono, on criminal charges of obscenity; he lost). This year’s speaker was Caitlin Halligan, partner at Gibson Dunn & Crutcher and former Solicitor General of New York State. Her speech focused on the role the First Amendment can play in adapting the Fourth Amendment to searches and seizures in the digital age. She was introduced in verse by Manhattan District Attorney, Cyrus Vance. Since this was the 100th anniversary of Anderson’s and Heap’s serialization of Ulysses in their literary magazine, The Little Review, Murray and co-chair Janet Walsh role-played Anderson and Heap in their introduction to Mr. Vance. They handed him a brief (drafted by the Law School’s Clemency Project) asking him to refer their convictions to his Conviction Integrity Unit for further consideration.