Biography
Michael Murphy was a U.S. Army soldier and one of the "Presidio 27" — the stockade prisoners at the Presidio of San Francisco who, on October 14, 1968, staged a sit-down protest against brutal conditions and the killing of a fellow prisoner, Richard Bunch, who had been shot in the back by a guard three days earlier. Singing "We Shall Overcome" and reading out a list of grievances, the men were charged with mutiny, a capital offense. On appeal in June 1970 the mutiny convictions were reduced to willful disobedience, and Michael Murphy was released from confinement on April 3, 1970. The Congressional Record distinguishes that individual custody endpoint from the later appellate decision. Source: Congressional Record, August 6, 1970, p. 27642.
