On December 15, 1877, territorial Governor John Milton Thayer appointed Murrin, Simon Durlacher, and Thomas Lanktree as a penitentiary commission to oversee prisoners in Laramie County, Wyoming. In 1880, he was selected to serve as a delegate from Wyoming to the Democratic national convention in Cincinnati, Ohio. In 1885, he was selected to serve as the chairman of the Wyoming Territorial Democratic Committee.