Randy Halprin: Jewish death row inmate and Texas 7 member to get new trial due to judge's 'antisemetic bias'
DALLAS, TEXAS: A death row inmate, who is Jewish, is in line for a new trial and conviction reversed after a judge, who presided over the case, "harbored antisemitic bias." The defendant was a member of a gang of prisoners who killed a police officer in 2000 after they escaped. Vickers Cunningham, a former judge in Dallas, is accused by Randy Halprin's attorneys of using antisemitic and racial insults to refer to the defendant and some of his co-defendants.
Halprin, 45, was one of the Texas 7 criminals who escaped from a prison in South Texas in December 2000 and went on to commit a number of robberies, including the one in which they fatally murdered 29-year-old Irving police officer Aubrey Hawkins while robbing a sports store. One of the seven prisoners who fled killed himself before the group was apprehended. Halprin and another person, Patrick Murphy, are on death row while four others have already been put to death. "Cunningham not only harbored antisemitic bias at the time of trial, but ... he did not or could not curb the influence of that bias in his judicial decision-making," stated District Judge Lela Mays in a ruling issued from Dallas.
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According to Mays, Cunningham referred to Halprin and the other escaped inmates who were being prosecuted in his court with racial, homophobic and antisemitic epithets. "As a judge with the power to influence the trials, Judge Cunningham's use of these terms to refer to the co-defendants was racist because it combined the attribution of group characteristics with the exercise of power over them." Cunningham retired from the bench in 2005 and now works as a private Dallas lawyer. His office earlier announced that he would not be making any remarks about Halprin's case.
The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals will review Halprin's case and determine if his conviction should be overturned and whether he should be given a new trial. In 2019, the appeals court put an end to Halprin's execution. "The Constitution allows only one remedy in cases of judicial bias, and that is to vacate the biased court's judgment and start over with the chance at a fair trial before an unbiased judge. We are confident the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals will follow the law, accept the State's concessions, and adopt the trial court's recommendations," Tivon Schardl, one of Halprin's attorneys, said in a statement as reported by CBS News.
Cunningham had "actual bias" against the prisoner, according to court filings Tarrant County prosecutors submitted in September, solidifying the claim that Halprin should be granted a new trial. After revealing to the Dallas Morning News in 2018 that he had a living trust that rewards his children for marrying straight, white Christians, Cunningham refuted accusations of racial intolerance. Although he had previously opposed interracial unions, he later admitted to the media that his opinions had changed.