Coalition of Jewish Organizations Seeks New Trial for Jewish Death-Row Prisoner in Texas Tried by Anti-Semitic Judge

A coali­tion of nation­al and local Jewish orga­ni­za­tions and lawyers have asked the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals to stop the sched­uled October 10, 2019 exe­cu­tion of a Jewish death-row pris­on­er to review his claim that the judge before whom he was tried was racist and anti-Semitic. Randy Halprin (pic­tured) was con­vict­ed and sen­tenced to death in a tri­al presided over by Dallas County Judge Vickers Cunningham, who referred to Halprin as a ​“f***ing Jew” and a ​“G*dd**n k**e” and called Halprin’s Latino co-defen­dants ​“wetb***s.” On September 5, 2019, the American Jewish Committee, the Union for Reform Judaism, the Central Conference of American Rabbis, and Men of Reform Judaism, and more than one hun­dred Jewish mem­bers of the State Bar of Texas filed an ami­cus brief with the state court in sup­port of Halprin’s request for a stay of exe­cu­tion and a new tri­al free of bias. 

Halprin was sen­tenced to death for the mur­der of a police offi­cer who respond­ed to a rob­bery com­mit­ted by a group of inmates, lat­er dubbed the“Texas 7,” who had escaped from a Texas prison in 2000. Halprin has long main­tained that he was not involved in the shoot­ing, but was con­vict­ed under Texas’ law of par­ties, which per­mits the death penal­ty based upon the actions of oth­er par­tic­i­pants in a felony, even if the defen­dant him­self did not com­mit the killing or intend that a mur­der take place. 

Halprin’s lawyers first learned of Judge Cunningham’s pos­si­ble racial and reli­gious bias as a result of news reports by the Dallas Morning News in 2018 that revealed that Cunningham had estab­lished a finan­cial trust that reward­ed his chil­dren if they mar­ried a white Christian of the oppo­site sex. Subsequent inves­ti­ga­tion by Halprin’s defense lawyers dis­cov­ered that Cunningham had made big­ot­ed com­ments about Jews in gen­er­al and about Halprin per­son­al­ly. Halprin filed an appeal in May detail­ing Judge Cunningham’s big­ot­ed speech and actions and argu­ing that Cunningham’s bias vio­lat­ed Halprin’s con­sti­tu­tion­al right to due process. In the stay appli­ca­tion, they wrote, ​“Because the Supreme Court has held that a biased judge is struc­tur­al error, …the evi­dence of bias, in and of itself, is more than suf­fi­cient to inval­i­date the con­vic­tion and sen­tence.… A biased judge con­sti­tutes a basic defect in the ​‘whole adju­di­ca­to­ry frame­work’ of the trial.” 

The ami­cus brief sup­ports the stay and seeks fur­ther judi­cial review of the issue for Halprin. ​“If Judge Cunningham is the big­ot described in the appli­ca­tion, a fair tri­al has not yet hap­pened,” the brief states. ​“Well into the twen­ty-first cen­tu­ry, it is beyond dis­pute that a tri­al con­duct­ed before a racist judge who boasts of his big­otry is no tri­al at all. If the alle­ga­tions here are true — and they unfor­tu­nate­ly ring true — the tri­al was no tri­al, and the ver­dict no ver­dict, because the judge was no judge.” 

The brief address­es the numer­ous ways in which Cunningham’s bias could have altered Halprin’s tri­al: ​“Even if Judge Cunningham were unaware of how his bias affect­ed him, his prej­u­dices — think­ing of a Jewish defen­dant as a ​‘k**e’ and his Latino co-defen­dants as ​‘wetb***s’ — ren­dered him unable to be neu­tral on pre­tri­al motions, chal­lenges to jurors, objec­tions to evi­dence, pro­posed jury instruc­tions, and his inter­ac­tions with the lawyers, defen­dant, and jurors, regard­less of whether they may appear facial­ly neu­tral in the record.” 

Two let­ters of sup­port were also deliv­ered to Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and Dallas District Attorney John Creuzot, one from a group of inter­faith lead­ers and anoth­er from a group of rab­bis. The inter­faith let­ter says, ​“As a diverse group of faith lead­ers, we stand unit­ed against any expres­sion of hatred.… We are called to speak out against this bias and demand that our state lead­ers active­ly address anti-Semitism when it infects any pub­lic office or pro­ceed­ing. In Mr. Halprin’s case, it is unac­cept­able that his legal pro­ceed­ings were led by an offi­cial who appears to have har­bored anti-Semitic beliefs.” The faith lead­ers con­tin­ue, ​“There is no room for the pos­si­bil­i­ty that the race, eth­nic­i­ty, gen­der, or reli­gious beliefs of the accused play a role in the pro­ceed­ings. Any ero­sion of this basic right to be judged fair­ly and neu­tral­ly threat­ens the free­dom and safe­ty of all citizens.” 

The rab­bis’ let­ter describes Cunningham’s anti-Semitic actions, say­ing, ​“Drawing on endur­ing hate­ful and hurt­ful stereo­types about the Jewish peo­ple, Judge Cunningham attend­ed a cos­tume par­ty dressed as a ​‘Jew banker,’ and was quot­ed as hav­ing said that Jews ​‘need­ed to be shut down because they con­trolled all the mon­ey and all the pow­er.’” It cites bib­li­cal com­mands regard­ing the impar­tial­i­ty of judges, then goes on to link them to the ongo­ing impor­tance of judi­cial fair­ness: ​“Judaism’s com­mit­ment to pur­su­ing jus­tice calls us to insist no judge can per­form his or her tasks with integri­ty while hold­ing reli­gious or eth­nic bias, dis­crim­i­na­tion or big­otry. Justice is only pos­si­ble when we look at the actions of a per­son accused of crime, not who they are, where they come from, the col­or of their skin, or where they wor­ship, if they do. And the pos­si­bil­i­ty of jus­tice is only pos­si­ble if impar­tial courts hear out claims of judi­cial bias.” In June, the Anti-Defamation League filed a brief in sup­port of Halprin, explain­ing the big­ot­ed nature of Cunningham’s actions. It wrote that Cunningham’s ​“use of the term ​‘Jew’ as a pejo­ra­tive, and his appar­ent belief in the anti-Semitic con­spir­a­cy the­o­ry that Jews con­trol mon­ey and pow­er make it impos­si­ble to avoid the con­clu­sion that he is an anti-Semite.” 

In June, Halprin com­ment­ed on the new­ly-dis­cov­ered infor­ma­tion, say­ing, ​“I’m still in shock and reflect­ing on the news that I had a judge who hat­ed Jews. It’s just a weird thing to have some­one hate you for a reli­gious view or how you were raised, or what­ev­er. I can only hope the court is fair and pays atten­tion to this.”