New Trial Granted for Texas Death-Sentenced Prisoner Because of Trial Judge’s Antisemitic Bias

On November 6, 2024, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals (TCCA) vot­ed 6 – 3 to grant death-sen­tenced pris­on­er Randy Halprin a new tri­al. The TCCA decid­ed that the orig­i­nal tri­al judge, Vickers Cunningham, ​“was actu­al­ly biased against him at the time of tri­al because Halprin is Jewish.” The Court wrote in its rul­ing that the ​“uncon­tra­dict­ed evi­dence,” includ­ing tes­ti­mo­ny from friends and fam­i­ly of Judge Cunningham regard­ing his use of deroga­to­ry and racial slurs both gen­er­al­ly and specif­i­cal­ly with regards to Mr. Halprin and his code­fen­dants, ​“sup­ports a find­ing that Cunningham formed an opin­ion about Halprin that derived from an extra­ju­di­cial fac­tor — Cunningham’s poisonous antisemitism.” 

Mr. Halprin had pre­vi­ous­ly been sched­uled for an October 10, 2019 exe­cu­tion. The TCCA halt­ed that exe­cu­tion, order­ing the Dallas County court to review claims of bias. The TCCA’s lat­est deci­sion affirms a December 2022 rul­ing by District Judge Lela Mays, who found that ​“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.” In September 2022, Tarrant County District Attorney Sharen Wilson, who was appoint­ed after the dis­qual­i­fi­ca­tion of the Dallas County District Attorney’s Office, which pros­e­cut­ed the orig­i­nal case, had filed a mem­o­ran­dum in sup­port of a new tri­al due to evi­dence of ​“actu­al bias” held by Judge Cunningham, who retired from the bench in 2005 and is now a pri­vate practice attorney. 

“Today, the Court of Criminal Appeals took a step towards broad­er trust in the crim­i­nal law by throw­ing out a hope­less­ly taint­ed death judg­ment hand­ed down by a big­ot­ed and biased judge. As the Criminal District Attorney for Tarrant County con­ced­ed over two years ago, and the court con­clud­ed today, the Constitution required this result,” said Tivon Schardl, attor­ney for Mr. Halprin, in a state­ment fol­low­ing the deci­sion. ​“By uphold­ing the Constitution’s require­ment of fair and equal treat­ment, the Court of Criminal Appeals pro­mot­ed faith in the crim­i­nal law. It also remind­ed Texans that reli­gious big­otry has no place in our courts.” 

Mr. Halprin, age 47, was part of a group of escaped pris­on­ers known as the ​“Texas 7” who com­mit­ted a series of rob­beries, includ­ing one in December 2000 in which they fatal­ly shot a respond­ing police offi­cer. Although Mr. Halprin main­tained that he did not shoot at the offi­cer, he was charged under the state’s ​“law of par­ties,” which holds accom­plices equal­ly cul­pa­ble for the acts of all involved in the under­ly­ing felony. Of the sev­en escaped pris­on­ers, one died by sui­cide before arrest, four have been exe­cut­ed, and two — Mr. Halprin and Patrick Murphy — remain on death row. 

“Shortly after Mr. Halprin and six oth­er men escaped from prison in 2000, Texas prison offi­cials con­clud­ed that Mr. Halprin was the least like­ly par­ty to be involved in vio­lence. Mr. Halprin has shown over his two decades on death row that he is a man of peace with a deep con­nec­tion to God. He is mem­ber of the faith-based pro­gram on death row where he con­tin­ues his spir­i­tu­al and moral growth and sup­ports his Christian, Muslim, and Buddhist broth­ers on their jour­neys,” said Mr. Schardl in a statement.