U.S. Supreme Court Declines to Review Texas Judicial Bigotry Case

The U.S. Supreme Court has declined to review the case of Jewish death-row pris­on­er Randy Halprin (pic­tured), who was tried and sen­tenced to death in Texas before a judge who made anti-Semitic and racist com­ments about Halprin and his co-defen­dants. The April 6, 2020 deci­sion marked the sec­ond time in less than two months that the Court has declined to review a con­tro­ver­sial Texas death-penal­ty case in the wake of stays of exe­cu­tion that left open the pos­si­bil­i­ty of judi­cial review in the state courts. 

Justice Sonia Sotomayor issued a state­ment in con­junc­tion with the Court’s action, in which she called the case ​“deeply dis­turb­ing” but agreed that the Court should not take up Halprin’s case at this time. Justice Sotomayor not­ed that the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals had stayed Halprin’s exe­cu­tion and that ​“state-court pro­ceed­ings are under­way to address — and, if appro­pri­ate, to rem­e­dy — Halprin’s asser­tion that insid­i­ous racial and reli­gious bias infect­ed his tri­al.” Her state­ment also empha­sized that the Court’s denial of review was not a rul­ing on the mer­its of Halprin’s judi­cial bias claim and that review in the Supreme Court was still pos­si­ble if the state courts deny the claim.

On February 24, the Court declined to hear a peti­tion filed by Rodney Reed that raised the ques­tion, ​“Does the con­vic­tion or exe­cu­tion of a per­son who is actu­al­ly inno­cent of the crime vio­late the United States Constitution?” In Reed’s case as well, the Texas appeals court had stayed his exe­cu­tion to per­mit fur­ther state court review. At that time, Justice Sotomayor wrote: ​“I remain hope­ful that avail­able state process­es will take care to ensure full and fair con­sid­er­a­tion of Reed’s inno­cence — and will not allow the most per­ma­nent of con­se­quences to weigh on the Nation’s con­science while Reed’s con­vic­tion remains so mired in doubt.”

Halprin 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.” Halprin’s lawyers filed his appeal in May after read­ing a 2018 Dallas Morning News report that the for­mer judge had made racist, homo­pho­bic, and anti-Semitic remarks, and had even set up a trust that reward­ed his chil­dren if they mar­ried a white Christian of the oppo­site sex. During an unsuc­cess­ful 2006 cam­paign for Dallas District Attorney, Cunningham also said, ​“My job is to pre­vent n*****s from run­ning wild again” and made deroga­to­ry com­ments about ​“n*****s, Jews, ​‘w******s,’ and dirty Catholics.”

In a state­ment regard­ing the denial of cer­tio­rari, Halprin’s lawyers said that they ​“will con­tin­ue to seek a new, fair tri­al” for Halprin.

Halprin is one of the ​“Texas 7,” a group of men who escaped from a max­i­mum-secu­ri­ty Texas prison on December 13, 2000. After escap­ing, the men robbed a sport­ing goods store, where they were con­front­ed by Officer Aubrey Hawkins. Several of the escapees fired shots, killing Officer Hawkins. Halprin main­tains that he did not fire any shots, and that he opposed bring­ing guns to the rob­bery in the first place. ​“You know, I, before the rob­bery, I even told them, I’m not going to go in and car­ry a gun, and there was a lit­tle argu­ment,” he told the jury dur­ing tri­al. ​“And so I told them I wasn’t going to pull a gun and they said, fine, just gath­er clothes, grab a shop­ping cart, and gather clothes.” 

Halprin was sen­tenced to death under Texas’ con­tro­ver­sial ​“law of par­ties,” which allows defen­dants to be con­vict­ed and pun­ished based upon the actions and intent of oth­ers, if the defen­dant played even a small role in a crime that result­ed in a person’s death. Five of the ​“Texas 7” have been executed.