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USA - Texas. Randy Halprin’s conviction overturned
November 7, 2024: NOVEMBER 7, 2024 - Texas. Randy Halprin’s conviction overturned over judge's alleged antisemitic bias
By a vote of 6-3, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals ordered that Halprin's conviction be overturned and that he be given a new trial.
Randy Halprin, 47, was a member of a gang of prisoners known as the “Texas 7” who escaped from a South Texas prison in December 2000 and then committed numerous robberies, including the one in which they killed 29-year-old police officer Aubrey Hawkins. Halprin is Jewish. His lawyers have contended that former Judge Vickers Cunningham in Dallas used racial slurs and antisemitic language to refer to him and some of his co-defendants.
The appeals court found evidence showed that during his life, Cunningham repeated unsupported antisemitic narratives. When Cunningham became a judge, he continued to use derogatory language about Jewish people outside the courtroom "with 'great hatred, and disgust' and increasing intensity as the years passed," the court said.
It also said that during Halprin's trial, Cunningham made offensive antisemitic remarks outside the courtroom about Halprin in particular and Jews in general.
"The uncontradicted evidence supports a finding that Cunningham formed an opinion about Halprin that derived from an extrajudicial factor — Cunningham's poisonous antisemitism," the appeals court wrote in its ruling.
Cunningham stepped down from the bench in 2005 and is now an attorney in private practice in Dallas. His office said Wednesday that he would not be commenting on Halprin's case.
Cunningham previously denied allegations of bigotry after telling the Dallas Morning News in 2018 that he has a living trust that rewards his children for marrying straight, white Christians. He had opposed interracial marriages but later told the newspaper that his views evolved.
Of the 7 inmates who escaped, 1 killed himself before the group was arrested. 4 have been executed. Another, Patrick Murphy, awaits execution.
https://www.texastribune.org/2024/11/06/texas-7-death-row-randy-halprin-new-trial/ (Source: The Texas Tribune, 07/11/2024)
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