A Texas judge this week strongly recommended that a convicted murderer be retried on death row for what she believed the trial judge had shown manifest racism and anti-Semitism.
The recommendation, issued Monday by Judge Lela Mays of the Dallas County Criminal District Court, paves the way for an appeals court to determine whether a new trial for inmate Randy Halprin, a member of the so-called Texas Seven, who has been convicted , and sentenced to death in 2003 for his role in the murder of a police officer.
Mr Halprin, 44, who is Jewish, received a stay of execution in 2019 after his lawyers found Vickers Cunningham, the judge overseeing the murder trial of Mr Halprin, consistently used racist language and anti-Semitic slurs when referring to Mr Halprin would have.
Judge Mays said in her recommendation that at the time of Halprin’s trial, Mr. Cunningham “had an actual prejudice against Halprin because of Halprin’s religious beliefs”.
“A new, fair trial is the only cure,” she said in a 58-page document, more than 10 pages of which detailed Mr. Cunningham’s “extensive history of prejudice and bias.”
“Although Judge Cunningham was not really biased against Halprin because of his Jewish identity,” she wrote, “the judge’s statements about saving Dallas from Jews, his statements submitting to anti-Semitic stereotypes and tropes, his use of anti-Semitic slurs when he did refers to Halprin ”show that“ religious and ethnic bigotry was more than enough temptation for him not to keep the balance between the state and Halprin beautiful, clear and true ”.
Mr Cunningham, who retired from the Dallas County Criminal District Court in 2005, did not respond to an email asking for comment on Wednesday night. He has previously denied the use of racist expressions, saying his personal views did not affect his decisions in court.
Tivon Schardl, Mr. Halprin’s defense attorney, said Judge Mays’ recommendation is now being examined by the Texas Court of Appeals for Criminal Matters. Mr. Schardl said that while Mr. Halprin was not guaranteed a new trial, Judge Mays’ recommendation was a significant step “based on undisputed evidence”.
The Dallas County District Attorney did not immediately respond to a request for comment Wednesday night.
It is unclear when the Texas appeals court will make a decision. The court did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Wednesday evening.
Judge Mays’ recommendation was the latest development in legal proceedings in which a group of men killed a police officer in a series of robberies after escaping prison in December 2000.
Mr. Halprin has always claimed that he did not fire a gun and told a jury at his trial that he did not want to carry a gun and that he “freaked out” when the other men started shooting. His lawyers said Mr. Halprin was at the bottom of the Texas Seven hierarchy.
Credit…Vernon Bryant / The Dallas Morning News, via Associated Press
In the statement published on Monday, Judge Mays cited several examples in which Mr Cunningham had used expletives when referring to Jewish people. In addition, Judge Mays wrote about a friend of Mr. Cunningham’s, Amanda Tackett, who remembered Mr. Cunningham referring to Mr. Halprin as “the Jew.” Ms. Tackett also recalled that Mr. Cunningham “instructed his daughter to break up ‘that Jew boy’ whenever she referred to her then boyfriend”.
Mr Cunningham drew severe scrutiny in 2018 when he told the Dallas Morning News in an interview that he had set up a living trust for his children with a clause that would reward them if they married a white person.
“I strongly support traditional family values,” Mr. Cunningham told the newspaper in 2018. “If you marry someone of the opposite sex who is Caucasian, that is, Christian, they will be poured out.”
Judge Mays’ recommendation also included a quote from Ms. Tackett, who worked on Mr. Cunningham’s 2006 campaign for the Dallas County District Attorney, recalling his statement that “he wanted to run for office to keep Dallas from being racist Could save problems ”. and religious minorities. Racial and ethnic slurs are used in the quote to refer to blacks, Latinos, Jews, and Catholics.
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