A new hearing has been ordered for one of the two surviving members of the notorious Texas Seven gang. Randy Halprin, who is Jewish, has alleged the judge in his death penalty trial has anti-Semitic tendencies.
The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals has sent the case back to a new trial judge once. State District Court Judge Lela Lawrence Mays has already ruled there is sufficient evidence to support the claim against former Judge Vickers (Vic) Cunningham to warrant a new trial. But Mays only reviewed written documents.
In a ruling today, the Court of Criminal Appeals found “the trial court did not hold a live evidentiary hearing to consider the testimony regarding whether Applicant’s trial judge was biased against Applicant because Applicant is Jewish. In this case, we find that a live hearing is necessary. Accordingly, we remand this cause to the trial court for a live hearing so that the parties may present evidence regarding the aforementioned issue.”
The court ordered the hearing take place within 60 days.
Halprin was part of a gang that escaped from the Connally prison on December 13, 2000. The group made its way to North Texas, where they devised a plan to rob a cash-rich sporting goods store in Irving on December 24, 2000, Christmas Eve. Irving police officer Aubrey Hawkins was across the street having dinner with his family when he received the call of an armed robbery in progress. The gang, sensing that police were on the way, set up an ambush, killing Hawkins in a hail of gunfire.
The group fled, and was on the run several weeks before they were spotted in Colorado. Six members were arrested, one committed suicide. The remaining six were all convicted and sentenced to death. Four have already been executed. Only Halprin and Patrick Murphy remain.
Halprin was less than a week from execution when the Court of Criminal Appeals ordered the hearing to examine Cunningham’s role and statements. In her ruling on October 21, 2021, Mays found there was evidence that Cunningham had made racially charged statements, including against Jews. She found that Halprin’s right to a fair proceeding had been violated and that a new trial was the only remedy.
“There could be nothing more offensive to Constitutional commitments to racial and religious equality in the admission of the criminal law that to conclude that a judge’s persistent use of ethnic and religious slurs to refer to defendants in a capital case,” Mays wrote. “Judge Cunningham held anti-Semitic bias long before Halprin’s trial…”
The man who sent the six Texas Seven members to death row agrees that it is important to get everything right in a capital punishment case.
“It’s a very important case. It’s a death penalty case. They want to have a very good record before they make any determination,” said Toby Shook, the prosecutor who is now in private practice. He says the use of live witnesses allows for cross-examination and will allow defense attorneys to answer all questions.
The case now goes back to Mays for the live hearing.
The other remaining Texas Seven inmate, Patrick Murphy, has repeatedly had his execution delayed in a squabble with the Texas Department of Criminal Justice over a religious advisor. Murphy, who is Buddhist, was at first denied the presence of a Buddhist Monk in the death chamber. The Supreme Court landed on Murphy’s side. Likewise, the execution was derailed again when TDCJ refused to allow the religious advisor to “lay hands” on Murphy as the sentence is carried out. The courts again have sided with Murphy. He is still awaiting a new execution date.
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