A judge ordered a new trial on Tuesday for a member of the "Texas Seven," a group of inmates who broke out of jail before fatally shooting an Irving police officer in 2000.
Randy Halprin was part of a group of seven inmates that broke out of the John B. Connally unit in South Texas on Dec. 13, 2000. On Christmas Eve of that year, the gang fatally shot Irving police Ofc. Aubrey Hawkins.
At issue is the fact that Halprin is Jewish and the trial judge that presided over the trial was, according to the judge who ordered a new trial, anti-Semitic, and the trial was tainted by his bias. Specifically, Dallas County District Court Judge Lela Mays ruled Vickers Cunningham "harbored antisemitic bias," and that Cunningham used racist, homophobic and antisemitic slurs to refer to Halprin and the other escaped inmates tried in his court.
On Oct. 11, 2021, Mays came to the conclusion that Cunningham should have recused himself from the 2003 trial. She recommended that the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals overturn the conviction and the death sentence imposed by Cunningham. On May 11, 2022, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals directed the District Court to conduct a live evidentiary hearing. Mays did so at the end of August and again concluded the case should be retried.
It is now up to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals to rule. There is no timeline for them to do so. A ruling in Halprin's favor from the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals would allow for a retrial.
Tivon Schardle is one of Halprin's attorneys. "It might be something they can get to in fairly short order, but that's hard to say," Tivon Schardl, one of Halprin's attorneys, said. If the Texas Criminal Court of Appeals were to reject the findings and conclusions, Schardl added, "we would consider asking the U.S. Supreme Court to review the matter, and we might seek further review after that."
A judge set Halprin's execution for October 10, 2019. On October 4, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals stayed the execution and ordered Judge Mays to make findings and recommendations.
In 2018, The Dallas Morning News interviewed Cunningham's brother and a friend who said Cunningham was biased. Witnesses came forward afterward to corroborate that story. Mays was told by one that Cunningham said Jews "knew they were going to die with him on the bench."
Four of the Texas Seven inmates have been executed. Halprin and Patrick Murphy are on death row. Another died by suicide when the gang was caught in Colorado.
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