Texas District Judge Lela Mays ruled Monday that Randy Halprin, an inmate on death row for the death of a police officer, should have his death penalty conviction overturned after claims that the judge who presided over his trial was racist and antisemitic.
Halprin, who is Jewish, was convicted and given the death penalty for the death of a police officer during a month-long prison escape with six other prisoners, dubbed the Texas Seven, in 2000, according to CBS News. In the years following his conviction, concerns were raised about former Judge Vickers Cunningham who allegedly made racist, antisemitic and homophobic remarks when referring to Halprin and his co-defendants during and after the trial.
“Cunningham not only harbored antisemitic bias at the time of trial but … he did not or could not curb the influence of that bias in his judicial decision-making,” Mays wrote in her opinion, according to CBS […]
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