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#Post#: 367--------------------------------------------------
~ Randy Halprin, (TX) ~
By: BuzzC Date: July 11, 2019, 9:00 pm
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Execution date set for ‘Texas 7’ prisoner who accused judge of
anti-Semitism--
Tuesday, July 09, 2019
[IMG]
HTML http://frontburner.dmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/deathrow_02.jpeg[/img]
A “Texas Seven” escapee who filed an appeal alleging his trial
judge was racist and anti-Semitic is now scheduled for execution
this year, despite two pending legal claims still winding
through the courts.
Dallas County Judge Lela Mays on Wednesday approved an Oct. 10
death date for Randy Halprin, a Jewish prisoner who in May
accused ex-Judge Vickers Cunningham of routinely using
obscenity-laced language and racial slurs to describe Jewish and
minority defendants.
“In case after case, the U.S. Supreme Court has clearly and
consistently enforced defendants’ constitutional right to a
judge free of bias,” defense attorney Tivon Schardl said Monday
in a statement. “Yet, Mr. Halprin’s trial judge, who presided
over the death penalty trial, made critical decisions about what
evidence the jury would hear, and sentenced Mr. Halprin to die,
was biased against Mr. Halprin, referring to him as a ‘f****n’
Jew’ and a ‘G*****n k**e.’”
Now 41, Halprin was originally sent to death row for his role in
a 2000 prison escape and crime spree that left dead Irving
police Officer Aubrey Hawkins. That December, Halprin and six
other men took hostages and broke out of the Connally Unit south
of San Antonio.
They stole a prison van, then switched it out for a getaway
vehicle and fled to Houston, where they pulled off two robberies
to stock up on supplies, guns and money. Afterward, they drove
toward Dallas, hoping to get away from the search teams hunting
for them.
On Christmas Eve, the escapees held up an Oshman’s sporting
goods store in Irving - and Hawkins was the first officer who
responded to the call. In a chaotic scene, five of the men
started firing at the lawman.
When it was over, Hawkins lay dead in the parking lot, shot 11
times and dragged 10 feet by an SUV as the panicked prisoners
fled with $70,000 and 44 guns.
Some of the men admitted to to their roles, but Halprin has
consistently maintained that he never fired a shot and that he
didn’t even want to bring a gun. Still, he and the other five
survivors - one man killed himself before he could be captured -
were sentenced to die under the controversial law of parties, a
Texas statute that holds non-shooters as criminally responsible
as triggermen.
After more than 15 years spent fighting his conviction and
sentence, Halprin’s legal team learned of Cunningham’s alleged
bias last year when he admitted to the Dallas Morning News that
he’d set up a living trust that rewarded his children if they
married a fellow white Christian.
“I strongly support traditional family values,” he told the
paper in a video interview during his 2018 campaign for county
commissioner. “If you marry a person of the opposite sex that’s
Caucasian, that’s Christian, they will get a distribution.”
He lost the Republican run-off by just 25 votes. Afterward,
defense investigators began interviewing people who knew him to
find out more about his views toward Jewish people and
minorities.
“If someone were actually African-American he would call them
(N-word) and their first name,” childhood friend Tammy McKinney
recounted. “It was his signature way of talking about people of
color.”
The May appeal and attached statements detailed a slew of other
alleged expressions of bias toward Catholics, Jews, Latinos and
black people. Previously, Cunningham did not respond to the
Chronicle’s requests for comment.
In early June, even before the federal courts ruled on that
appeal, the office of Dallas County District Attorney John
Creuzot asked for the October execution date. A district
attorney’s office spokesperson did not respond Monday to a
request for comment.
The Texas Office of the Attorney General - which represents the
state instead of the district attorney once a case reaches
federal appeals - last month filed a response brief both arguing
that Halprin wasn’t legally entitled to relief and condemning
Cunningham’s alleged bigotry.
“To be clear, the details of Cunningham’s living trust and the
accounts of those who knew Cunningham regarding his bigoted
statements and beliefs are troubling to say the least,” state
attorneys wrote. “The Attorney General’s Office does not condone
or excuse Cunningham’s creation of his living trust, and the
racist and religiously-bigoted statements he is alleged to have
made are abhorrent.”
Aside from Halprin, only one other Texas 7 prisoner who’d been
sentenced to die - Patrick Murphy - is still alive on death row.
The others have all been executed.
8)
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