EVEN THOUGH THE BIGOTED TRIAL JUDGE REFERRED TO HIM AS A FUCKING JEW, TEXAS 7 MEMBER RANDY HALPRIN SHOULD BE EXECUTED

100 Jewish attorneys ask: Did Dallas judge's alleged anti-Semitism sentence Texas 7 member to death?

By Robert Wilonsky

The Dallas Morning News
September 10, 2019

Here are the many moving parts of a terrible story. A cop got killed. One of the men who killed him went to death row. And the judge who sentenced the man in a downtown Dallas courtroom could well be a racist.

Now, we must sort through what that means, and what it should mean for the man on death row. We won't be alone. The Washington Post, Vice, HuffPo and on and on are also tuned into this messy, awful narrative. But it's worth noting, too, that without this newspaper there would have been no story at all.

To pull apart the threads we have to trace this back to its beginning — to Christmas Eve 19 years ago, when a group of prison escapees known as the Texas Seven killed Irving police Officer Aubrey Hawkins. Sounds long ago; feels much closer.

All of the seven save for one were taken into custody, tried and sent to death row. The other man killed himself to avoid capture.

The tale also involves a former Dallas County District judge labeled a lifelong bigot by family and friends in The Dallas Morning News shortly before a close election last year. And now, at almost the last minute, here come more than 100 Jewish attorneys from Dallas and throughout Texas, a few of whom are family friends, because of course we all know each other.

Those attorneys sent to the Court of Criminal Appeals in Austin a 13-page brief requesting a new trial for Randy Halprin, one of the two surviving Texas Seven members awaiting execution. Halprin, raised Jewish in Arlington’s Congregation Beth Shalom, is scheduled to be executed on Oct. 10.

The man who sentenced him to die in 2003 was former judge Vickers "Vic" Cunningham. And according to people who know Cunningham, he called Halprin "that [expletive] Jew" and far worse during the trial.

Says lifelong friend Tammy McKinney in an affidavit sent to the court, Cunningham believed "Jews needed to be shut down because they controlled all the money." He, too, "did not like anyone not of his race, religion or creed, and he was very vocal about his disapproval." And, said McKinney, Cunningham “took special pride in the [Texas 7] death sentences because they included Latinos and a Jew."

Which doesn't exactly square with a defendant's right to a fair trial presided over by an impartial judge. In fact, if the allegations prove true — and they are only allegations at this point — they confirm what many fear most about our courts, that behind that thin veil of supposed dispassion lie more prejudices than anyone would ever admit.

"This issue is much larger than Randy Halprin," said Stuart Blaugrund, one of the Dallas attorneys who helped prepare the 13-page document. Blaugrund and I are old acquaintances: His mother and my grandmother were best friends in El Paso.

Over the weekend he posted about his involvement in the case. There were commenters castigating the lawyer for throwing in with a man convicted of killing a cop.

"This is about the integrity of our entire criminal justice system being called into question and being at stake," Blaugrund said when we spoke Monday. "We're lawyers, and sometimes you have to take a stand for people and for issues that are not popular. This is a matter of fundamental justice and the integrity of the judicial system, and that should concern everyone."

Vic Cunningham was a headline in this paper, then across the country, only last year.

Then, the former judge battled J.J. Koch for Dallas County Commissioners Court in the Republican primary. Cunningham was the favorite in that race. But his bid was undone after The News reported Cunningham had set up a living trust for his children from which they will reap the benefits only if they marry a white Christian of the opposite sex.

Cunningham then, and now, has denied the copious allegations that he's a racist who so casually slurs blacks and Jews and Latinos. In June of this year he gave what he said would be his only comment on the allegations involving the Halprin case, telling The News that his alleged anti-Semitic comments are "fabrications" and "the same lies from my estranged brother and his friends."

His brother Bill Cunningham is married to a black man.

After those stories ran, Halprin's attorneys went looking for further proof that Cunningham's bigotry was a factor in their client's trial. The attorneys said they found ample corroboration from McKinney, the family friend, and Amanda Tackett, a onetime D contributor who worked for Cunningham's 2005 campaign for Dallas County district attorney.

Armed with those sworn accounts, Halprin's attorneys in June asked the courts for a new hearing, because Cunningham's "anti-Semitic views of Mr. Halprin created an unconstitutional risk of bias." Their filings are filled with accounts like this one:

"At a Lakewood campaign event, Tackett recalls hearing Cunningham refer to Mr. Halprin as 'the Jew' and others in the Texas 7 as 'wetbacks.' Cunningham 'then launched into his campaign speech about immigration and the importance of white people in the Dallas community.'"

Last week the 100 Jewish attorneys, along with the American Jewish Committee and other organizations, submitted the brief that says that "if the allegations here are true — and they unfortunately ring true — the trial was no trial, and the verdict no verdict, because the judge was no judge."

Dallas attorney Marc Stanley co-wrote and signed his name at the bottom of that brief. He was very clear when we spoke Monday: His involvement, and that of his colleagues, has nothing to do with Halprin's guilt or innocence. Before his escape from prison, Halprin was already serving 30 years for beating a child. He has confessed to being there when Hawkins was shot, though he denies ever firing a gun.

Randy Halprin is a bad man. But that does not mean he should not receive a fair trial.

"This was a no-brainer," said Stanley, who in 2011 was one of President Barack Obama's appointees to the governing body of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

"This is about right and wrong and the importance of the rule of law and understanding what happens to our society when the rule of law isn't followed," he said this week. "It could have been Lee Harvey Oswald, and if the judge was saying, 'We're gonna get this guy and not give him a fair trial,' I am going to stand up for Lee Harvey Oswald getting a fair trial."

It's far from clear how the appeals court will rule. Perhaps they will pass, claiming Cunningham's views are not part of the official record; or maybe they will avoid this case to avoid revisiting all the others over which Cunningham presided during his tenure on the bench.

The only thing clear for now is this one thing: Randy Halprin is scheduled to die in one month.

"If a judge doesn't like who you are or what your religion is or your skin color, you don't have a fair judge," Stanley said. "It's just fundamental. It's not hard."

EDITOR’S NOTE: Cunningham must have shit a gold baby when he learned his brother was gay and, worse to him, that Bill had married a man.

Phrases like “that fucking Jew” and statements that Jews “needed to be shut down because they controlled all the money” would tend to indicate the possibility that Cunningham might be a wee bit anti-Semitic. But I don’t see that as a good enough reason for Halprin’s life to be spared.