New trial granted for one of the last living members of the Texas 7

The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals has granted a new trial for one of the last living members of the Texas 7.

Randy Halprin was part of a group of escaped prisoners who broke out of the Connally Unit, a Texas prison, in 2000 and while on the run, fatally shot Irving police officer Aubrey Hawkins.

Halprin was sentenced to death under Texas' "law of parties," which allows defendants to be convicted and punished based on the intention of others in a group.

The appeals court had halted Halprin's execution in 2019—six days before he was scheduled to die — when lawyers for Halprin argued that he should get a new trial because the judge who presided over his case referred to the inmate — who is Jewish — with racial slurs and antisemitic language.

According to the Death Penalty Information Center in December of 2022, Dallas County Judge Lela Lawrence May recommended a new trial for Halprin, finding that former Dallas County Judge Vickers Cunningham "harbored actual, subjective bias" against Halprin at the time of his trial because he is Jewish.

Halprin's lawyers had presented evidence spanning decades of Cunningham's repeated use of homophobic, antisemitic and racist slurs.

Judge Mays found the testimony credible and said that Cunningham exhibited a long pattern of antisemitism.

On Wednesday, the court granted that new trial based on what Judge Mays had concluded was a "violation of due process, equal protection of the law, and free exercise of religion."

Halprin had testified at trial that he did not carry a gun or fire any shots during the robbery where the officer was killed.

"I told them I wasn't going to pull a gun, and they said, 'fine, just gather clothes, grab a shopping cart, and gather clothes,'" Halprin said.

Of the seven inmates who escaped, only two are still alive, Halprin and Patrick Murphy, who did not participate in the robbery and waited in a car outside. Murphy is awaiting execution.