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New trial for Jew on death row in Texas due to judge’s Jew-hatred

The judge formed an opinion about the defendant “that derived from an extrajudicial factor ... poisonous antisemitism,” an appeals court ruled.

Gavel, Court, Judge
Gavel. Credit: Katrin Bolovtsova/Pexels.

The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals voted 6-3 to grant a new trial to Randy Ethan Halprin, 47, after it found that the judge who ruled against him “was biased against him at the time of his trial because he is Jewish,” the Associated Press reported.

Halprin, who is on death row, is part of the “Texas 7,” which shot and killed a police officer after breaking free from prison in December 2000, per the AP.

He had been serving a 30-year sentence after admitting to brutally attacking a 16-month-old baby.

Sonia Sotomayor, associate Supreme Court justice, wrote on April 6, 2020 of the judge’s antisemitic statements that “the facts underlying this petition are deeply disturbing.”

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