A Jewish death row inmate in Texas who was imprisoned for being part of a gang of prisoners that fatally shot a police officer in 2000, had his conviction overturned on Monday after a judge ruled that “antisemitic bias” had factored into his original sentencing.

Randy Halprin, 45, was a member of a gang of inmates dubbed the “Texas 7” that sparked a nationwide manhunt after escaping from a South Texas prison and going on to commit several violent robberies, one of which resulted in the death of 29-year-old police officer Aubrey Hawkins

Mr Halprin, who was sentenced to death in 2001, is one of only two of the original seven members of the gang still alive after receiving a stay of execution in 2019.

At a three-day hearing in August this year, Mr Halprin’s lawyers argued that former Judge Vickers Cunningham in Dallas had repeatedly referred to Mr Halprin and his co-defendants with racist, homophobic, and antisemitic language in his court.

Witnesses to the 2001 trial, including Mr Cunningham's brother and two lifelong family friends, testified that they had heard Judge Cunningham describe Mr Halprin and his co-defendants as “the Mexican, the queer, and the Jew” and had said: “I’m going to get them all the death penalty.”

Randy Halprin

Mugshots of the "Texas 7" who escaped from a Texas prison in December 2000 and went on to commit violent robberies, including one on Christmas Eve that led to the suspected shooting of a policeman 11 times (Credit: Texas Department of Corrections/Newsmakers)

District Jude Lela Mays wrote in a ruling on Monday: “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,

“[Mr Cunningham’s] use of these terms to refer to the co-defendants was racist because it combined the attribution of group characteristics with the exercise of power over them.”

In October 21, Judge Mays had found that Judge Cunningham had violated Mr Halprin's right to a fair trial and recommended overturning the death sentence.

Judge Cunningham stepped down from the bench in 2005 and now works as an attorney in a private practice in Dallas.

Amanda Tackett, who worked on Mr Cunningham’s 2006 campaign for Dallas district attorney, said she heard him say he was running for office to “save Dallas” from racial and religious minorities. Mr Cunningham denies the allegations made against him.

He also denied allegations of racial bigotry in 2018 during an interview with Dallas Morning News, though he did admit to setting up a living trust that rewards his children for marrying straight, white Christians.

Mr Halprin’s case will now be forwarded to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals where he will face a new trial over the shooting.