Dallas DA John Creuzot says office will seek death penalty in retrial of Texas 7 escapee

This will be the first time Creuzot has pursued capital punishment since taking office in 2019.

Dallas County District Attorney John Creuzot confirmed to The Dallas Morning News on Wednesday morning that his office will seek the death penalty against Texas Seven escapee Randy Halprin.

This will be the first time Creuzot has pursued capital punishment since taking office in 2019. He has opted not to seek death in other high-profile cases, like accused serial killer Billy Chemirmir, Yaser Said, who fatally shot his two teenage daughters and went on the run for more than a decade, or Nestor Hernandez, who murdered two hospital workers at Methodist Dallas Medical Center.

Creuzot declined to comment further.

Halprin was one of seven men who escaped from the John B. Connally Unit near Kenedy in 2000 and fatally shot Irving police Officer Aubrey Hawkins during a Christmas Eve robbery.

In November, the state’s highest criminal appeals court granted Halprin, who is Jewish, a new trial because the judge at his 2003 capital murder trial harbored antisemitic views.

Defense attorney Heath Harris told The News the decision was “surprising.”

“A case that’s tried 10 years ago is totally different than a case that’s tried today,” Harris said. “The case is not the same; it needs to be reevaluated.”

Harris believes mitigating evidence will show Halprin is not guilty of capital murder, nor is he a future danger.

Halprin has said he did not fire his gun when the officer was shot 11 times and run over behind an Oshman’s Sporting Goods store. Still, Halprin was convicted and sentenced to death based on Texas’ law of parties, which allows for anyone who participated to be held accountable for Hawkins’ murder.

All members of the Texas Seven were sentenced to death except for Larry Harper, who died by suicide to avoid capture in Colorado in January 2001. Four were executed, and Patrick Murphy remains on death row.

Conflicts have swirled around Halprin’s retrial: Creuzot has called for Harris to be removed from his defense team. Harris was first assistant under former DA Craig Watkins and attended the execution of George Rivas, who masterminded the December 2000 prison break.

State District Judge Lela Lawrence Mays is expected to rule on whether Harris’ involvement as a prosecutor disqualifies him from defending Halprin.

Mays previously denied the DA’s office’s request to be removed from the case because a high-ranking prosecutor previously worked for a law firm that represented Halprin two decades ago in his post-conviction defense.

Source: dallasnews.com, Maggie Prosser, May 14, 2025

"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted."

— Oscar Wilde

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