For more than 15 years on death row, Randy Halprin filed challenge after challenge to his sentence. The denials began to stack up.

Finally, on Friday, one of his appeals persuaded Texas’ highest court to stay his execution, which had been scheduled for Oct. 10. Mr. Halprin’s lawyers had found several people who said that the judge who oversaw their client’s murder conviction had regularly used racist language and referred to Mr. Halprin, who is Jewish, using anti-Semitic slurs.

The lawyers had been spurred to investigate the judge, Vickers Cunningham, by an explosive report in The Dallas Morning News last year saying that he had promised to reward his children if they married a white, Christian person of the opposite sex. The report sank the judge’s campaign for Dallas County commissioner.

Now, a trial court will determine whether Judge Cunningham’s reported views and behavior warrant a new trial for Mr. Halprin.