The State of Texas has a law that holds crime partners responsible for what each does. It is called the Law of Parties.
Scott Henson blogging as Grits for Breakfast says: “Something about executing a person for a murder they didn’t themselves commit feels inherently unjust.”
As a supporter of the death penalty, I am also a supporter of the Law of Parties. If two robbers enter a convenience store and one of them kills the cashier the other robber should be held equally responsible and charged with capital murder. If a wife conspires with her lover to have him kill her husband, she should also be charged with capital murder.
Abolishing the Law of Parties would allow these crime partners to get off the hook of capital punishment.
As for capital punishment, I am convinced without a reasonable doubt that the death penalty is a deterrent to premeditated murders and other killings not committed in the heat of passion. Back when I was a cop in California, we busted a lot of armed robbers who committed their robberies with an empty gun. When asked why they did not carry a loaded gun, they replied that in a moment of panic with a loaded gun, they might kill someone and they did not want to get topped (con lingo for executed). Of course that was before the era of endless appeals.
The death penalty abolitionists say that the murderers on death row and in prison prove that the death penalty does not act as a deterrent. That’s a gross con job. What they will not tell you is that countless murders are not committed because the person contemplating killing someone fears the death penalty. At this very moment, there must be hundreds if not thousands of people seriously thinking about murdering their spouses. And there must be an equal number of people seriously thinking about killing someone for revenge or for monetary gain.
I’ll grant you that not all of those people worry about the death penalty, but many of them do. And that’s why I am convinced the death penalty is a deterrent to premeditated murders and other killings not committed in the heat of passion.
The abolitionists are also fond of saying that states with active death penalties have higher murder rates than non-death penalty states. That old con job is not worth repeating. Those statistics were based on rural states like Minnesota and not on states with thickly populated urban centers. Try selling that line of garbage to the people of New York and Illinois, and to the people of California which has 747 condemned inmates on death row, but has not executed anyone since January 2006.
Back to the Texas Law of Parties, I disagree with Scott Henson and say let’s not abolish this good law.
David Vargha says
It’s a good law that is potentially open to abuse by a prosecutor (as most are). The wife hiring a killer is an easy one to agree with. Two people committing robbery may have mitigating circumstances on the part of the non-killing offender. One would hope that the state would use wise prosecutorial discretion in whether or not to pursue the second party.
Fred Flickinger says
I am fairly agnostic on capital punishment but swift and certain punishment are required to change a person’s behavior. Our system of capital punishment is neither.
Alexander Shaskevich says
Driving the getaway car for a bank robber is an accessory to the bank robbery. Now if one of the guy doing the robbery kills the guard….driver should also face Murder charges.
Of course, prosecutors always have discretion and they usually use it. A lot of cases get a not guilty verdict when taken to trial here in Harris County. The few times I have had jury duty ( never picked ) when there was a criminal case, the jury found the defendant not guilty. I always checked to find out what happened after I was not picked.
And those cases were dog cases, and that is why the defense attorney took them to trial. Bottom line, the system works.
Jeff Larson says
“The abolitionists are also fond of saying that states with active death penalties have higher murder rates than non-death penalty states. That old con job is not worth repeating. Those statistics were based on rural states like Minnesota and not on states with thickly populated urban centers.”
I have not run the numbers for homicides in particular, but have run the numbers for violent crime vs. incarceration rate and property crime vs. incarceration rate. No surprise, states with more crime have a higher incarceration rate.
But do they have more people locked up because they have more crime, or do they have more crime because they have a “lock ’em all up” policy? And for this, you can compare states. Over time, if “lock ’em up” lead to lower crime rates, you would see that in the data.
And you don’t. You see the opposite. In terms of protecting citizens, the model state for reducing crime is liberal Massachusetts, and the two states that bring up the back of the pack are Louisiana and Oklahoma. Texas is in the bottom 5.
Now, as someone who is not liberal, that doesn’t sit well with me, but it does tie in well with the thought that when we run a prison system as a warehouse for criminals, we get more highly skilled and motivated criminals! And that’s why I support the Texas Public Policy Foundation and initiatives like Right on Crime, which have saved Texas millions of dollars WHILE reducing crime.
It’s not about being “soft on crime”, it’s about distinguishing between “people we’re mad at” and “people we’re afraid of”. “People we’re afraid of” need to be locked up until they are harmless…for life in some cases. “People we’re mad at”…if there is a cheaper alternative that works to get them in line, we should be pursuing it.
And all of that has little to do with capital punishment, but I suspect that there’s a lot more to it than “Minnesota is rural and Texas is urban”. Really? Why exactly is Detroit a hellhole and Minneapolis-St. Paul isn’t? They’re both big cities with liberal goverments.
Maybe there’s something to be learned from looking at per capita homicide rates after all.
Foolme says
What is the difference in Driving the get-a-way car and pulling the trigger. How does one act decrease one’s guilt over another? Should we place a measurement on the height and size of each purp? Should we place a value on the size of the bullet, distance of the shot, time for the victim to die? If you aid and abet a crime, then you are just as responsible as any part of the whole activity. Think of it this way, had you not participated, the outcome would be different.
Tom says
I once represented a guy on habeas who has been executed for a robbery murder committed by his co-defendant. The problem was the co-defendant had a much better trial lawyer than my guy and was convicted of the lesser included offense of murder because the jury — correctly based on the evidence — the shooter had no intent to kill, just to scare the victim.
My guy was convicted under the law of parties and is dead. Both were charged with capital murder and the DA’s office sought death in both trials. The shooter is eligible for parole or soon will be. There’s something wrong with that system.
I’m not saying my client was Jack Armstrong, the All American boy. Far from it. But it doesn’t sit right when the non-shooter gets executed and the shooter is parole eligible.
This is an example of how the law of parties can work. I don’t think it’s justice.
Howie Katz says
Tom, the Law of Parties is not what’s wrong with the system. What’s wrong with the system is that the shooter in your case will be eligible for parole.
If Texas tried co-defendants jointly like some other states do, your guy would also have escaped execution. Or better yet, both defendants would have been sentenced to death.
Of course you bring up another problem. Those unable to pay for a good attorney often get shafted in the criminal justice system.
Fat Albert says
Howie:
That is why I’ve become convinced that the death penalty is a bad idea. The “Criminal Justice System” is in fact a system, and it deals with criminals, but all too often, the players are not interested in Justice, but instead are avid players of the legal game. The outcome of the trial is simply an indication of who was the better player to the lawyers involved. The rules are esoteric, complex and often have absolutely nothing to do with the actual guilt or innocence of the alleged criminal.
The District Attorney often has ulterior motives driving his prosecution (or lack of same) and the defendant is often severely handicapped by a lack of resources. Sure, the state provides an Attorney, but public defenders are poorly paid, often overworked, and lack the resources for proper trial support.
At least if we simply imprison the criminal, then if we get it wrong, we can let them out.
Tom says
The two couldn’t be; tried together because each had given a confession mentioning the other and the state needed the confession. The key was that Texas law requires the intent to kill as part of capital murder in robbery-murders. Shooter didn’t have that intent. His jury found so and it matches the facts brought out at trial. My guy’s trial lawyer was an idiot. Shooter had great lawyer. Both court appointed by the same judge.
Tom
bob walsh says
I believe that a PROPERLY ADMINISTERED capital punishment system would in fact be a deterrent to crime. At least here, in the formerly great state of California, we do not have that and have not had that for many years. There are way over 700 people on death row here and we have no executed one in something like 15 years. The governor, Jerry Brown, is well known as being in personal opposition to the death penalty. He said when he was elected that he would, however, enforce the existing law and the will of the people. He has not. Our recent Attorney General and now U. S. Senator, Kamala Harris, said the same thing despite her often stated opposition to the death penalty. Same thing. They have basically slow-dragged the process in hopes that it would die of boredom and lack of use. In fact he voters have reinforced it. Still, nothing happens. And CA does have what we call the Felony Murder Rule. Any (adult) participant in a felony that results in a death (including the death of a bad guy) can be prosecuted to the same extent as the actual killer. It is, IMHO, a great idea IN THEORY. If you never actually scrag any of the bastards, what difference does it make?