Texas Lawmaker Wants An End To “Law Of Parties”
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Texas Lawmaker Wants An End To “Law Of Parties”
A Democratic state lawmaker is calling on the Legislature to abolish the law that allows prosecutors to seek the death penalty against defendants who play sometimes-minor roles in capital murder cases.
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AUSTIN (February 24, 2009)--State Rep. Harold Dutton, D-Houston, is calling on the Texas Legislature to abolish the so-called "law of parties," which allows prosecutors to seek the death penalty against defendants who play sometimes minor roles in capital murder cases.

The unique statute holds that each participant of a capital crime can be held equally responsible. In any other state, the person who actually killed another person might be eligible for execution, but the driver or other participants might not be.

Dutton's House Bill 304 would prohibit the application of the death penalty unless the defendant had direct involvement in the killing.

Dutton said at least 12 people have been executed in Texas under the "law of parties."

Gov. Rick Perry in August 2007 spared death row inmate Kenneth Foster just hours before he was to have been executed for being a killer's getaway driver.

Perry didn't object to Foster's execution on those grounds. Instead, he said he opposed trying capital murder defendants together, as Foster and a co-defendant were.
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