The Houston Peace and Justice Center Board of Directors unanimously passed the following Law of Parties Resolution at its February Board meeting.
Resolution calling an end to the use of the “Law of Parties” rule in Texas
WHEREAS, the Houston Peace and Justice Center is committed to criminal justice reform and ensuring all individuals are entitled equity in a fair and just legal system;
WHEREAS, under Texas law, Penal Code 7.02, a person can be charged for any offense to which they are a “party,” even if they did not actually commit and had very little role in committing that offense;
WHEREAS,though the promise of the American legal system is that people will be held accountable for their own actions, many people are spending decades in the prison system— and have even been sentenced to death and executed—based not on their own conduct, but on the conduct of another;
WHEREAS, many people in Texas are serving sentences vastly disproportionate to their culpability—sentences that would offend the sense of justice of anyone concerned about fairness in the American legal system;
WHEREAS, the “law of parties” is most infamous for prosecutors’ use of it to obtain murder convictions against people who have never killed anyone and this is particularly true for capital murder cases;
WHEREAS, the interaction between the “law of parties” and the capital murder sentencing scheme has created enormous injustices in which people with extremely minimal roles in capital murder offenses are serving exorbitant sentences that nobody could credibly describe as fair and just;
WHEREAS, since 1982 over 80 people on Texas Death Row were convicted under the law of parties and did not factually murder anyone;
WHEREAS, the “law of parties” punishes for affiliation, not action;
WHEREAS, the unjust effects of the “law of parties” fall most heavily on youth, people of color and women;
WHEREAS, a large percentage of women serving time for first degree murder under this rule were not the perpetrators of the homicide;
WHEREAS, the “law of parties” works to increase the prison population rather than decrease it;
WHEREAS, most Texans believe that people should receive just punishment for crimes they have committed but not serve unjust or inordinate sentences for crimes they did not commit; WHEREAS, this law wholly undermines the values of a first world democratic country;
NOW THEREFORE, be it
RESOLVED, that prosecutors in Texas no longer use the “law of parties” rule to obtain convictions in order to stop disproportionate and unjust sentencing;
RESOLVED, that the Texas Legislature end death penalty liability under the “law of parties” for felony accomplices who neither kill nor intended that a killing take place and were minor participants in the conduct that led to the death of the victim; and
RESOLVED, that to ensure there is no further abuse through use of the “law of parties, Texas abolishes the use of capital punishment.