Law of Parties

Despite the name, the law of parties is anything but fun. Recently Robert Lee Thompson was executed due to this controversial law, which says that accomplices can face the death penalty if they were present when the crime was being committed. The Board of Pardons and Paroles which hardly ever urges for clemency, has already twice in the past two years called for a commutation for criminals convicted under this law. While there is a lot about this case that I'm unsure about detail wise, I'm concerned that the law of parties will continue to lead to problems in the future perhaps even leading innocent people to jail or worse. Seems to me that an innocent person, I'm not suggesting that Thompson was innocent by any means, could get roped into one of those wrong place at the wrong time situations.

Why this law was ever devised is beyond me as it sounds like the rule of a parent who wants to punish their child out for less that savory characters and possibly scare them straight. This law if nothing else could use a revision that made it where the accomplice got a lesser punishment or something.

Here is the Law of Parties if you'd like to read it:
Chapter 7.02 of the TX Penal Code says a person can be criminally responsible for another’s actions if that person acts with "the intent to promote or assist the commission of the offense" and "solicits, encourages, directs, aids, or attempts to aid the other person to commit the offense, whether the defendant actually caused the death of the deceased or did not actually cause the death of the deceased but intended to kill the deceased or another or anticipated that a human life would be taken". Furthermore, "If, in the attempt to carry out a conspiracy to commit one felony, another felony is committed by one of the conspirators, all conspirators are guilty of the felony actually committed."