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Change Ways Accomplices Are Punished

By standdown

That's the title of an editorial from the Saturday edition of the Dallas Morning News.  It's one of an occasional series by the News on capital punishment in Texas.  LINKConventional wisdom suggests that the death penalty is reserved for the worst of the worst criminals ? those who commit the most heinous murders. But in Texas, we sometimes execute accomplices, people who never pulled the trigger and who might have been only peripherally involved in a crime. The law of parties permits the court to hold someone criminally responsible for the acts of another. Incredibly, an accomplice can be put to death for the triggerman's crime. That accomplice might not even get his own trial, as Texas allows joint trials in capital cases...continue to full post

Full post as published by StandDown Texas Project on March 23, 2009 (boomark / email).