Entries tagged with “Joseph Garcia”
Research
May 07, 2021
Texas House of Representatives Passes Bill to Limit Death-Penalty Eligibility for Defendants Who Do Not Kill
In an overwhelming bipartisan vote, the Texas House of Representatives has passed a bill that ends death-penalty liability under the state’s controversial “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. Currently, Texas law makes any participant in a felony criminally liable for the acts of everyone else involved in the crime, irrespective of how small a role he played…
Issues
Dec 04, 2018
Texas Case Raises Questions of Fairness of Executing Accomplices
Texas plans to execute Joseph Garcia on December 4, 2018, for the murder of a police officer during a robbery in which Garcia neither killed anyone nor intended or expected that a killing would take place. His case renews questions about a Texas law called the “law of parties” that allows defendants to be sentenced to death based upon the actions and intent of others, if the defendant played even a small role in a crime that resulted in someone’s death. Garcia was one of the “Texas 7,” a group…