The Texas Law of Parties states that a person can be criminally responsible for the actions of another in certain circumstances, including "[i]f, 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, though having no intent to commit it, if the offense was committed in furtherance of the unlawful purpose and was one that should have been anticipated as a result of the carrying out of the conspiracy."
In Texas capital cases, a person may be convicted under the Law of Parties, but may not be sentenced to death if convicted under the Law of Parties unless the sentencing jury finds beyond a reasonable doubt that "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."
Convictions under the law
People convicted under the law include Thomas Bartlett Whitaker, Kenneth Foster, Jeffery Lee Wood, Clinton Lee Young, Steven Michael Woods, Jr., Robert Lee Thompson, John Adams, Ray Jasper, Joseph Nichols, Randy Halprin, and Patrick Murphy Jr. (the latter two being part of the Texas Seven). Foster's sentence would later be commuted to life imprisonment, one of only two persons convicted of capital murder to have his sentence commuted since restoration of the death penalty in the 1980s.