What is the Law of Parties In Texas?

The Law of Parties in Texas is something that confuses many people. The confusion also leads to many harmful confessions where individuals think they are helping themselves, where they are doing the exact opposite.

My name is Eric Benavides and I’m a Texas criminal defense lawyer.

I want to talk to you today about the law parties. Now a lot of the times I have people call me and say “I’m not the one that actually did it, I didn’t do anything, how am I the one that’s being charged?”

We see this a lot on robbery cases or murder cases, or cases of that type of nature. There might be a getaway driver, somebody that goes in as a lookout and somebody who actually commits the crime.

You know, the Texas Penal Code says that if anybody aids or helps or is present at the time, and is aware of what’s going on, then you can be charged with the same crime. So if somebody breaks into a house and commits a murder well he’s being charged with murder, the look-out is being charged with murder, and the getaway driver is being charged with murder.

That’s basically what the law parties is. So even though your the person that might not have pulled the trigger, if you’re the getaway driver you can still be charged with murder.