Execution Watch: 3/28/2019

On Thursday night the Texas killing machine fires up again…

PATRICK MURPHY, convicted under the Texas law of parties, which allows prosecutors to charge a person linked with a murder as if they, too, had pulled the trigger. He was in a group of convicts that in 2000 made the biggest prison escape in Texas history. They broke into a Dallas-area store on Christmas Eve to steal guns. An Irving police officer was shot to death when he responded to a silent alarm. The other escapees said Murphy was the lookout and had no part in the shooting itself. The only other group member still on death row was Randy Halprin. The show will include Execution Watch’s 20-minute interview with Murphy, taped the previous week on death row.

The case raises questions about the law of parties and whether a person who participated in an event in which a person was murdered – but didn’t fire a shot – should be considered just as liable for the murder as the man, or men, who pulled the trigger. If we are going to condone the killing of prisoners at the hand of the state, should we draw the line at the people who actually did the killing?