Scenario:

A contacted B (whom he knew had some experience with industrial explosives) and asked B to build a bomb that A could use to wire into a vehicle to kill A's estranged wife. B initially thought A was joking, but when A persisted and made promises of some cash, a rifle, and future employment, B went to the PD. A was arrested when he picked up a mock bomb (provided by ATF) from B. He is arrested him for Criminal Solicitation -Capital Murder for Remuneration. That may be reaching, but Sect. 15.03 seems broad enough to at least start there.

We haven't handled anything like this and wondered if y'all had some suggestions as to indictment language or alternate charges. Thanks.

If you're not making mistakes, you're not doing anything.

I don't think you're stretching it at all. If B would have given him a real bomb and Mrs. A would have been blown up with it, I don't think there's any doubt that B would have been a party to capital murder, right? Then that's the very scenario that 15.03 seeks to criminalize:

On or about date, the defendant A, did intentionally or knowingly, with the intent that capital murder be committed, request, command, or attempt to induce B to engage in specific conduct: to-wit: to build a bomb, for remuneration or promise of remuneration, to provide to A so that A could cause the death of Mrs. A, that under the circumstances surrounding the conduct of B, as the defendant believed them to be, would have made B a party to the commission of the capital murder of Mrs. A.


The only possible weak area may be the remuneration element to make it capital, in that it depends solely upon the credibility of Mr. B (unless there's additional evidence you didn't mention) -but since it sounds like everything else checks out, I would think you'd be ok - AND even then, your worst case scenario seems to be a lesser included of solicitation of murder instead of capital.

Take a look at Schwenk v. State, 733 SW2d 142. It's pretty close to your fact pattern.