Texas criminal conspiracy — Penal Code § 15.02

Criminal conspiracy under Texas Penal Code § 15.02 is an agreement that a felony be committed plus an overt act by any conspirator. Texas punishes conspiracy one category below the object felony. This guide covers the elements, punishment ranges, defenses, and how conspiracy cases are charged in Collin, Dallas, Denton, and Tarrant County.

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What Is Criminal Conspiracy Under Texas Law?

Texas Penal Code § 15.02 defines the offense in two moves. A person commits criminal conspiracy if, with intent that a felony be committed, the person (1) "agrees with one or more persons that they or one or more of them engage in conduct that would constitute the offense" and (2) "he or one or more of them performs an overt act in pursuance of the agreement." Both halves matter. Talk is not a conspiracy until somebody acts on the plan, and action is not a conspiracy unless a real agreement sits behind it.

Three features of the statute do the heavy lifting in real cases. First, the object of the agreement must be a felony — Texas has no general misdemeanor-conspiracy offense, so an agreement to commit a Class B theft cannot be charged under § 15.02 at all. Second, the overt act can come from any member of the agreement; because the statute says "he or one or more of them," the State does not have to show the defendant personally did anything beyond agreeing. Third, § 15.02(b) lets a jury infer the agreement "from acts of the parties," which is how most conspiracy cases are actually proved — through conduct, messages, and money movement rather than a recorded handshake.

Subsection (c) then strips away five intuitive-sounding defenses. It is no defense to a conspiracy prosecution that a co-conspirator is not criminally responsible for the object offense, has been acquitted (so long as two or more co-conspirators have not been acquitted), has never been prosecuted or was convicted of a different offense, is immune, or was legally incapable of committing the object offense individually. The fifth one surprises people most: it is no defense "that the object offense was actually committed." Finishing the crime does not erase the conspiracy.

A hypothetical shows how little it takes. Two men agree over dinner in Frisco to break into a McKinney warehouse, and one of them buys bolt cutters the next morning. The burglary never happens — the conspiracy charge is already complete. The agreement supplies the first element, the bolt-cutter purchase supplies the overt act, and the object crime never needs to occur.

Elements the State Must Prove

To convict under § 15.02, the State must prove every element beyond a reasonable doubt:

1. Intent that a felony be committed

The defendant must specifically intend that a felony — not a misdemeanor, not vague wrongdoing — be carried out. Intent is measured at the time of the agreement, and the culpable mental states are defined by Penal Code § 6.03.

2. An agreement with one or more persons

There must be an actual meeting of the minds that someone in the group will commit the offense. The Court of Criminal Appeals held in Williams v. State, 646 S.W.2d 221 (Tex. Crim. App. 1983), that "if an indictment alleges a conspiracy between only two individuals, but the evidence at trial shows that there was no actual, positive agreement to commit a crime, then the evidence is insufficient to support a conviction for conspiracy."

3. An overt act in pursuance of the agreement

Some step — by the defendant or any co-conspirator — must move the plan forward. Renting a car, casing an address, buying supplies, or wiring money can qualify. The act does not need to be criminal in itself.

4. Identity

As in every prosecution, the State must tie the defendant — not merely an associate who was nearby — to the agreement itself. Mere presence around people who are planning a crime is not an agreement to join it.

What Are the Penalties for Criminal Conspiracy in Texas?

Section 15.02(d) sets a single grading rule: the conspiracy is "one category lower than the most serious felony that is the object of the conspiracy," and if that object is a state jail felony, the conspiracy is a Class A misdemeanor. The table below applies the rule across the felony ladder using the punishment ranges in Penal Code Chapter 12.

Two wrinkles modify the grade-down rule. The 88th Legislature amended § 15.02(d) in 2023 to carve out terrorism: when the object of the conspiracy is a terrorism offense under Penal Code § 76.02, the one-category reduction does not apply. And the reduction can run the other way at sentencing — under § 15.04(d), a defendant who proves renunciation as mitigation at the punishment hearing receives a punishment one grade lower than the conspiracy itself.

How Do Prosecutors Prove a Conspiracy Agreement?

Almost never with a written pact. Section 15.02(b) expressly allows the agreement to be "inferred from acts of the parties," so prosecutors build conspiracy cases from circumstantial mosaics: text threads and direct messages, call-detail records showing coordinated timing, cash deposits and peer-to-peer transfers, jointly rented vehicles or storage units, surveillance putting the same people at planning locations, and the testimony of a member who flipped.

The agreement still has to be real on both ends. In Williams v. State, 646 S.W.2d 221 (Tex. Crim. App. 1983), the State's only alleged co-conspirator was a police informant who cultivated the defendant at law enforcement's request and feigned his assent to a kidnapping-for-ransom plan. The Court of Criminal Appeals reversed and rendered an acquittal: there was no meeting of the minds between the alleged co-conspirators, and without an "actual, positive agreement" between at least two genuine participants there is no conspiracy. That bilateral-agreement rule remains a structural weakness in sting-driven § 15.02 prosecutions where the only counterpart was working for the government.

Two evidence rules shape nearly every trial. Under Texas Rule of Evidence 801(e)(2)(E), a statement by a co-conspirator made during and in furtherance of the conspiracy is not hearsay — what one alleged partner told someone else can come into evidence against the defendant. Pulling the other way, the accomplice-witness rule of Code of Criminal Procedure art. 38.14 bars a conviction on an accomplice's testimony unless other evidence tends to connect the defendant to the offense. When the State's case is one cooperating co-defendant plus inference, corroboration is where the case gets tested.

What Defenses Work Against a Texas Conspiracy Charge?

L and L Law Group builds conspiracy defenses around the statute's own pressure points:

• No actual agreement. The State must prove a meeting of the minds, not friendship, presence, or knowledge of someone else's plan. Williams v. State, 646 S.W.2d 221 (Tex. Crim. App. 1983), requires an "actual, positive agreement to commit a crime" — association evidence alone does not get there.
• Feigned agreement. When the only other party was an undercover officer or informant pretending to agree, Williams holds the evidence is insufficient because no two minds ever joined.
• No overt act. If nobody took a concrete step in pursuance of the agreement, the offense is incomplete no matter what was said.
• No intent that a felony be committed. Joking, bluster, or loose talk without genuine intent fails the culpable-mental-state requirement of § 6.03, and an agreement to commit only a misdemeanor is outside § 15.02 entirely.
• Withdrawal and renunciation. Penal Code § 15.04(b) is an affirmative defense for a defendant who voluntarily and completely renounced the plan, withdrew before the object offense was committed, and took further affirmative action that prevented it. Renunciation motivated by a higher risk of getting caught is not "voluntary" under § 15.04(c) — but even imperfect renunciation evidence mitigates punishment one grade under § 15.04(d).
• Corroboration failure. Where the case rests on a testifying accomplice, art. 38.14 demands independent evidence connecting the defendant to the offense.
• Entrapment. If law enforcement induced the agreement through persuasion likely to cause an ordinarily law-abiding person to commit the offense, Penal Code § 8.06 supplies a defense; merely affording an opportunity is not entrapment.
• Suppression. Conspiracy proof lives on phones. When messages, location data, or extraction reports come from an unlawful search, a motion to suppress under CCP art. 38.23 can take the agreement evidence off the table.

Can a Conspiracy Charge Be Dismissed or Expunged?

Dismissals in conspiracy cases tend to come from structural weaknesses rather than sympathy. Felony conspiracy charges must survive the grand jury, and agreement evidence that looks thin on paper — one cooperating witness, ambiguous texts, no overt act tied to the defendant — can draw a no-bill. After indictment, suppression of phone evidence or the collapse of a cooperating co-defendant's credibility often drives a reduction or dismissal before trial.

Conspiracy is also generally eligible for deferred adjudication under Code of Criminal Procedure chapter 42A, which matters later: a deferred that is successfully discharged can support an order of nondisclosure under Government Code § 411.072 or § 411.0725, subject to the waiting periods and disqualifiers in Government Code chapter 411. An acquittal or a dismissal without conviction can support full expunction under Code of Criminal Procedure chapter 55A. A final conviction forecloses expunction, which is one more reason the deferred-versus-conviction decision deserves real analysis — see our deferred adjudication and nondisclosure guide.

Conspiracy vs. Co-Conspirator Liability Under § 7.02(b)

Section 15.02 is an offense; Penal Code § 7.02(b) is a liability theory — and confusing the two obscures what a defendant is actually facing. A § 15.02 charge punishes the agreement itself, one category below the object felony. Section 7.02(b) does something different: when conspirators set out to commit one felony and a member commits another felony along the way, it makes every conspirator guilty of the felony actually committed.

The Court of Criminal Appeals laid out the conditions in Ex Parte Thompson, 179 S.W.3d 549 (Tex. Crim. App. 2005): a person may be found guilty of a felony actually committed by another if, in the attempt to carry out a conspiracy to commit one felony, another felony is committed by one of the conspirators in furtherance of the unlawful purpose, and the felony was one that "should have been anticipated" as a result of carrying out the conspiracy — even though the defendant had no intent to commit it. In Thompson itself, the theory supported a capital murder conviction for a defendant whose agreed-upon crime was an aggravated robbery.

Notice what § 7.02(b) does to the grade: it imposes liability for the full felony actually committed, with no one-category reduction. That asymmetry drives charging strategy. When the object crime was completed, prosecutors usually skip § 15.02 and indict the completed felony, using § 7.02(b) to sweep in everyone who joined the underlying agreement. The standalone conspiracy charge appears most often when the plan was interrupted — stings, intercepted plots, an aggravated robbery that never came off. Identifying which theory the State has chosen is one of the first jobs in the defense.

A second hypothetical makes the stakes concrete. A driver agrees only to drop two acquaintances at a house they plan to burglarize and wait outside. Inside, one of them pistol-whips the homeowner. Under § 7.02(b), the driver's exposure is no longer conspiracy to commit burglary — the question becomes whether a robbery or assault "should have been anticipated" from the burglary agreement, and the State will argue the full grade of the violence that actually happened.

How Does Texas Conspiracy Differ From Federal Conspiracy?

North Texas conspiracy investigations frequently end up federal, and the two systems run on different rules. The general federal conspiracy statute, 18 U.S.C. § 371, requires by its text that a conspirator "do any act to effect the object of the conspiracy" and caps punishment at five years for most objects. Federal drug conspiracy is harsher on both counts: 21 U.S.C. § 846 carries the same penalties as the object offense, and in United States v. Shabani, 513 U.S. 10 (1994), the Supreme Court held that to establish a § 846 violation "the Government need not prove the commission of any overt acts in furtherance of the conspiracy."

The practical takeaway runs in both directions. A Texas charge gives the defense an overt-act element and a one-grade discount that simply do not exist in a federal drug-conspiracy indictment, while a federal case adds sentencing guidelines, relevant-conduct drug-weight math, and detention-hearing dynamics that have no state analogue. Cases that start with a Collin or Dallas County arrest can be adopted by federal prosecutors in the Eastern or Northern District of Texas when wiretaps, multi-county distribution, or fraud-loss amounts draw their attention. Our federal conspiracy defense and federal drug conspiracy pages cover that side of the line, and the federal charges hub maps the whole landscape.

Criminal Conspiracy vs. Related Texas Statutes

Chapter 15 contains the three preparatory offenses, and prosecutors choose among them — and their organized-crime cousin — based on what the evidence shows:

• Criminal attempt, § 15.01. Attempt punishes a person who, with specific intent to commit an offense, does an act "amounting to more than mere preparation" that tends but fails to effect the commission. Attempt is solo conduct moving toward the crime; conspiracy is the deal to commit it. Both are graded one category below the object offense.
• Criminal solicitation, § 15.03. Solicitation reaches only the most serious objects — capital felonies and first-degree felonies — and punishes requesting, commanding, or attempting to induce another to commit them. It carries its own corroboration shield: § 15.03(b) bars conviction on the uncorroborated testimony of the person allegedly solicited.
• No stacking, § 15.05. An odd little provision with real bite: attempt or conspiracy to commit, or solicitation of, a preparatory offense "is not an offense." The State cannot charge conspiracy to attempt, attempt to conspire, or solicitation of a conspiracy.
• Engaging in organized criminal activity, § 71.02. EOCA flips the grading: committing or conspiring to commit a listed offense as a member of a combination (three or more collaborators) or a criminal street gang is punished one category higher than the underlying offense. Its conspiracy definition is stricter too — under § 71.01(b), the defendant personally, "and one or more of them," must perform an overt act, where § 15.02 accepts an act by any single member.

Put the grading rules side by side and the charging stakes get vivid: the same alleged plan can surface as a § 15.02 conspiracy (one category down), as the completed object felony through § 7.02(b) (full grade), or as EOCA (one category up). Three statutes, three exposure levels, one set of facts — which is why the indictment's theory deserves as much scrutiny as the evidence. Financial-crime overlays such as money laundering and state racketeering add further charging routes when proceeds move.

County-by-County Practice Notes: Collin, Dallas, Denton & Tarrant

Felony conspiracy cases are indicted by a grand jury and heard in the district courts; the Class A misdemeanor version (state-jail-felony object) is filed in the county criminal courts. Where your case lands depends on where the agreement or any overt act occurred.

Collin County. Felony conspiracy cases proceed through the Collin County grand jury and the district courts at the Collin County Courthouse, 2100 Bloomdale Road in McKinney. Multi-defendant indictments are common in Collin County drug and fraud cases, which means co-defendant counsel coordination — and the timing of any co-defendant's plea — shapes strategy from the first setting. We defend Collin County conspiracy cases from our Frisco office a short drive down Preston Road.

Dallas County. Felony dockets run at the Frank Crowley Courts Building on Riverfront Boulevard. Dallas conspiracy prosecutions often arrive with wiretap or pole-camera components and a parallel federal interest, so an early question in every Frank Crowley conspiracy case is whether the file will stay state or be adopted federally.

Denton County. Cases are heard at the Denton County Courts Building in Denton. Conspiracy counts in Denton County frequently ride alongside delivery or theft indictments as the State's fallback theory, which creates plea leverage worth testing against the actual agreement evidence.

Tarrant County. Felony cases are tried at the Tim Curry Criminal Justice Center in Fort Worth. As in the other counties, the practical defense work is the same: isolate what the State can prove about your client's own agreement, not the group's conduct.

What Happens After a Conspiracy Arrest in North Texas?

The procedural spine matches any felony case, with conspiracy-specific pressure points along the way:

1. Arrest or warrant. Conspiracy arrests often arrive in coordinated sweeps after a long investigation, which means the State's file is already thick on day one.
2. Magistration. Within roughly 48 hours, a magistrate gives statutory warnings and sets bond under CCP art. 15.17.
3. Bond conditions. Expect no-contact orders covering co-defendants and alleged co-conspirators — a real burden when those people are family or coworkers — plus travel limits and, in drug cases, testing.
4. Grand jury and indictment. Felony conspiracy requires an indictment. The grand jury stage is the first place a thin agreement theory can die quietly.
5. Discovery. Under CCP art. 39.14 and the Michael Morton Act, the defense receives the State's evidence — in conspiracy cases, that usually means phone extractions, financial records, and surveillance logs measured in gigabytes. Budget real time for review; the exculpatory thread is often buried in metadata.
6. Pretrial motions. Suppression of digital evidence, severance from co-defendants, and accomplice-corroboration challenges do the heaviest lifting.
7. Resolution. Dismissal, reduction, deferred adjudication, trial. Multi-defendant cases add a clock: early cooperators shape the narrative everyone else must answer, so the decision about timing is itself strategic.

Collateral Consequences of a Conspiracy Conviction

Because most conspiracy convictions are felonies, the after-effects track felony consequences generally. A felony conviction restricts firearm possession under Penal Code § 46.04 and triggers the separate lifetime federal bar of 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1) — see our felon in possession page for how the two regimes interact. Licensing boards evaluate felony convictions under Occupations Code chapter 53, and conspiracy's link to an object offense matters there: a conspiracy tied to fraud reads very differently to a nursing or teaching board than the bare word "conspiracy" suggests. Immigration law generally treats a conspiracy the same as its object offense, so noncitizens need object-offense-specific advice before any plea. And even the Class A misdemeanor version leaves a permanent record visible to employers and landlords unless and until a nondisclosure order issues.