## Facts

- Apparajan Ganesan was involved in contentious divorce and financial disputes with his wife, Sudha Vallabhaneni, including protective orders and a bankruptcy proceeding in which she was scheduled to testify.
- Vallabhaneni recorded a phone call in which Ganesan threatened to kill himself, her, or both if their business venture failed.
- While jailed for violating a protective order, Ganesan asked another inmate whether he knew someone who could “take care” of Vallabhaneni; after release, Ganesan continued the discussion by phone but later retreated from it in a subsequent call.
- In the two months before Vallabhaneni’s scheduled bankruptcy testimony, Ganesan spoke with Reda Sue Prier.
- Prier testified that Ganesan repeatedly asked her to find someone to kill Vallabhaneni and Amy Wright, Vallabhaneni’s divorce lawyer.
- It was undisputed that Ganesan did not ask Prier to commit the killings herself; he asked her to locate someone else.
- A jury convicted Ganesan of two counts of criminal solicitation of capital murder and assessed concurrent ten-year sentences; he appealed on solicitation sufficiency and accomplice-witness corroboration.

## Issues

1. Whether requesting that Prier procure someone else to commit murder constituted criminal solicitation under Texas Penal Code § 15.03(a), rather than a non-offense “solicitation of a preparatory offense” barred by Texas Penal Code § 15.05.
2. Whether, treating Prier as an accomplice (or possible accomplice), independent evidence sufficiently corroborated her testimony as to each charged solicitation under Texas Code of Criminal Procedure art. 38.14, particularly the alleged solicitation to kill Amy Wright.

## Decision

- The court held that asking Prier to procure a killer could constitute criminal solicitation because the requested conduct would make Prier a party to the murders under Texas law.
- The court affirmed the conviction for solicitation to kill Vallabhaneni, finding legally sufficient evidence and adequate independent corroboration tending to connect Ganesan to that solicitation.
- The court reversed and rendered an acquittal on the conviction for solicitation to kill Wright because non-accomplice evidence did not sufficiently corroborate Prier’s testimony as to that distinct offense.

## Legal Principles

- Texas Penal Code § 15.03(a) is satisfied if the defendant, with the requisite intent, requests or attempts to induce another to engage in specific conduct that would constitute the felony or make the other a party to its commission, as the defendant believes the circumstances to be.
- A request that another person recruit or employ a killer may qualify as solicitation when the recruited conduct would render the intermediary a party to the murder; it is not categorically insulated as “solicitation of a preparatory offense” under § 15.05.
- Under Texas Code of Criminal Procedure art. 38.14, a conviction may not rest on accomplice testimony unless corroborated by other evidence that tends to connect the defendant with the offense; evidence that merely shows an offense occurred is insufficient.
- Corroboration must be offense-specific; evidence corroborating a plan against one victim does not necessarily corroborate an alleged plan against a different victim.

## Conclusion

The court concluded that soliciting an intermediary to procure a killer can constitute criminal solicitation because the intermediary’s procurement would make the intermediary a party to the murder, but it required independent, offense-specific corroboration of accomplice testimony—sustaining the wife-related conviction while acquitting on the attorney-related count for lack of corroboration.


Ganesan v. State, 45 S.W.3d 197 (Tex. App.—Austin 2001)