Texas plans to kill James Broadnax at the end of this month despite the fact that Broadnax’s cousin, Demarius Cummings, admitted he shot Matthew Butler and Stephen Swan during a robbery in 2008, not Broadnax.
Broadnax filed an appeal this month that includes a signed confession by Cummings admitting to the 2008 robbery and murder that Broadnax was convicted of committing. Cummings is currently serving a life without parole sentence for his role in the murders. According to the Texas Tribune, Cummings convinced Broadnax to confess to killing the 26-year-old Swan and 28-year-old Butler because Broadnax didn’t have a criminal history, while Cummings did. And, while the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals found that DNA evidence on the gun and on one of the victims was Cummings’, the court inexplicably found that this evidence wasn’t enough to overcome the procedural hurdles to review the case and refused to grant a stay of execution, which is scheduled for April 30.
This case has had serious flaws from the start. According to the Texas Observer, prosecutors struck every Black potential juror “until the trial judge defied protocol and reinstated one of the other previously struck Black jurors.” Broadnax is Black.
During the punishment phase, prosecutors then introduced into evidence photos and notebooks featuring rap lyrics that included references to murder and robbery that Broadnax, now 37, had written as a teenager. “James was just 19 years old at the time of the crime and had no history of violence, but during the sentencing phase of the trial, prosecutors also introduced rap lyrics a teenaged James had written, describing them as ‘gangster rap’ and claiming they were his ‘self-admission’ of his criminal ‘mentality’ in their effort to persuade jurors he would be a continuing threat to society,” the Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty stated on its petition to stop the execution. The almost all-white jury voted for death.
Last week, Broadnax’s lawyers filed an appeal with the U.S. Supreme Court, asking the Court to consider whether the fact that Broadnax was not convicted based on the Texas Law of Parties, which allows a person to be charged for murder if they didn’t kill anyone, but assisted or aids the person who did commit the crime, means his execution should be stayed, the Texas Observerver reported.