A Texas man faces execution Thursday despite arguing that he did not pull the trigger in a double murder and that he was sentenced to die based on explicit rap lyrics.
James Broadnax, 37, was convicted of shooting and killing Stephen Swan and Matthew Butler in 2008. However, Broadnax's co-defendant and cousin, Demarius Cummings, confessed in March that he actually was the shooter, not Broadnax, ABC News noted. Cummings is currently serving a life sentence.
Broadnax's attorneys have also claimed racial bias in his sentencing, noting that he was sentenced to death by a predominantly white jury and that prosecutors used Broadnax's explicit rap lyrics against him.
"During sentencing, the State relied on rap lyrics Mr. Broadnax had composed to prove that he had a dangerous future propensity to commit criminal acts," his attorneys wrote in an appeal that was eventually rejected by the U.S. Supreme Court.
"By the State's telling, because Mr. Broadnax engaged in a particular genre of artistic expression ("gangsta rap"), and "gangster" (the jury was encouraged to surmise) should be equated with 'dangerous,'" his attorneys wrote in the appeal.
As for the new evidence involving his cousin, courts ruled that evidence should have been raised sooner in the process, the Austin American-Statesman reported. In rejecting it, the court pointed out that Broadnax had confessed to the killings, including to the media, and had not retracted those comments for 16 years, the newspaper reported.
The newspaper reported that several nationally known rappers, including Houston's Travis Scott, filed briefs to the court supporting Broadnax and challenging the use of rap lyrics as evidence in his sentencing.
"A jury was told that it should sentence Mr. Broadnax to death because he had a 'gangster mentality,' evidenced by the fact that he wrote lyrics in the style of 'gangsta rap,' and 'the root word of gangster rap is gangster.' But engaging in rap music should not be a death sentence. A lack of proper safeguards around protected speech risks criminalizing the genre altogether," Broadnax's attorney's stated in their appeal.
Broadnax will be executed Thursday, barring a last-minute intervention by a court or the governor. The American-Statesman reported that he will be the third execution in Texas this year.
