Broadnax, 37, is scheduled to be put to death by lethal injection April 30 in Huntsville. He was condemned by a Dallas County jury in 2009 for the deaths of Stephen Swan, 26, and Matthew Butler, 28, outside their Garland music studio. Broadnax and his cousin, Demarius Cummings, had set out to rob the men, but left with only $2 and a 1995 Ford, according to previous reporting from The Dallas Morning News.
Broadnax and Cummings, both 19 at the time of the robbery, were convicted of capital murder in separate trials. Broadnax, who was tried as the triggerman, was sentenced to death, while Cummings, who was tried as his accomplice, was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
The United States Supreme Court on Monday denied two of Broadnax's appeals, one pertaining the use of rap lyrics as evidence and another regarding allegations that prosecutors struck prospective Black jurors from serving at his capital murder trial, according to court documents.
The court has yet to file a response on a signed confession from Cummings.
Lyrics
Broadnax, a Black man, has long argued his capital murder trial violated his constitutional rights, namely the 14th Amendment's guarantees of equal protection and due process.
Earlier this year before the United States Supreme Court, Broadnax contested the use of more than 40 pages of rap lyrics as evidence he presented a future danger. In the filing, Dallas appellate attorney Chad Baruch noted the jury asked to review his lyrics twice during deliberations - once just hours before sentencing him to die.
Among the lyrics read in court were: Hold up. Stop and rewind. A little story while I'm in this bitch. Yeah, I hit the lick. I got 2 murder charges on me. I might just go to the Judge and tell him I'm going to merk him, because I'm J.B.
"If that's not the sign of a psychopathic killer, I don't know what is, folks," the prosecutor said, according to court documents.
In an amicus brief backed by more than 30 artists, scholars and music industry leaders, including Killer Mike, Young Thug, T.I., Anthony Anderson and Kevin Liles, Baruch said the lyrics were "irrelevant" and lacked any "factual nexus to the case." He also argued prosecutors urged the jury to consider the lyrics as literal rather than metaphoric expressions.
"The State used Broadnax's artistic expression to portray him as young Black super-predator without redeeming qualities who must be executed to protect the community," the brief read. "The State's use of Broadnax's artistic expression to trigger racial and anti-rap fears and biases was a dangerous circumvention of constitutional guarantees that must not be allowed to stand."
Jury
When Broadnax was convicted in 2009, it was at the hands of a nearly all-white jury, a circumstance his lawyers argue was “no coincidence.”
According to court documents, files shared by the state after trial showed that prosecutors listed and tracked prospective jurors by race in a spreadsheet, and bolded the names of those who were Black. On one jury questionnaire referenced in the filing, a prosecutor wrote that the “only concern” with an otherwise qualified juror was their race.
Broadnax has tried to argue this was unconstitutional before, but the state responded that the spreadsheet was made to prepare for a Batson hearing, a court proceeding held during jury selection to determine if a lawyer struck potential jurors solely based on race, ethnicity, or sex. The appeals court denied Broadnax relief.
Broadnax’s lawyers, however, say they have since discovered a similar chart for jurors was made for Cummings’ trial — despite the fact there was no Batson motion during his proceedings. The chart, they said, marked each potential juror's race and gender by hand.
"The fact that the State prepared such documents, purposefully and on its own account in both Mr. Broadnax's and Mr. Cummings' cases, can only be explained by a conscious practice by the State to select prospective jurors based on race," an appeal reads.
Confession
In a declaration he signed on March 11, Cummings said that he was the gunman who killed both Swan and Butler during the robbery, not Broadnax.
Cummings said he persuaded his cousin to take the blame because he had already been convicted of other crimes, including burglaries, while Broadnax had no record other than a charge for marijuana possession.
"I want to clear my conscience and do not want James to be executed for shooting two people when I was the one who committed those acts," Cummings said. "It was my decision to come clean."
It’s a critical distinction. Broadnax wasn’t tried under Texas’ law of parties, which states a co-defendant involved in a crime that results in a murder can be held equally responsible, even if they weren't involved in the actual killing.
Because Broadnax was tried as the shooter, his lawyers said the jury was never instructed to consider a requirement for pursuing the death penalty against an accomplice: Finding, beyond a reasonable doubt, that the defendant "intended to kill the deceased or another, or anticipated that a human life would be taken."
The confession was included in an appeal sent last month to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals. It was denied April 7.
Source: Dallas Morning News, Staff, April 28, 2026
"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted."
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted."
— Oscar Wilde
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