Texas | Death Row Prisoner Asks Courts to Intervene in Scheduled Execution as New Confession Raises Serious Doubt Over Original Conviction

James Broadnax, a Texas death-sen­tenced pris­on­er, is sched­uled to be exe­cut­ed on April 30, 2026. He was con­vict­ed in 2009 by a Dallas County jury for the mur­ders of two music pro­duc­ers, Stephen Swan and Matthew Butler, who were shot and killed out­side their record­ing stu­dio in 2008.

On March 19, 2026, a lit­tle more than a month before his sched­uled exe­cu­tion, attor­neys for Mr. Broadnax filed a new appeal and a sworn affi­davit from his code­fen­dant and cousin Demarius Cummings, in which Mr. Cummings admits that he, not Mr. Broadnax, shot the vic­tims. The new fil­ing asks the Texas courts to stay Mr. Broadnax’s exe­cu­tion date, to remand the case to the tri­al court, and to ulti­mate­ly vacate Mr. Broadnax’s death sentence.

“At Mr. Broadnax’s tri­al, the only direct evi­dence that the State had about him being the shoot­er was Mr. Broadnax’s media state­ments iden­ti­fy­ing him­self as the shoot­er. Those state­ments were inher­ent­ly unre­li­able giv­en Mr. Broadnax’s drug-induced state at the time of the offense and the severe psy­cho­log­i­cal dis­tress he was expe­ri­enc­ing when he gave those media state­ments — but now they have been proven to be entire­ly false by Mr. Cumming’s Declaration.” — Counsel for Mr. Broadnax in peti­tion filed in Dallas County and with the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals

Both Mr. Broadnax and Mr. Cummings were just 19 years old and intox­i­cat­ed at the time of the shoot­ing. They were arrest­ed short­ly after the shoot­ings and gave on-cam­era jail­house inter­views to local tele­vi­sion reporters. In his inter­view, Mr. Cummings expressed remorse and main­tained that he had not shot any­one. In his sep­a­rate inter­view, Mr. Broadnax stat­ed he alone fired the weapon. These inter­views became the foun­da­tion of the prosecution’s case. The men were tried sep­a­rate­ly, and Mr. Broadnax was sen­tenced to death in October 2009, with pros­e­cu­tors por­tray­ing him as the trig­ger­man. Mr. Cummings was sen­tenced to life in prison without parole.

In a signed dec­la­ra­tion dat­ed March 11, 2026, Mr. Cummings admits pub­licly for the first time that it was his idea to com­mit the rob­bery, that he obtained the pis­tol used in the shoot­ing, and that he was the per­son who fired the weapon. Mr. Cummings’ affi­davit out­lines the fact that he per­suad­ed Mr. Broadnax to take respon­si­bil­i­ty because he had pre­vi­ous­ly been con­vict­ed of bur­glar­ies, while Mr. Broadnax did not have a vio­lent record. Mr. Cummings writes that they ​“were both still high on PCP and mar­i­jua­na” when they ​“spoke about the sto­ry [they] would tell.” Noting he has met with Mr. Broadnax’s coun­sel sev­er­al times in the last decade, Mr. Cummings states he decid­ed to come for­ward after a February 20, 2026, vis­it with his cousin’s attor­ney, Steven Herzog, where he learned Mr. Broadnax’s exe­cu­tion date had been set. Mr. Cummings writes “[w]hen Mr. Herzog told me on February 20 that James was sched­uled to be exe­cut­ed on April 30, 2026, I decid­ed it was time to come clean, and I told him that it was me, and not James, who had shot the vic­tims.” He adds, ​“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. It was my deci­sion to come clean with the facts set forth above and sign this declaration.”

Mr. Cummings’ signed dec­la­ra­tion points to foren­sic evi­dence to cor­rob­o­rate his state­ments. A pros­e­cu­tion DNA expert tes­ti­fied at Mr. Broadnax’s 2009 tri­al that Mr. Broadnax’s DNA was not found on the trig­ger or the right grip of the gun used in the mur­ders. Mr. Cummings’ DNA was found on the weapon, and Mr. Broadnax’s legal team argues that this evi­dence, along­side the new con­fes­sion, com­plete­ly under­mines the the­o­ry that Mr. Broadnax was the shooter.

Texas’ law of par­ties holds that a defen­dant can be con­vict­ed of cap­i­tal mur­der and sen­tenced to death if they par­tic­i­pat­ed in a crime that result­ed in a killing, even with­out per­son­al­ly fir­ing the weapon. However, pros­e­cu­tors in Mr. Broadnax’scase pros­e­cut­ed him specif­i­cal­ly as the per­son who pulled the trig­ger, and the jury’s ver­dict was based on that the­o­ry. Mr. Broadnax’s attor­neys argue that, had the jury known of Mr. Cummings’ con­fes­sion, the case against Mr. Broadnax would have been sub­stan­tial­ly under­mined and like­ly would have result­ed in a dif­fer­ent out­come, giv­en the state’s deci­sion not­to charge him under the law of par­ties. The peti­tion filed with the TCCA states that ​“absent the false media con­fes­sions giv­en by Mr. Broadnax, the jury would be left with no basis on which to infer that Mr. Broadnax ever had the intent or antic­i­pa­tion that human life be tak­en when he joined the rob­bery Mr. Cummings initiated.”

Mr. Broadnax has a sep­a­rate appeal pend­ing before the United States Supreme Court, where his attor­neys con­tend that pros­e­cu­tors used racial­ly charged lan­guage and improp­er­ly relied on rap lyrics a teenaged Mr. Broadnax had writ­ten to argue he deserved a death sen­tence as a con­tin­u­ing dan­ger to soci­ety. In the fil­ing, his attor­neys remind the court that ther­ap lyrics were pre­sent­ed to a near­ly all-white jury, and note that rap lyrics are exclu­sive­ly used against Black defendants,while oth­er music and cre­ative expres­sions are not used against white defen­dants At tri­al, sev­en Black prospec­tive jurors were struck dur­ing voir dire. After the judge rein­stat­ed one of these jurors, the final jury was eleven white jurors and one Black juror. A spread­sheet cre­at­ed by the Dallas County District Attorney’s Office that iden­ti­fied the race and gen­der of venire mem­bers and bold­ed the names of prospec­tive Black jurors was wrong­ful­ly with­held as priv­i­leged work product,only becom­ing avail­able to the defense after the office revised its poli­cies and dis­closed it in post-conviction proceedings.

Prosecutors argued the spread­sheet was pre­pared in response to Batson chal­lenges brought by Mr. Broadnax’s tri­al coun­sel. However, Mr. Broadnax’s attor­neys recent­ly dis­cov­ered that a near­ly iden­ti­cal spread­sheet iden­ti­fy­ing the race of venire mem­bers was cre­at­ed for Mr. Cummings’ tri­al as well, which they argue under­mines the pros­e­cu­tions’ expla­na­tion for its exis­tence. During Mr. Cummings’ tri­al, there were no objec­tions raised regard­ing Batson claims. Prior to the dis­cov­ery of this new evi­dence, Mr. Broadnax’s post-con­vic­tion attor­neys had raised Batson claims, which were reject­ed in state court and denied cer­tio­rari by the Supreme Court. In an addi­tion­al fil­ing with the Supreme Court, coun­sel for Mr. Broadnax has asked the Court to deter­mine in light of this new evi­dence relat­ed to Mr. Cummings’ tri­al, whether the State’s engage­ment in the con­sid­er­a­tion of poten­tial jurors’ race dur­ing jury selec­tion vio­lates the Equal Protection Clause under Batson v. Kentucky (1986).

In February 2026, dozens of musi­cians, activists, and pub­lic fig­ures — includ­ing rap­per Travis Scott and artist Young Thug—filed ami­cus briefs with the Supreme Court in the rap lyrics appeal, argu­ing that the use of rap lyrics as evi­dence of future dan­ger­ous­ness reflects genre-based and racial assump­tions not applied uni­form­ly to oth­er forms of artis­tic expres­sion. Mr. Scott states the Court should inter­vene “[b]ecause rap often con­tains inflam­ma­to­ry mes­sages and is oth­er­wise often asso­ci­at­ed with cer­tain racial stereo­types, the invo­ca­tion of the genre as evi­dence against a crim­i­nal defen­dant is prone to mis­use as a means to taint the jury, regard­less of the actu­al con­tent of the lyrics.”

Source: DPIC, Hayley Bedard, March 31, 2026

"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted."

— Oscar Wilde

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