James Broadnax Executed After Cousin Confesses To Being The Shooter 

On Thursday evening, James Broadnax was executed by the state of Texas despite his cousin, Demarius Cummings, confessing that he was the one who actually killed the two men Broadnax was accused of killing.  

The Texas Tribune reports that the 37-year-old was pronounced dead at 6:47 p.m., with his execution via lethal injection occurring only hours after the U.S. Supreme Court denied his final appeal. Broadnax’s final words were a plea for forgiveness from the victims’ families as well as a declaration of his innocence. “I wish I could show them my soul, so they could see just how sorry I am. I am very much remorseful for everything that happened,” Broadnax said. 

“I prayed to God for your forgiveness. Despite what you think about me, I hope to God that prayer was answered. But no matter what you think about me, Texas got it wrong. I’m innocent, the facts of my case should speak for itself period.” 

In 2008, Broadnax and Cummings were arrested for the robbery and murder of music producers Matthew Butler, 28, and Stephen Swan, 26. Broadnax was only 19 at the time of the crime and was high on PCP when authorities arrested him. He said he was still high on the drug when he admitted to killing the two men in a televised jailhouse interview. Cummings was given a life sentence while Broadnax was sentenced to death. 

In March, Cummings signed a sworn declaration admitting that he was the one who killed Butler and Swan. “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. He added that he convinced Broadnax to admit to the crime because he had no criminal record and didn’t want to take the fall. 

Broadnax’s attorneys argued that Cummings confession was “corroborated by the fact that his DNA, and not Mr. Broadnax’s, was found on the murder weapon and in the pocket of one of the victims.” Despite Broadnax recanting his confession, Cummings admitting he was the shooter, and DNA evidence corroborating that confession, the Texas Attorney General’s Office dismissed Cummings’ confession as “questionable new evidence,” and the Supreme Court struck down his appeal. 

Between letting Broadnax die and gutting the Voting Rights Act, the Supreme Court is really telling Black America how it feels about us this week. 

The death of James Broadnax only further proves how little the U.S. justice system values Black lives. Josie Pickens recently wrote an op-ed for NewsOne where she spotlighted how the prosecution used rap lyrics Broadnax wrote as a teenager as evidence that he committed the crime. 

“Forty pages of handwritten rhymes—the aspirations of a teenager mimicking the stories he’d heard in his headphones—became the catalyst for a death sentence,” Pickens writes. “According to The Marshall Project, the jury asked for those notebooks twice during deliberations. They returned with a death sentence that same day– a clear example of what a state-sponsored fear of Black imagination looks like in real time.”  

We really live in a country where the courts will put more stock in some teenage rap lyrics over DNA evidence.

SEE ALSO:

James Broadnax: When A Poem Becomes A Death Warrant

Never Forget When Georgia Executed Troy Davis