Just six weeks before James Broadnax faces execution for the 2008 fatal shooting of two Christian music producers in Garland, his cousin has claimed he killed them.
Broadnax, now 37, was convicted in Dallas County in 2009 for robbing, shooting and killing Stephen Swan and Matthew Butler.
He is scheduled to be executed by lethal injection on April 30.
His cousin, Demarius Cummings, has confessed in a sworn statement that he pulled the trigger.
"When [his lawyer] 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 two victims," Cumming's confession reads.
Both of them high on PCP and marijuana, Cummings says he convinced his 19-year-old cousin to take the blame.
His statement claims that he and Broadnax agreed to tell the story that Broadnax was the shooter because he did not have a prior criminal record. Cummings did.
So they lied to police and the media.
Then, at age 19, Broadnax had told KXAS-TV, NBC in an interview from jail that he was ready to face any justice.
Both convicted men would remain eligible for a capital murder charge. A sentence of death penalty or life in prison are the only options.
"I have always maintained that James was the one who shot Mr. Swan and Mr. Butler," Cummings states in the confession. "But the fact that James received a death sentence for these crimes, while I was the one who shot the victims, has been weighing on my conscience, particularly as I have become more spiritual during my years in prison."
Broadnax's lawyers said they would likely fight the "law of parties" rule that makes anyone associated with the same crime subject to the same charges.
Lawyers for Broadnax are asking the Dallas County District Attorney's office to vacate the execution date, and for the state court of appeals to pause the date.
Cummings, also now 37, was sentenced to life in prison in 2011 in Dallas County.
He is currently serving his capital murder punishment in Tennessee Colony, Texas.
"My hope is that James will not be executed for committing acts that he did not do," his signed statemen reads. "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."
The legal team, led by Steven Herzog, filed Supreme Court appeals within the last month hoping to temporarily stop the execution and have time to more carefully review evidence and procedures from the trial, said media representative Allen Ripp of New York.
Craig Watkins was Dallas County's Criminal District Attorney during the trial, but current DA John Creuzot and assistant DA Michelle O'Brien Yeatts filed a brief to the Supreme Court opposing the request to pause the execution.
The Supreme Court appeal filing says characterizing Broadnax's lyrics as "gangster rap" was racially biased.
Texas rapper Travis Scott and Young Thug are among 30 artists, activists and actors who have asked the U.S. Supreme Court to pause the state's death row execution.
People may not understand that musicians' rap lyrics are not necessarily realistic, according to the Supreme Court brief filed on behalf of Houston rapper Travis Scott.
“Judges and jurors unfamiliar with the genre may not know to separate a rapper’s actual life from the pop culture image he or she seeks to project as an artist, just as implicit bias may encourage associations grounded in racial stereotypes between genre and artist,” the brief reads.
It also includes an excerpt from artist and music executive Jay-Z's 2010 memoir, "Decoded."
“[t]he art of rap is deceptive," he said in the book. "It seems so straightforward and personal and real that people read it completely literally, as raw testimony or autobiography.”
Lawyers say Broadnax's civil rights were violated during trial because Black jurors were excluded from serving.
Got a tip? Email Marina Trahan Martinez at mmartinez@kera.org. You can follow Marina at @HisGirlHildy.
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