One by one, legal options to postpone James Broadnax's execution are dwindling — with very little time left before his scheduled lethal injection.
Hours before the sentence was scheduled to be carried out two chances in the Dallas County 2008 capital murder case remained.
Broadnax's legal team on Tuesday requested from Texas Governor Greg Abbott a 30-day reprieve.
Attorneys could learn the response when the public does, not before.
Broadnax, now 37, is scheduled to be executed at 6 p.m. Thursday in Huntsville, Texas for robbing, shooting and killing Christian music producers Stephen Swan and Matthew Butler in Garland in 2008.
He was convicted in 2009.
His cousin, Demarius Cummings, recently confessed to being the shooter.
The U.S. Supreme Court had not yet issued a decision on one last appeal to pause the execution late Wednesday.
Broadnax, 37, made two appeals to the Supreme Court to halt his execution: one alleging the use of rap lyrics as evidence against Broadnax during trial was unconstitutional, and another arguing prosecutors struck Black prospective jurors from the selection pool, resulting in a nearly all-white jury.
"James continues to maintain faith and stoicism and belief that his case will still have a chance to be heard and that his life will be spared," said Allan Ripp, a spokesperson for Broadnax's legal team.
Still pending is Broadnax's appeal after Cummings confessed in a sworn statement last month that he convinced Broadnax, then 19, to take the blame for the shooting while they were both high on PCP and marijuana. Cummings decided to come clean after finding out two months ago that Broadnax was scheduled to die, he said.
The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals ruled earlier this month it would not consider the confession as a reason to pause Broadnax's execution.
Broadnax, who is Black, alleged in Supreme Court filings that prosecutors using his lyrics as evidence in the sentencing phase of his trial and characterizing the music as "gangster rap" was racially biased. The issue attracted support from rappers like Young Thug and Travis Scott, the latter of whom wrote in an amicus brief that lyrics in the genre shouldn't always be interpreted literally.
Sheri Johnson, a Cornell Law School professor has consulted on Broadnax's case.
She said using his lyrics as evidence underscores the significance of Black prospective jurors allegedly being struck from the pool because of their race.
"There are obvious reasons for the state engaging in jury selection discrimination," Johnson said. "And that's that they made racially inflammatory arguments in the process of the trial — arguments that would have been more attractive to white jurors than to Black jurors."
Separated by a clear panel, Broadnax married Tiana Krasniqi, a British-based law school graduate, on April 14 at the Allan B. Polunsky Unit in Livingston, Texas
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