Texas Set to Execute James Broadnax as Appeals Fail Amid Disputed Confession

A 37-year-old Texas man will be executed today as his last-minute appeals for clemency were denied this week, nearly 20 years after the murders of two men outside of a recording studio in the city of Garland.

The U.S. Supreme Court denied James Broadnax's petition for a stay of execution on Monday. A day later, the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles unanimously voted against a similar reprieve. He will become the third and likely final person to be executed in Texas in 2026.

In June 2008, Broadnax said that he and his cousin, Demarius Cummings, both 19, set out to rob two men, Christian music producers Matt Butler and Steve Swan. Cummings has told the police that the heist was his plan and that he obtained the gun. Cummings has said that he gunned down the two men, not Broadnax.

“I persuaded James to take the blame for shooting the two victims. In fact, I was the one who shot the two victims, not James,” Cummings said in a court declaration made this year.

“I’m really gonna tell it like it’s supposed to be told, that it was me, that I was the killer. I shot Matthew Bullard, Steve Swann,” he added.

Broadnax’s attorneys say in filings with the high court that Cummings’ confession is “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.”

The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals held that this confession could not be considered on procedural grounds because it would have needed to have been introduced earlier as evidence.

Cummings is serving life in prison for his part in the crime. Broadnax previously confessed to the shooting in an interview with CBS

News anchor Steve Pickett. “I don’t think I got a conscience,” he said.

Broadnax has been on death row since 2009 following a conviction for first-degree murder. Clemency decisions are rare in Texas, with only three being given since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976.

His lawyers have also argued that he was a victim of racism during his trial, as he was convicted by a nearly all-white jury. His team has dismissed his public confessions as being due to drugs and mental health issues.

Broadnax said his confession was false because, at the time, he didn’t care about his life. He also apologized to the families of Butler and Swan for taking part in the robbery.

“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.

Attorneys have also said that prosecutors used “racially inflammatory” actions during the trial by reading out rap lyrics that Broadnax had written. Rapper Travis Scott has filed a brief in the case condemning the use of lyrics as evidence.

Texas Democrat John Bucy has called Broadnax’s trial “racially charged” and “biased.”

During Cummings’ separate trial, victim Steve Swan’s mother, Jean, addressed the court saying, “He was a brilliant young man. He was an engineer and he was a musician. "It's hard to say how good he was.” The Swan family had said that they would have liked to see Cummings face death penalty charges in the case too.

The Texas Attorney General’s Office has described Cummings’ confession as the shooter as “questionable new evidence.” It also said in court documents that Broadnax’s claims that potential Black jurors were targeted for removal are “entirely meritless” as these jurors were stricken not because of race but because of their answers during questioning, including that some opposed the death penalty.

Theresa Butler, Matthew Butler’s mother, has asked that the execution proceed.

“This so called confession from cummings is just a stall tactic by broadnax’s desperate defense team. Its all a lie,” Butler wrote in a post on social media.

About an hour before Broadnax's scheduled execution on Thursday, Florida is set to put to death James Ernest Hitchcock, 70, for beating and choking his 13-year-old step-niece to death.