A court has rejected a last-minute appeal from death row inmate James Broadnax, declining to consider a confession from his cousin in a 2008 Garland double killing.
Broadnax 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 asked 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, but the court denied the request.
