Rapper on Death Row: Rap Lyrics Used as Evidence

0:00On April 1st, James Broadnex has spent over 16 years on death row in Texas, convicted as a 19-year-old of capital murder in a robbery that killed two men back in 2007. Prosecutors used 40 pages of his teenage rap lyrics to argue he was a future danger, weeding violent lines in court while skipping his peaceful. Once, that sealed his death sentence and now he's scheduled for execution on April 30th. The trial had issues from the start, like prosecutors striking black jurors until the judge fixed it. Broadnex had no serious record before, just a minor weed charge and a rough childhood with abuse. But the jury fixated on those notebooks, asking to see them twice before voting death. Now heavy hitters in a rap are fighting back. Kevin Laos from Def Jam and artists like Young Thug, Killer Mike, TI, and Fat Joe, filed an amicus brief to the Supreme Court, comparing rap to, Johnny Cash singing about shooting a man without it being evidence.

1:00Experts say this only happens to rap, pointing to racial bias since the 90s. On top of that, his cousin who got life swore in March. He alone pulled the trigger, backed by DNA on the gun and closed matching only him, not Broadnex. Lawyers won a new trial, claiming the jury never would have gone death without thinking Broadnex was the shooter. As appeals push forward, Broadnex writes spoken word poetry from his tiny cell to cope, dreaming of sunlight while facing the end. His UK lawyer fiance plans a wedding through glass on April 14th, but the clock ticks toward Huntsville.