By: SourceStaff
Young Thug, Fat Joe, Travis Scott, Killer Mike and several other hip hop legends have intervened in a death penalty case from Texas, filing “friend of the court” briefs to the U.S. Supreme Court to stay the imminent execution of James Broadnax, who was sentenced to death based on the contents of rap lyrics that he wrote and posted to social media.
Broadnax, a Black man, was tried for the murders of two white men during a 2008 robbery in Garland, Texas. He was convicted of both murders in 2009. In a separate proceeding to determine whether he should receive the death penalty rather than a life sentence without parole, the prosecutors showed the jury 40 pages of Broadnax’s handwritten rap lyrics and characterized them as a critical piece of evidence to determine whether he should be executed. During deliberations, the nearly all-white jury asked twice to see the lyric sheets, and ultimately sentenced him to death due to the subject matter of the lyrics.
Broadnax’s lawyers have now filed a petition with the U.S. Supreme Court, asking the Court to stay his execution in April and to hear his appeal. They have argued that allowing prosecutors to introduce evidence of rap lyrics that exploit racial stereotypes and turn artistic expression into a basis to impose the death penalty is a violation of the Constitution.
Mr. Broadnax has received support from several heavyweights in the hip-hop world. On March 9, Killer Mike, Young Thug, Fat Joe, T.I., and N.O.R.E., together with Howard University faculty member Erik Nielson, filed an amicus brief in support of Broadnax. In the brief, they accused the prosecutors of using Broadnax’s artistic expression to stoke racial and anti-rap bias, identified a judicial and legislative trend toward prohibiting use of rap lyrics as criminal evidence, and pointed out that the fact that the prosecutors had not used the lyrics in to prove his guilt was an admission that they were not relevant to the case, and should not have been introduced at all. The brief further explains how “[j]udges 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.”
Travis Scott filed a separate brief in support, in which he argued that a death sentence based on protected artistic expression was a violation of due process and the First Amendment.
Broadnax’s attorney Chad Baruch, who filed the brief on behalf of Killer Mike and the others, characterized the use of the lyrics to impose the death penalty as “incredibly disturbing.” “If Johnny Cash had been accused of murdering his neighbor, no judge in America would have allowed the prosecution to introduce a video of him singing about shooting a man in Reno just to watch him die,” he said. “And no one would even be asking the question as to why we exclude that. Everyone in America will understand, ‘Yeah, that’s not actual evidence that he committed this crime.’ But that’s what happened in this case. We have the justice system blessing this practice when it comes to rap, when it would never be tolerated with any other artistic expression.”
Broadnax is scheduled to be executed by lethal injection on April 30. Typically, the Supreme Court will issue its decision on a stay of execution close to the scheduled date. His request for an emergency stay will be initially received by the Supreme Court Justice assigned to judicial circuit the request originates from – in this case, Justice Alito, who is assigned to the Fifth Circuit, which includes Texas. While the assigned Justice may grant, deny, or refer an emergency stay to the entire Court, typically capital applications are referred to the full Court. A majority of the Court – five Justices, is required to grant an emergency stay.