{"id":339384,"date":"2026-03-10T21:00:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-10T21:00:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/339384\/"},"modified":"2026-03-10T21:00:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-10T21:00:08","slug":"travis-scott-young-thug-petition-supreme-court-over-use-of-rap-lyrics-in-death-sentence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/339384\/","title":{"rendered":"Travis Scott, Young Thug Petition Supreme Court Over Use of Rap Lyrics in Death Sentence"},"content":{"rendered":"

Travis Scott<\/a>, Young Thug<\/a>, Killer Mike<\/a>, and a number of other artists and scholars have petitioned the Supreme Court to halt the execution of James Garfield Broadnax, a 19-year-old Black man whose rap lyrics were used in his sentencing. In Scott\u2019s brief<\/a>, he argues that the lyrics\u2019 inclusion not only violates Broadnax\u2019s First Amendment rights, but that \u201ctaking rap music out of context subjects the entire genre to prosecution.\u201d<\/p>\n

In 2009, a Texas court convicted Broadnax of killing two people during a robbery near the city of Garland. After his conviction by a primarily white jury, prosecutors introduced 40 pages of Broadnax\u2019s handwritten lyrics into evidence. The jury reviewed the documents twice and moved to sentence Broadnax to death over life without parole, per the New York Times<\/a>. In February, Broadnax\u2019s legal team filed a brief<\/a> calling for a \u201cWrit of Certiorari,\u201d which would mandate SCOTUS to review the lower court\u2019s decision. Broadnax\u2019s execution is scheduled for April 30.<\/p>\n

Scott filed his supporting brief with SCOTUS on March 9. \u201cThe prosecutors argued Mr. Broadnax was likely to be dangerous in the future simply because he engaged in \u2018gangster rap,\u2019\u201d Scott\u2019s brief notes. \u201cSuch an argument functionally operates as a categorical and straightforwardly unconstitutional content-based penalty on rap music as a form of expression.\u201d The brief, which cites reporting on the issue from the Fader<\/a>, Complex<\/a>, the New Yorker<\/a>, and more, urges SCOTUS to \u201cclarify the constitutional limits\u201d of using \u201cprotected artistic expression as evidence of criminal propensity.\u201d<\/p>\n

Killer Mike and additional artists state in a separate brief, also filed on March 9, that Broadnax\u2019s lyrics were irrelevant to his trial, as they were not cited during arguments over his guilt and were not introduced until the sentencing phase. \u201cThis case exemplifies the racial prejudice that infects a criminal proceeding when the State uses a defendant\u2019s rap lyrics to capitalize on anti-rap bias, the misinterpretation of rap lyrics, and anti-Black bias triggered by rap music,\u201d the filing reads.<\/p>\n

Killer Mike has worked on similar briefs before. In 2015<\/a>, he filed a brief in support of a high-school student who was suspended over the lyrics of a song he wrote\u2014SCOTUS ultimately declined to hear the case. Killer Mike, Chance the Rapper<\/a>, Meek Mill<\/a>, 21 Savage<\/a>, and more also collaborated on a brief tied to the 2019 trial<\/a> of Jamal Knox, a Pennsylvania rapper who was charged with terroristic threats and witness intimidation over song lyrics. In that case, SCOTUS ruled that Knox\u2019s lyrics were not protected by the First Amendment.<\/p>\n

The use of rap lyrics in criminal trials has become a key topic of debate in recent years, most prominently in a 56-count indictment<\/a> brought against Young Thug and his Young Stoner Life (YSL) collective over RICO Act violations. In 2022, the New York State Senate passed a bill<\/a> that limited how prosecutors can use song lyrics and other forms of \u201ccreative expression\u201d as evidence in criminal cases. The same year, a similar bill<\/a> in California became law. A federal bill on the topic, the RAP Act<\/a>, was reintroduced to Congress in 2023, but has yet to pass.<\/p>\n

Revisit Marc Hogan\u2019s feature What Young Thug and Gunna\u2019s Indictment Means for Rap Music on Trial<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Travis Scott, Young Thug, Killer Mike, and a number of other artists and scholars have petitioned the Supreme…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":339385,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[93,61,60,2900,278],"class_list":["post-339384","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-legal","tag-music"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/339384","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=339384"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/339384\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/339385"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=339384"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=339384"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=339384"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}