A British law graduate screamed “I love you” and threw herself against the glass of the execution chamber as her husband was put to death in Texas on Thursday evening, in a case that has raised profound questions about racial bias in the American justice system and the use of rap lyrics as evidence in capital trials.
Tiana Krasniqi, 31, from Lewisham in south-east London, had to be helped out of the Huntsville state penitentiary after watching James Broadnax, 37, receive a lethal injection at 6.47pm CDT. She had married him just days earlier in a brief ceremony behind glass at the Allan B. Polunsky Unit — a marriage with no physical contact, conducted under Texas rules prohibiting any touch between death row inmates and visitors.
In a TikTok post after the execution, Tiana — originally from Kosovo and a mother of one — wrote: “They killed my husband. My husband suffered so bad from the lethal injection that he had a nose bleed and bruising on his neck. The families laughed as they watched. Is that justice?”
Broadnax was convicted of the 2008 shooting deaths of Stephen Swan and Matthew Butler in a car park outside Butler’s recording studio in Garland, near Dallas. His cousin Demarius Cummings, who was also charged in connection with the murders, received life without parole. Prosecutors said Broadnax confessed to the killings and gave jailhouse interviews in which he said “I pulled the trigger” and expressed no remorse.
But the final weeks before his execution were marked by escalating legal challenges and mounting controversy. Cummings — who received the lesser sentence — recently recorded a video confession from prison stating: “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 and Steve Swan.” Broadnax’s attorneys pointed out that Cummings’ DNA, and not Broadnax’s, was found on the murder weapon and in the pocket of one of the victims. Despite this, the US Supreme Court denied a last-minute application to halt the execution on Thursday.
His legal team also raised serious concerns about the conduct of his original trial, alleging that prosecutors had used a spreadsheet to identify and dismiss all seven potential Black jurors, with one later reinstated. Broadnax, who was Black, was ultimately tried before a near-entirely white jury. The allegation engages a well-established constitutional principle — the Supreme Court ruled in 1986 in Batson v. Kentucky that removing jurors on the basis of race violated the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment.
The prosecution’s use of Broadnax’s rap lyrics during sentencing drew further criticism. Jurors requested to see approximately 40 pages of his rap writings twice before determining that he was of “future dangerousness” — the legal threshold required to impose the death penalty in Texas. A-list artists including Travis Scott, T.I. and Killer Mike filed briefs at the Supreme Court supporting his appeal, arguing that using rap lyrics as evidence of violent character was constitutionally problematic.
Tiana had told ITV’s This Morning earlier this month that she had received no support from her family or friends over the relationship. “Nobody is happy, it’s not your typical, conventional relationship,” she said. “Nobody is going to understand it, but it’s okay.” She met Broadnax in 2024 while researching racial disparities in the American justice system for her Master’s degree in International Human Rights at the University of Law, reached out to him as part of her research and the pair quickly developed a relationship through email and hours of daily phone calls. She travelled to Texas last year to meet him in person, spending 90 days visiting before they married.
In his final statement, Broadnax maintained his innocence. “Texas got it wrong. I’m innocent, the facts of my case should speak for itself. Period,” he said. As the sedative pentobarbital took effect, his last audible words to his supporters were: “Don’t give up.”
He was pronounced dead 21 minutes after the injection began. He was the third person executed in Texas this year and the tenth in the United States.
Theresa Butler, mother of victim Matthew Butler, had opposed any delay. “This so-called confession from Cummings is just a stall tactic by Broadnax’s desperate defence team,” she wrote on social media. “It’s all a lie.”
