{"id":70578,"date":"2026-04-01T07:02:55","date_gmt":"2026-04-01T12:02:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/2026\/04\/01\/prosecutors-used-hip-hop-lyrics-to-help-sentence-a-man-to-death-this-only-happens-to-rap-music\/"},"modified":"2026-04-01T07:02:55","modified_gmt":"2026-04-01T12:02:55","slug":"prosecutors-used-hip-hop-lyrics-to-help-sentence-a-man-to-death-this-only-happens-to-rap-music","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/2026\/04\/01\/prosecutors-used-hip-hop-lyrics-to-help-sentence-a-man-to-death-this-only-happens-to-rap-music\/","title":{"rendered":"Prosecutors used hip-hop lyrics to help sentence a man to death: \u2018This only happens to rap music\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>James Broadnax was a teenager when a jury convicted him of capital murder, with his rap lyrics presented as evidence he posed a threat of \u2018future dangerousness\u2019 <\/p>\n<p>James Broadnax has been locked up in a 6ft-by-10ft cell on death row in Texas for more than 16 years, and in that time he has developed coping mechanisms for passing the long and desolate days.<\/p>\n<p>A favourite technique is to write spoken word poetry at his cell desk. He becomes so engrossed in the creative process that he can lose himself for hours, transfixed in what he calls a \u201ctime gap\u201d. In one of his recent poems, featured in a short death row documentary, <a href=\"https:\/\/vimeo.com\/215076222\/c3f6525a94?&amp;signup=true#_=_\">Solitary Minds<\/a>, Broadnax, who is 37, describes how he writes:<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/us-news\/ng-interactive\/2026\/apr\/01\/capital-punishment-hip-hop-rap-lyrics\">Continue reading&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>James Broadnax was a teenager when a jury convicted him of capital murder, with his rap lyrics presented as evidence he posed a threat of \u2018future dangerousness\u2019 James Broadnax has been locked up in a 6ft-by-10ft cell on death row in Texas for more than 16 years, and in that time he has developed coping &#8230; <a title=\"Prosecutors used hip-hop lyrics to help sentence a man to death: \u2018This only happens to rap music\u2019\" class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/2026\/04\/01\/prosecutors-used-hip-hop-lyrics-to-help-sentence-a-man-to-death-this-only-happens-to-rap-music\/\" aria-label=\"Read more about Prosecutors used hip-hop lyrics to help sentence a man to death: \u2018This only happens to rap music\u2019\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_hide_featured_image":false,"_jetpack_featured_image_duplicate_dismissed":0,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-70578","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70578","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=70578"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70578\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=70578"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=70578"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=70578"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}