A mother on death row in Texas for the murder of her daughter, who she says she did not commit, asked Gov. Greg Abbott to give her mercy as her execution date wears off.
Melissa Lucio was sentenced to death in 2008 after being convicted of killing her two-year-old child Mariah a year earlier.
In February 2007, Mariah died of injuries sustained by prosecutors alleging that Lucio abused her daughter.
Lucio, now 53, has always maintained her innocence, saying that her daughter’s injuries were caused by a fall from the stairs two days earlier while the family was moving home.
The mother of 14, who is the first and only Hispanic woman in the death penalty in Texas, has been awaiting execution for the past 14 years for a crime she says she did not commit.
In just over a month, she was killed after the state of Texas set an execution date of April 27.
Lawyers for Lucio on Tuesday filed a motion for pardon with Republican Gov. Abbott and the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles, demanding their death sentence be commuted to a lesser sentence.
Alternatively, they are asking for a 120-day recovery from the execution so that more evidence can be gathered to prove that she was wrongfully convicted for her accidental death of her daughter.
Professor Sandra Babcock, one of Lucio’s lawyers and director of the Cornell Center on Death Penalty Worldwide, told a news conference on Tuesday that Lucio’s death sentence “shows that every innocent woman can be executed” in the state.
“Mariah’s death was a tragedy, not a murder,” she said.
Lawyers said the “only evidence” to convict Lucio was an unreliable “confession” gained during a five-hour interrogation with armed male police officers while she was pregnant with twins.
During the interrogation, Lucio asserted his innocence more than 100 times with the officers, according to the dismissal application.
But because of her history as a victim of sexual abuse and domestic violence in the actions of male officers, she was vulnerable to her “coercion,” they said.
Professor Babcock said officers “threatened her, punished her parents … repeatedly showed her pictures of her deceased child” and “extensively manipulated” her until she returned to her claims.
During the five-hour detention, Lucio finally admitted that she had beaten Mariah from time to time – a prosecuting attorney claiming a confession for her murder.
Social work records show that Lucio had no history of abusing her children.
Melissa Lucio with her daughters Mariah and Adriana
(Image courtesy of the Lucio family)
Meanwhile, two key witnesses for the defense were blocked to confirm during their trial that they had given male authority figures a false confession due to their history of abuse and low IQ.
In the dismissal application, Lucio’s legal team also stated that their conviction was based on “unscientific, false evidence that led the jury to believe that Mariah must have been killed by physical abuse, if the evidence was in fact consistent with a “Conclusion is that Mariah died from medical. Complications after a fall”.
The application pointed to new evidence that the jury did not hear, including assessments by two false confessional experts and testimony from medical experts who said Mariah’s injuries were possibly caused by a fall or an infection.
Several forensic experts, experts on false confessions, anti-domestic violence groups, religious groups and even five jurors who convicted Lucio in their trial have also joined in to get the 53-year-old dismissal.
The jurors – four on the panel and one alternative – have made statements that they are concerned about evidence that has been withheld from them in their trial and that they support the relief for the 53-year-old.
Lucio’s other children also sent letters urging the state of Texas to give birth to their mother.
Her lawyers said Lucio “holds” and is “mainly concerned about her children, her sisters, mother, her brother” with her execution date just 36 days away.
“They lived with this threat for 14 years after they had already lost Mariah from a tragic accident,” Professor Babcock said.
The application for skill comes after years of fighting to prove Lucio’s innocence.
In 2019, she was admitted to a new trial after an appeals court ruled that her rights had been violated during her trial.
But this was quickly abolished when the state of Texas filed a petition and a court stood by the side.
Last year, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected a request to hear Lucio’s case, which paved the way for Texas to set its execution date.
The Independent and the Nonprofit Responsible Business Initiative for Justice (RBIJ) have launched a joint campaign calling for an end to the death penalty in the United States. The RBIJ has attracted more than 150 notable signatories to its Business Leaders Declaration Against the Death Penalty – with The Independent as the last on the list. We join forces with high-profile executives such as Ariana Huffington, Facebook Sheryl Sandberg, and Virgin Group founder Sir Richard Branson as part of this initiative and make a promise to highlight the injustices of the death penalty in our coverage.
Add Comment