Throughout hours of relentless questioning, Melissa Lucio denied greater than 100 instances she had fatally crushed her two-year-old daughter.
However worn down from a lifetime of abuse and the grief of dropping her daughter Mariah, her legal professionals say, the Texas girl lastly acquiesced to investigators.
“I assume I did it,” Ms Lucio responded when requested if she was liable for a few of Mariah's accidents.
Her legal professionals say that assertion was wrongly interpreted by prosecutors as a homicide confession — tainting the remainder of the investigation into Mariah’s 2007 demise, with proof gathered solely to show that conclusion, and serving to result in her capital homicide conviction.
They contend Mariah died from accidents from a fall down the 14 steps of a steep staircase exterior the household’s condominium within the South Texas metropolis of Harlingen.
As her April 27 execution date nears, Ms Lucio’s legal professionals are hopeful that new proof, together with rising public assist — together with from jurors who now doubt the conviction and from greater than half the Texas Home of Representatives — will persuade the state’s Board of Pardons and Paroles and Gov. Greg Abbott to grant an execution reprieve or commute her sentence.
“Mariah’s demise was a tragedy not a homicide. ... It could be a completely devastating message for this execution to go ahead. It could ship a message that innocence doesn’t matter,” mentioned Vanessa Potkin, one in every of Lucio’s attorneys who's with the Innocence Undertaking.
Ms Lucio's legal professionals say jurors by no means heard forensic proof that may have defined that Mariah's numerous accidents have been really attributable to a fall days earlier. In addition they say Ms Lucio wasn't allowed to current proof questioning the validity of her confession.
The Texas Legal professional Common’s Workplace maintains proof exhibits Mariah suffered the “absolute worst” case of kid abuse her emergency room physician had seen in 30 years.
“Lucio nonetheless advances no proof that's dependable and supportive of her acquittal,” the workplace wrote in court docket paperwork final month.
The Cameron County District Legal professional’s Workplace, which prosecuted Ms Lucio, declined to remark.
READ MORE: Morrison denies preselection allegations
Ms Lucio, 53, can be the primary Latina executed by Texas and the primary girl since 2014. Solely 17 ladies have been executed within the US because the Supreme Courtroom lifted its ban on the demise penalty in 1976, most lately in January 2021.
Of their clemency petition, Lucio’s legal professionals say that whereas she had used medication, main her to quickly lose custody of her kids, she was a loving mom who labored to stay drug-free and supply for her household.
Ms Lucio has 14 kids and was pregnant with the youngest two when Mariah died.
Ms Lucio and her kids struggled by way of poverty. At instances, they have been homeless and relied on meals banks for meals, in keeping with the petition. Little one Protecting Companies was current within the household’s life, however there was by no means an accusation of abuse by any of her kids, Ms Potkin mentioned.
Ms Lucio had been sexually assaulted a number of instances, beginning at age six, and had been bodily and emotionally abused by two husbands. Her legal professionals say this lifelong trauma made her vulnerable to giving a false confession.
Within the 2020 documentary “The State of Texas vs. Melissa,” Ms Lucio mentioned investigators saved pushing her to say she had damage Mariah.
“I used to be not gonna admit to inflicting her demise as a result of I wasn’t accountable,” Ms Lucio mentioned.
Her legal professionals say Ms Lucio's sentence was disproportionate to what her husband and Mariah's father, Robert Alvarez, obtained. He obtained a four-year sentence for inflicting harm to a baby by omission regardless that he additionally was liable for Mariah's care, Ms Lucio's legal professionals argue.
In 2019, a three-judge panel of the fifth US Circuit Courtroom of Appeals overturned Ms Lucio’s conviction, ruling she was disadvantaged of “her constitutional proper to current a significant defence.”
Nevertheless, the total court docket in 2021 mentioned the conviction needed to be upheld for procedural causes, “regardless of the troublesome concern of the exclusion of testimony that may have solid doubt on the credibility of Ms Lucio’s confession.”
Three jurors and one alternate in Ms Lucio’s trial have signed affidavits expressing doubts about her conviction.
READ MORE: 1000's of NSW well being staff to strike
“She was not evil. She was simply struggling. ... If we had heard passionately from the defence defending her in a roundabout way, we'd have reached a distinct choice,” juror Johnny Galvan wrote in an affidavit.
In a letter final month to the Board of Pardons and Paroles and to Governor Abbott, 83 Texas Home members mentioned executing Lucio can be “a miscarriage of justice.”
“As a conservative Republican myself, who has lengthy been a supporter of the demise penalty in probably the most heinous instances ... I've by no means seen a extra troubling case than the case of Melissa Lucio,” mentioned state Rep. Jeff Leach, who signed the letter.
Governor Abbott can grant a one-time, 30-day reprieve. He can grant clemency if a majority of the paroles board recommends it.
The board plans to vote on Ms Lucio’s clemency petition two days earlier than the scheduled execution, Rachel Alderete, the board’s director of assist operations, mentioned in an electronic mail. A spokeswoman for Mr Abbott’s workplace didn't return an electronic mail looking for remark.
Mr Abbott has granted clemency to just one demise row inmate, Thomas Whitaker, since taking workplace in 2015.
Mr Whitaker was convicted of masterminding the deadly shootings of his mom and brother. His father, who survived, led the trouble to avoid wasting Whitaker, saying he can be victimised once more if his son was executed.
Ms Lucio’s supporters have mentioned her clemency request is comparable in that her household can be re-traumatised if she’s executed.
“Please enable us to reconcile with Mariah’s demise and bear in mind her with out contemporary ache, anguish and grief. Please spare the lifetime of our mom,” Lucio’s kids wrote in a letter to Abbott and the board.