Texas woman who claims she falsely pleaded guilty to killing her two-year-old daughter in 2007 will learn today if the parole board wants to proceed with her controversial execution.
Melissa Lucio, 53, is set to be executed Wednesday for the death of Mariah, one of her 14 children, in Harlingen, a city of about 75,000 in Texas’ southern tip.
Her legal team claims her confession was forced in a grueling five-hour interrogation carried out just hours after she found out her daughter had died, while pregnant with twins, and came after she denied the allegations more than 100 times.
Lawyers from the Innocence Project have filed a clemency application to the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles which is set to consider her case today by 1.30pm CT.
They will make a recommendation to Republican Gov. Greg Abbott who has until Wednesday 6pm to intervene in what would be the first Latina ever executed by Texas and the first woman the state has put to death since 2014.
If they do not recommend clemency, all he can do is postpone the execution by 30 days, during which her legal team will have to reconsider their options.
Separately, Lucio’s legal team are pursuing two last-ditch attempts to spare her life.
They filed several motions in the Texas Supreme Court of Appeals which could stop the death sentence at any point before Wednesday.
Lucio, who has been in custody since 2007, maintains that Mariah died from injuries sustained during a fall down a flight of stairs even though she confessed to hurting Mariah at the time
The Cameron County District Attorney’s office is also yet to rule on a motion to withdraw the execution which had been filed in February.
Her lawyers say new evidence shows that Mariah’s injuries, including a blow to the head, were caused by a fall down a steep staircase, and nearly half of the jurors who sentenced her have called for her execution to be halted and demanded a retrial.
Lawmakers and celebrities such as Kim Kardashian, an advocate for criminal justice reform, and Amanda Knox – an American who was convicted of murdering a British student in Italy and whose conviction was overturned – have rallied to Lucio’s cause.
A bipartisan group of 100 Texas lawmakers have been pushing for the parole board and governor to spare her life.
Last week, a few of them joined Lucio for a prayer session in prison.
Prosecutors, though, maintain that the girl was the victim of child abuse.
In addition to the blunt-force injury to her head that was determined to have killed her, Mariah’s body was found to have bruises, scratches, and a bite mark on her back, leading investigators to believe that Mariah had been killed, and suspecting Lucio of the crime.
Lucio’s attorneys say her capital murder conviction was based on an unreliable and coerced confession that was the result of relentless questioning and her long history of sexual, physical and emotional abuse.
This new evidence shows that Ms. Lucio was convicted of a crime that never occurred,’ the 242-page writ of habeas corpus says.
‘Ms. Lucio asserted her innocence more than 100 times, but police refused to accept any response that was not an admission of guilt – suggesting to Ms. Lucio that the interrogation would not stop unless she told them what they wanted to hear,’ the filing reads.
They say Lucio wasn’t allowed to present evidence questioning the validity of her confession.
Her lawyers also contend that unscientific and false evidence misled jurors into believing Mariah’s injuries only could have been caused by physical abuse and not by medical complications from a severe fall.
‘I knew that what I was accused of doing was not true. My children have always been my world and although my choices in life were not good I would have never hurt any of my children in such a way,’ Lucio wrote in a letter to Texas lawmakers.
Cameron County District Attorney Luis Saenz, whose office prosecuted the case, has said he disagrees with Lucio’s lawyers’ claims that new evidence would exonerate her.
Prosecutors say Lucio had a history of drug abuse and at times had lost custody of some of her 14 children.
During her interrogation Lucio initially maintained that Mariah had fallen down the stairs a few days before she became unresponsive, but after about three hours she admitted to spanking and biting Mariah.
‘What do you want me to say? I’m responsible for it,’ Lucio told Texas Rangers when they pressed her on the bite mark.
The statement became the backbone of the state’s case against Mariah, with prosecutors using what they characterized as an admission of child abuse to connect Lucio directly to her daughters death.
Though Lucio never admitted to actually killing Maria or causing fatal-harm, the Cameron County jury found the abuse admissions adequate to find Lucio guilty and deserving of the death penalty.