Lucio, her family, lawyers and attorneys say she was wrongfully convicted of aggravated murder in the death of her young child Mariah in 2007.
“I thank God for my life. I have always trusted Him, “Lucio said in a statement shared by her legal team. “I am grateful that the Court has given me the chance to live and prove my innocence. Mariah is in my heart today and always.”
During the trial, prosecutors said Lucio was a violent mother who may have caused the injuries that led to her daughter’s death. But Lucio and her lawyers said Mariah’s injuries did not result from abuse but from falling down a flight of stairs the apartment on the second floor of the family two days before her death.
Of the nine lawsuits filed by Lucio in his application for habeas, the appellate court ordered the court of first instance to consider four of them, including her allegations of innocence, and new scientific evidence precludes her conviction. Lucio also claims that the state relied on false testimony and withheld evidence in its defense.
The court’s decision postponed Lucio’s execution while the court of first instance considered the merits of her claims.
“Melissa has the right to a new, fair trial. The people of Texas have the right to a new, fair trial,” said Tivon Chardall, one of Lucio’s lawyers. “Texans should be grateful and proud that the Court of Appeals has given Melissa’s legal team the opportunity to present new evidence of Melissa’s innocence to Cameron County Court.
Separately, the Texas Pardon and Parole Board on Monday declined to make a pardon recommendation in Lucio’s case, citing a postponement of the execution.
The reasons for doubt are “innumerable”,
Lucio’s case attracted wider attention after being featured in the 2020 documentary Texas State of Melissa. And calls for leniency have risen in recent weeks: The bipartisan majority in the Texas legislature has called for mercy, as have celebrities such as Kim Kardashian. But perhaps most importantly, five members of Lucio’s jury came out to say that her execution should be stopped or that she should receive a new trial based on evidence they had not heard.
When she died, Mariah’s body was covered in bruises “at various stages of healing”, her arm was broken a few weeks earlier and there was a bite on her back, according to court documents.
According to the state case, these injuries are the result of abuse. During the trial, the medical examiner testified about the condition in which Maria died of a blunt force trauma, calling her a “shod child”. An ambulance doctor who tried to resuscitate Maria called it the “absolutely worst” case of child abuse he had ever seen.
But Lucio, the mother of 14, and her lawyers insist she is innocent and that Mariah’s injuries were caused by falling down a steep staircase in front of the family’s apartment. And authorities, tormented by a misunderstanding about the fall, have ignored or dismissed evidence that may have proved her innocence, Lucio’s lawyers say.
Lucio has never abused his children, they say, citing more than a thousand pages of records from the Child Protection Services at the time.
These records, according to her request for clemency, “tell the story of Melissa’s love for children and her inability to care for them properly,” citing in part the family’s struggle with poverty and Lucio’s drug addiction. But none of the CPS records, her lawyers say, show any of the children reported to have been abused by Lucio.
Lucio was largely convicted, her lawyers say, on the basis of a forced “confession” she gave to authorities during an “aggressive” late-night interrogation the night her daughter died. But Lucio’s lawyers said she only “vaguely” said she was responsible for her daughter’s injuries and never admitted responsibility for Mariah’s death.
Lucio was particularly susceptible to coercion because of her status as a lifelong survivor of sexual and domestic violence, her lawyers said, citing medical experts who reviewed the case.
Lucio’s legal team offered other explanations for Mariah’s injuries, citing medical experts again: her bruises may have been caused by her fall and blood clotting disorders, they say, and a fractured arm is not uncommon in young children, especially like Mariah, who had a documented story of the fall.
“There are countless reasons for suspicion here,” her lawyers wrote in Lucio’s pardon petition. “The prospect that the state could shed innocent blood for a death that Melissa Lucio did not cause, much less intend, must strike a righteous rage in the hearts of Texans.
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