The mother of 14, her family and lawyers say she was wrongfully convicted of the death of her young child, Mariah. While prosecutors claimed during the trial that Lucio was the mother of the violence that caused the injuries that led to the girl’s death, Lucio’s lawyers claimed that these injuries were the result of falling down the stairs two days earlier outside the apartment. the family.
To help decide whether Lucio will receive a new trial, the Court of Appeal ordered Lucio’s trial court to review four of the nine lawsuits she filed in her application for a habeas corpus order, which required a government official to show good reason for detaining a person. .
A judge of the court of first instance will consider her request and the prosecutor’s answer before making a recommendation to the state appellate court, which will decide whether she will receive a new trial. It is unclear how long the process will take.
“I don’t think there’s a way to predict whether Lucio will get a new trial based on these four allegations,” said Robert Dunham, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, a non-profit non-profit organization. the death penalty, but there has been criticism of the way it is applied.
But “the postponement of the execution and the remand measure to deal with these claims are extremely important,” Dunham added, describing this week’s decision as “an open door, a threshold that had to be crossed for Melissa Lucio to spend her day in court.” . ”
Here we will break down these four allegations and what Lucio and her lawyers are arguing.
Claim 1: No juror would have convicted Lucio without the false testimony of the state
The first detainee claims that Lucio was convicted on the basis of false testimony from state medical experts and investigators who questioned Lucio the night her daughter died. (It is worth noting that the legal standard that Lucio’s team sought to meet does not require proof that the state knew that this testimony was false, according to its habeas statement, but that it gave the jury a false impression.)
At the time of her death, Mariah’s body was covered in bruises “at various stages of healing”, her arm had been broken a few weeks earlier and she had a bite mark on her back, according to court documents.
Authorities, her lawyers say, have ruled that Mariah’s injuries were an abuse and have set out to confirm the theory, ignoring evidence that could prove Lucio’s innocence.
Hours after Mariah Lucio’s death, he was questioned by investigators, including a Texas ranger who testified in the trial against Lucio for the state. According to the habeas statement, he knew Lucio was guilty based on her behavior: her head was bowed and she avoided eye contact – signs, he said, of her guilt.
Since then, this testimony has been proven “unsubstantiated and scientifically false,” Lucio’s habeas appendix said. Referring to a neurologist, he says that the scientific consensus today is that there is no basis for the idea that certain movements of the face and body can reveal someone’s mental state.
The forensic doctor who performed Mariah’s autopsy also gave false testimony, Lucio’s lawyers say.
The forensic pathologist, who determined that the blunt force injury was the cause of Maria’s death, said Lucio had admitted to abusing children. This knowledge, according to Lucio’s habeas app, “corrupts” the autopsy and its findings, and the medical examiner failed to review other parts of Mariah’s medical history, including walking problems and a documented history of falls due to an inverted leg.
During the trial, the medical examiner testified that the injuries could only have been caused by abuse, citing severe bruises on Mariah’s body, a fracture of her arm a few weeks before her death and alleged traces of back bites. and.
But Lucio’s lawyers, citing medical experts, offered other explanations for the injuries: Mariah showed signs of a blood clotting disorder that can lead to severe bruising, they say, and a fractured arm is not uncommon in young children, especially those with a history of falls.
Common causes of blood disease include head injuries – such as those caused by falling down a steep staircase – and an infection that Mariah appears to have struggled with when she died, according to the habeas application. And since then, evidence and analysis of bite marks have been described as “invalid and unreliable,” it said, noting that forensic odontologists have found that expert testimony identifying injuries as human bite marks is “non-scientific.” .
As a result, the testimony of these witnesses is incorrect, say Lucio’s lawyers, which entitles her to relief.
CNN asked prosecutors, Texas rangers and the medical examiner for comment.
Claim 2: New scientific evidence would preclude Lucio’s sentence
Lucio’s second allegation, which will be considered by the court of first instance, claims that the hitherto unavailable scientific evidence would prevent the jury from finding Lucio guilty.
As part of this claim, Lucio’s lawyers are also working to overturn her alleged confession.
Lucio was convicted in part, they say, based on statements she made to authorities in a one-hour “alleged guilt” interrogation the night her daughter died. These vague indications that she was responsible for some of Mariah’s injuries – but not a guilty plea, she said – were nevertheless presented at the trial as a confession.
But Lucio’s statements have the characteristics of false confessions, they say, citing two experts – something Lucio’s second statement says she was particularly inclined to owe to her history as a lifelong sexual and domestic violence survivor. .
Lucio’s legal team said she denied injuring Mariah more than 100 times during her interrogation. But after hours of interrogation, they say, she “returned like a parrot” the language offered to her by interrogators, and then demonstrated the alleged abuse of a doll at the behest of interrogators, the habeas application said.
Lucio was particularly vulnerable to pressure from investigators, given her “history of lifelong trauma.” This, too, her lawyers say, is new evidence that was not available during the trial against her, and her jury did not hear the testimony of an expert on false confessions.
If they were, her lawyers say, she probably wouldn’t have been convicted.
Claim 3: The evidence shows that Lucio is innocent
This statement claims that taken together, the evidence presented by Lucio’s team and the experts’ reports “collectively refute every element of the prosecution’s accusation against Ms. Lucio”, its habeas application says.
Given the evidence, much of it described above, no “rational juror would find Ms. Lucio guilty beyond a reasonable doubt,” it said. And the execution of an innocent person would violate the Eighth and 14th Amendments, its right to due process, and would be a cruel and unusual punishment, it said.
Proposition 4: The state suppressed evidence in favor of Lucio’s defense
The final lawsuit, returned to the trial court, alleges that prosecutors suppressed evidence that would have helped Lucio by not sharing it with her lawyer, further undermining her sentence and violating her rights to due process.
This evidence includes information from a child protection investigator who interviewed some of Lucio’s other children, who confirmed Mariah’s downfall and deteriorating health and denied allegations of abuse by their mother.
Lucio’s lawyers also claim that Mariah’s brothers and sisters’ statements to the police were suppressed: instead of giving Lucio’s lawyer his oath statements, prosecutors gave the defense summaries that “missed” potentially exculpatory information, the habeas annex said. .
The document says that this supposedly hidden evidence would show: the authorities knew that there were witnesses who said that Lucio did not abuse her children; there were other members of the family who knew that Mariah had fallen down the stairs; and Mariah had shown no sign of her arm being injured in the weeks before her death, among others.
Suspension of execution sends a message, says the expert
“While stopping the execution is ‘extremely good news’ and ‘critical’ for Lucio, ‘this is not a guarantee of a concrete result,’ Dunham told CNN.
But it sends a message “that the courts need to pay more attention to issues of innocence,” he said, citing not only Lucio but also Rodney Reed, another death row inmate in Texas who also claims innocence and whose case be considered. by the Supreme Court.
“We hope the message is that we should not deny the day of possible innocent people in court,” said the director of the Death Penalty Information Center.
As for Lucio, her lawyers admit that there is a long way to go. But they are optimistic: Monday’s decision “opens the door to the potential for a new trial,” said Vanessa Potkin, director of special litigation at the Innocence Project, “and ultimately a full acquittal.”
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