The Texas Court of Appeals has postponed the execution of Melissa Lucio, a Mexican American woman who was to be killed within 48 hours, and ordered a lower court to consider new evidence of her innocence in the deaths of her two … year-old daughter Mariah. .
The court issued its order Monday as the last clock ticked for Lucio’s transfer to the death chamber. She would be the first Latin American to be executed in Texas.
As Wednesday’s planned execution date approached, calls for a stay to allow time for a review of new scientific evidence of her innocence have skyrocketed. The intensity of the protests against her impending death rivals the case of Troy Davis, the African-American man executed by Georgia in 2011, despite serious doubts about his guilt.
New evidence presented by Lucio’s legal team in a 266-page petition suggests the murder of her young daughter did not even happen. Medical and witness testimony shows that Mariah died after accidentally falling down a steep staircase at Lucio’s rental home.
In a statement, Lucio thanked the appellate court for giving her a chance to live and prove my innocence. Mariah is in my heart today and always. ”
Sandra Babcock, one of Lucio’s legal team and a professor at Cornell Law School, said the court’s decision paved the way for a new trial that would allow the jury to hear evidence that was not presented at her original trial in 2008. Five of the 12 jurors in the trial said that if they knew what was known now about the case, they would have decided differently.
Babcock said: “Melissa’s life matters. As a survivor of childhood sexual abuse and intimate partner violence, and now locked up for the past 15 years, Melissa’s voice and experiences have never been appreciated. The Court’s ruling signaled his readiness to finally hear Melissa’s side of history.
Vanessa Potkin of the Innocence Project, who also represents Lucio, said: “Medical evidence shows that Mariah’s death was in line with an incident. If the state did not use false testimony, no juror would have voted to convict Melissa of murder because no murder was committed.
Jeff Leach, a Republican MP who led the Texas House push for postponement of the execution, welcomed the news of the stay with delight, saying it would provide “justice for Melissa and Mariah and the whole Lucio family”.
Earlier, Leach said in an interview with the Guardian that the failure of the prosecution in Lucio’s case had shaken his faith in the death penalty. He said her treatment “gave me a big break and made me rethink my position on whether this is the way we want to do things in Texas.”
Leach is at the forefront of Texas lawmakers’ efforts to persuade authorities to postpone the execution. He organized a letter to the pardon board, signed by 80 members of the House, 32 of whom are Republicans. A similar letter was sent by 20 Texas senators, eight Republicans.
In the Chamber’s letter, lawmakers said Lucio was treated differently by prosecutors than her husband, who is also responsible for Mariah’s care. Lucio has no previous history of violence and her children tell her she has never abused them; in contrast, her husband had a history of assault, but is now a single man who has only served a four-year sentence for endangering children.
The degree of bipartisan agreement, with more than half of the legislature supporting residence calls, is extremely rare in such a torn state.
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