Texas’s highest criminal court on Monday halted the execution of a woman convicted of murdering her 2-year-old daughter.
Melissa Lucio, a mother of 14, was convicted of murder in the 2007 death of her daughter Mariah and was set to be executed on Wednesday. The state’s highest criminal court put a halt to those plans and ordered a trial court to review new evidence.
“State’s highest criminal court halts, with 2 days to spare, execution of Melissa Lucio, orders trial court to review new evidence that supporters say establishes her innocence,” Austin American-Statesman reporter Chuck Lindell said on Monday.
BREAKING: State's highest criminal court halts, with 2 days to spare, execution of Melissa Lucio, orders trial court to review new evidence that supporters say establishes her innocence.
"I thank God for my life," Lucio says in statement issued by her lawyers. pic.twitter.com/IPr8EJ8slt— Chuck Lindell (@chucklindell) April 25, 2022
In a statement after the criminal court’s decision, Lucio said she thanks God “for her life,” writing, “I have always trusted in Him. I am grateful the Court has given me a chance to live and prove my innocence.”
The new evidence the Texas court wants the lower court to examine suggests her daughter’s injuries could have come “as a result of a fall down a staircase, including a blow to the head,” Fox News reported.
Even though Lucio confessed to killing her child, her lawyers believe it was “an unreliable and coerced confession,” and jurors were led to a wrong conclusion based on “unscientific and false evidence.”
Prosecutors say the new evidence does not clear Lucio, maintaining she abused her daughter and ultimately killed her. According to autopsy reports, Mariah died after suffering head trauma, bruising, and a neglected broken arm that could only have been caused by abuse.
Lucio also has a history of drug abuse and lost custody of some of her children at times, prosecutors noted.
Lucio’s attorneys and supporters say Mariah died from an accidental fall down the stairs. “She and several family members maintain that Mariah’s death was a tragic accident precipitated by injuries the young girl sustained two days prior to her death when she fell down a rickety flight of stairs outside their run-down apartment,” the Houston Chronicle reported.
Nearly half of the jurors who sentenced Lucio to death 14 years ago have also come out to request her execution be stopped.
Lucio’s defense has accused Armando Villalobos, the prosecuting attorney at the time of her conviction, of using the case to boost his political clout and help him win re-election. Villalobos was convicted of a bribery scheme and sentenced to 13 years in prison in 2014 for “offering favorable prosecutorial decisions,” per the Associated Press. The case was unrelated.
The new evidence can now be reviewed by a lower court that will look into Lucio’s claim that the findings clear her of murder.
“Mariah is in my heart today,” Lucio said after her execution was halted. “I am grateful to have more days to be a mother to my children and a grandmother to my grandchildren. I will use my time to help bring them to Christ. I am deeply grateful to everyone who prayed for me and spoke out on my behalf.”
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Source: Dailywire
