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Both Galvan and the Innocence Project, a leading organization that has fought to exonerate wrongly convicted people, noted that prosecutors’ case largely rested on the confession that Lucio gave after hours of interrogation. Detectives tormented Lucio the night of Mariah’s death. The child had fallen down some stairs but initially appeared to be fine. But two days later, she never woke back up from a nap.
“In the interrogation room, officers berated and intimidated Ms. Lucio, who was pregnant and still reeling from the loss of her child, for five hours,” the Innocence Project said. “Research has shown that survivors of sexual abuse and violence, like Ms. Lucio, are more vulnerable to falsely confessing under such coercive conditions.”
But at 3 AM, “physically and emotionally exhausted” from hours of interrogation, Lucio said “’I guess I did it’ in the hopes that they would end the interrogation.” This coerced statement was then used in her trial as a false confession. In his op-ed, Galvan Jr. wrote that he was not made aware of Lucio’s history as a physical and sexual abuse victim, and how that “made her vulnerable to falsely confess when subjected to aggressive interrogation tactics on the night of her daughter’s death.”
He said no one told him that she pleaded her innocence more than 100 times before saying, under duress, that she did it. But Lucio has always been clear: “Mariah was my baby, I loved her,” she said last month, according to Innocence Project.
There have been further disturbing developments in the time since Lucio’s conviction. Armando Villalobos, the Cameron County district attorney who fought to have her executed as part of a likely cynical reelection ploy, has himself been sentenced to more than a decade in prison on charges of bribery and extortion. “Mr. Villalobos argued that Ms. Lucio abused her daughter leading to her death, but thousands of pages of interviews and records from Child Protective Services show that Ms. Lucio’s children never said she was violent with any of them,” Innocence Project continued.
Not with just days until Lucio may become the first Latina to be executed by the state of Texas, more than 80 state lawmakers have called on “Gov. Greg Abbott and the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles to grant Lucio clemency or a reprieve,” the Dallas Observer reports.
“New evidence that has emerged since Ms. Lucio’s trial points to the fact that her daughter, Mariah, died after a tragic accident and not by her mother’s hands,” lawmakers wrote. “A commutation or a reprieve would give her lawyers the time they need to develop all the evidence that could prove Ms. Lucio’s innocence. While we understand the gravity of the issue before you and the important role that the Board of Pardons and Paroles plays in our criminal justice system, we also believe this is an opportunity to prevent a miscarriage of justice that would undermine public trust in our legal system.”
“Ms. Lucio’s case is one that gives even proponents of the death penalty pause,” lawmakers continued. “Doctors who recently reviewed the autopsy—including a leading specialist from The University of Texas Medical Branch—concluded that the jury heard false testimony about whether Mariah was abused.”
“A panel of federal judges on the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals agreed in a unanimous three-judge opinion that Ms. Lucio was denied the right to present ‘a meaningful defense,’” Innocence Project continued. “And in a subsequent decision following an appeal from the state, 10 out of the Fifth Circuit’s 17 judges agreed that the exclusion of the psychologist’s testimony skewed the evidence against Ms. Lucio.”
Innocence Project said last month that 100,000 people had signed a petition urging the state to halt Lucio’s execution. Since that time, that number has swelled to over 230,000. Just days ago, Lucio’s team appealed to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals for a stay of execution.
“I want to tell my supporters that I’m very grateful for all the letters they have sent me, their words of encouragement, their support, and their belief in me,” she said according to Innocence Project. “I’m just very excited that so many people have signed the petition, so many have believed in me and know that I was wrongfully convicted, I’m hoping that I will be set free from this place.” Click here and help a life by urging Gov. Greg Abbott to grant clemency for Melissa Lucio.
Source by www.dailykos.com
