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The looming execution of a US mother-of-14 — sentenced to dying in a controversial case for the homicide of her toddler daughter — has provoked backlash from celebrities like Kim Kardashian and a rising motion that reaches properly past US borders.
Melissa Lucio is to be put to dying on April 27 for the 2007 homicide of her two-year-old daughter Mariah, whose physique was discovered on the household dwelling coated in bruises, days after falling down stairs.
Pregnant with twins on the time, Lucio’s life had been marred by each bodily and sexual assault, drug habit and monetary insecurity. She was instantly suspected by police of getting hit her daughter and questioned at size, simply hours after the dying.
After saying “that she hadn’t completed it almost 100 occasions,” at 3:00 am she made a “fully extorted” confession, in accordance with Sabrina Van Tassel, director of the hit documentary “The State of Texas vs. Melissa,” which got here out in 2020.
“I assume I did it,” Lucio finally informed her interrogators when questioned concerning the presence of the bruises.
That confession was “the one factor they’d towards her,” stated Van Tassel, satisfied that “there’s nothing that connects Melissa Lucio to the dying of this baby, there isn’t a DNA, no witness.”
Through the trial, a health care provider stated it was the “absolute worst” case of kid abuse he had seen.
However Mariah had a bodily incapacity which made her unsteady whereas strolling, in accordance with Lucio’s protection — and which might have defined her fall.
The protection additionally argued that the bruises might have been attributable to a blood circulation dysfunction.
None of Melissa’s kids had accused her of being violent. As for the prosecutor, he was later sentenced to jail for corruption and extortion.
‘Miscarriage of justice’
Now the documentary has sparked widespread curiosity, inflicting a complete motion to coalesce round Lucio.
Actuality star Kim Kardashian tweeted to her tens of thousands and thousands of followers on Wednesday that there have been “so many unresolved questions surrounding this case and the proof that was used to convict her.”
And Lucio’s story has ignited media in Latin America, fascinated by the story of the primary Hispanic lady to be sentenced to dying in Texas — the US state that has executed the most individuals within the twenty first century.
In France, former presidential candidate Christiane Taubira stated Lucio might be a “sufferer of a miscarriage of justice.”
Even one of many jurors who sentenced her expressed his “deep remorse” in an editorial revealed on Sunday.
Lucio can also be successful help from US Republicans, historically defenders of capital punishment.
About 80 Texas lawmakers from each events have demanded authorities name off the execution.
A number of have been to go to her in jail. “As a conservative Republican myself who has lengthy been a supporter of the dying penalty… I’ve by no means seen a extra troubling case than the case of Melissa Lucio,” stated considered one of them, Jeff Leach.
‘A shock’
The flood has come as a “shock” for the dying row inmate, her son John Lucio informed AFP.
When he confirmed her the messages from celebrities like Kardashian, “she couldn’t consider it.”
The final 15 years have been “very troublesome,” stated Lucio, who was an adolescent on the time of the tragedy and had “to deal with it, figuring out that I misplaced my sister after which my mom being charged for it.”
However this yr “has been the toughest as a result of we bought the execution date in January,” stated the 32-year-old.
He’s satisfied that she would by no means have been condemned “if she had had the cash.”
The case brings to mild the problem of false confessions.
It’s troublesome to estimate what number of there could have been, however in accordance with information from The Innocence Challenge, which fights towards miscarriages of justice, out of each 4 individuals wrongly convicted and exonerated because of DNA proof, one had already confessed to the crime.
In murder instances, that quantity rises to 60 p.c, in accordance with Saul Kassin, professor of psychology on the John Jay School of Legal Justice.
And somebody who, like Lucio, has skilled trauma and violence is “much less resistant, extra more likely to comply, they’ve much less tolerance for the stress of an interrogation,” and is due to this fact extra more likely to admit to against the law they didn’t commit, he stated.
Lucio has exhausted her appeals — however her group has filed a clemency petition, usually not determined till days earlier than an execution. Prosecutors may withdraw the dying warrant and conform to reinvestigate the case, in accordance with the Houston Chronicle.
And if all else fails, Texas governor Greg Abbott nonetheless has the authority to delay Lucio’s dying.
A robust supporter of capital punishment, he has solely granted clemency as soon as earlier than.
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