A Texas appeals courtroom Monday delayed the execution of a lady amid rising doubts about whether or not she fatally beat her 2-year-old daughter in a case that has garnered the help of lawmakers, celebrities and even a few of the jurors who sentenced her to demise.
The Texas Court docket of Legal Appeals granted a request by Melissa Lucio’s legal professionals for a keep of execution so a decrease courtroom can overview her claims that new proof would exonerate her. It was not instantly recognized when the decrease courtroom would start reviewing her case.
Lucio had been set for deadly injection Wednesday for the 2007 demise of her daughter Mariah in Harlingen, a metropolis of about 75,000 in Texas’ southern tip.
The execution keep was introduced minutes earlier than the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles had been set to think about her clemency utility to both commute her demise sentence or grant her a 120-day reprieve.
Lucio’s attorneys say her capital homicide conviction was primarily based on an unreliable and coerced confession that was the results of relentless questioning and her lengthy historical past of sexual, bodily and emotional abuse. They are saying Lucio wasn’t allowed to current proof questioning the validity of her confession.
Her legal professionals additionally contend that unscientific and false proof misled jurors into believing Mariah’s accidents solely may have been attributable to bodily abuse, not by medical issues from a extreme fall.
Cameron County Dist. Atty. Luis Saenz, whose workplace prosecuted the case, has stated he disagrees with Lucio’s legal professionals’ claims that new proof would exonerate her. Prosecutors say Lucio had a historical past of drug abuse and at instances had misplaced custody of a few of her 14 youngsters.
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