After Lucio was arrested for killing her toddler, a social worker learned that an older daughter had taken responsibility for the little girls fall down the stairs. I am grateful to have more days to be a mother to my children and a grandmother to my grandchildren. Typically, Republicans have been hesitant or reluctant to talk about the question of the integrity of the death penalty, and I think thats the wrong approach. There are growing calls on Texas Governor Greg Abbot to grant clemency to Melissa Lucio who faces execution later this month. Texas Court of Criminal Appeals granted her a stay of execution. Hours after Mariah died, Lucio was interrogated by investigators, including a Texas Ranger who testified in Lucios trial for the state. Lucio has always maintained her innocence. But Lucios attorneys, citing medical experts, have offered other explanations for the injuries: Mariah showed signs of a blood coagulation disorder that can result in severe bruising, they say, and a fractured arm is not uncommon in toddlers, particularly those with a history of falls. At the time of her death, Mariahs body was covered in bruises in various stages of healing, her arm had been broken several weeks earlier and she had what authorities believed was a bite mark on her back, court documents show. Around this time, lawmakers began trying to protect youth from aggressive questioning, motivated by high-profile cases like the Central Park Five and Brendan Dassey, the teenager whose confession to rape and murder was examined by the Netflix series Making a Murderer. Last year, Illinois and Oregon banned detectives from lying to suspects under 18, although its still legal to do so in the other 48 states. Twitter Experts who have studied false confessions and trauma response said Lucio's behavior is common in abuse victims and criticized the Rangers' interrogation tactics. FilmRise By Maurice Chammah The detective handed Melissa Lucio a plastic doll and asked her to spank it. Melissa Lucio is facing the death penalty in connection with killing her daughter, who was six years old. appreciated. The RBIJ has attracted more than 150 well-known signatories to their Business Leaders Declaration Against the Death Penalty - with The Independent as the latest on the list. Hopefully the message is, we should not be denying possibly innocent people their day in court, the Death Penalty Information Center director said. Crackedstreams.ig (2022) Discover More About It Here! Lucios legal team has said she denied harming Mariah more than 100 times in her interrogation. I have never seen a more troubling case than the case of Melissa Lucio, said Mr Leach, the chair of the Judiciary & Civil Jurisprudence Committee. Rachel Sharp reports on the details of the case. Paramedics were called to Melissa Lucio's home in Harlingen, Texas, on Feb. 17, 2007, after her 2-year-old daughter Mariah Alvarez was found unresponsive and not breathing. . Child Protective Services was present in the familys life, but there was never an accusation of abuse by any of her children, according to Vanessa Potkin, one of Lucios attorneys who is with the Innocence Project. Do not trust anyone calling from this area code, they are most likely scammers! HOUSTON During hours of relentless questioning, Melissa Lucio more than 100 times had denied fatally beating her 2-year-old daughter. Castro had established an incredibly high level of control over Kristina through physical abuse and by abusing her children, Heatly explained to The Marshall Project in an email. Melissa Lucio supporters rally in Dallas to stop execution, (Provided by the family of Melissa Lucio), Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in, Please refresh your browser to be logged in, Kim Kardashian shares heartbreaking letter by Melissa Lucios children in bid to stop execution, Women on death row: How being a bad mother, bad wife and bad woman became a death warrant, Im an expert in false confessions who looked at Melissa Lucios case. Her supporters say she was . Sign up for PEOPLE's free True Crime newsletter for breaking crime news, ongoing trial coverage and details of intriguing unsolved cases. She passed away due to the abuse her mother suffered. Please give us the chance for closure. He also stated that Lucio's execution would be a terrible tragedy. The detective handed Melissa Lucio a plastic doll and asked her to spank it. Arguing for the importance of defense experts, the brief states, Experts help juries understand the phenomenon of false confessions and, therefore, can help safeguard against miscarriages of justice. A substantial percentage of women who were wrongfully convicted of killing a child were coerced into falsely confessing, the innocence groups wrote. We will fight not only to prevent Melissas execution but also to win her exoneration of these false charges.. Lucios supporters have said her clemency request is similar in that her family would be retraumatised if shes executed. In the 2020 documentary The State of Texas vs. Melissa, Lucio said investigators kept pushing her to say she had hurt Mariah. In 2008, Melissa Lucio was sentenced to death in Texas for the murder of her 2-year old daughter Mariah, who died two days after a tragic fall down a flight of stairs. But experts say the small number who are sentenced to death usually break societys expectations of a good woman, Rachel Sharp reports. Melissa Lucio timeline: From her two-year-old daughter's death to her execution being halted. The images have also provoked controversy about the issue of whether Lucio should be punished with the death penalty for her crimes. One of the jurors who sentenced Melissa Lucio to death has written a newspaper editorial claiming he was misled and pressured during the mother's trial for murdering her two-year-old daughter . The state of Texas has issued a death warrant seeking to execute Melissa Lucio (pictured), a battered woman who was sentenced to death for what may have been an accidental fall that killed her two-year-old daughter. Lucio is set to be executed on April 27 for the 2007 death of Mariah. So she teamed up with Guarnera, as well as Virginia Commonwealth University criminal justice professor Hayley Cleary and University of Virginia Medical School psychiatry professor Jeffrey Aaron, to look at trauma among adolescents who had confessed to crimes. Melissa Lucio was sentenced to death in 2008 after she was convicted of killing her two-year-old child Mariah one year earlier. Melissa Lucio was the first Hispanic woman sentenced to death in Texas. A few days later, Melissa's boyfriend took her to a hospital to show them her daughter's corpse. A woman facing execution in Texas for killing her daughter is seeking clemency, claiming she was coerced into confessing to the crime. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals intervened Monday, granting Lucio's lawyers' request for a stay of execution so a lower court can . Despite that evidence of innocence, Texas officials have scheduled Melissa's execution for April 27, 2022. The six of us, in conjunction with our House colleagues, are asking for the Board of Pardons and Paroles to spare her life and delay her execution, which is currently scheduled in about a month on April 27.. She says she was coerced to confess by a Texas Ranger during her interrogation. The trial court barred Pinkerman from testifying during the culpability phase of Lucios trial, asserting that his testimony was irrelevant because Lucio had denied ever having anything to do with the killing of the child. They also denied the testimony of social worker Norma Villanueva during the culpability phase of Lucios trial they were only allowed to testify at her penalty phase, after she had been convicted. The Marshall Project and The 19th could not reach Lucios two ex-husbands, but Sabrina Van Tassel, the filmmaker who directed The State of Texas vs. Melissa, a documentary on the case, said both declined to speak to her on the record. They probably never will," her kids said in the letter. Get real time updates directly on you device, subscribe now. According to court documents paramedics showed up at the household and found the victim not breathing with no pulse. Mariah had a physical disability that made her walk unsteadily, and she had fallen down a steep flight of stairs two days before her death. One of those jurors, Johnny Galvan, Jr., wrote in a recent op-ed in the Houston Chronicle, "I am now convinced that the jury got it wrong and I know that there is too much doubt to execute Lucio. "The death of our sister Mariah and the prosecution of our parents tore our family apart. But it sends a message that the courts need to be paying more attention to questions of innocence, he said, pointing not just to Lucio but also Rodney Reed, another Texas death row inmate who has also claimed innocence and whose case will be heard by the Supreme Court. A Warner Bros. Melissa Lucio could not hide her joy in court and proclaimed that she loves her late daughter Mariah. The state says Lucio beat her daughter to death. . Melissa Elizabeth Lucio is an inmate currently on death row in Texas. The documentary raises a question - aided by family members . Melissa Lucio's daughter Mariah Alvarez's autopsy photos got released earlier, and the results are unconvincing to experts like Dr. Thomas Young. Melissa Lucio is where she needs to be locked up behind bars for the death of her 2 year old daughter Mariah Alvarez. (Its worth nothing the legal standard Lucios team sought to meet does not require proof that the state knew this testimony was false, per her habeas application, only that it gave the jury a false impression.). ", Vanessa Potkin, director of special litigation at The Innocence Project, told CBS that Lucio asserted her innocence more than 100 times during the five-hour interrogation, but authorities "refused to listen to her, sending the clear message that this interrogation wasn't going to stop until she told the officers what they wanted to hear. However, it was later confirmed that these rumors were not true. However, that decision was short lived. During her interrogation, Lucio repeatedly denied having struck her daughter. as The Marshall Project reported recently. Melissa, an innocent woman, faces execution in less than 100 days because a corrupt prosecutor relied on a statement coerced by an overzealous Texas Ranger who badgered a traumatized woman into making a false confession.. This story has been updated to include the name of a researcher who contributed to a study of false confessions among traumatized adolescents. In the absence of his expert opinion, the jury was apt to conclude as the State clearly hoped it would that her lack of visible emotion was a sign of cold indifference to her childs death.. Photo: Texas Department of Criminal Justice/AP/Shutterstock, Kim Kardashian Celebrates Melissa Lucio Being Granted Stay of Execution: 'Best News Ever', U.K. Nurse Lucy Letby Cries in Court as Doctor Gives Evidence at Baby Murders Trial, Wife Wrote 'Letter from the Grave' Before 2008 Death Now Husband Is Guilty of Poisoning Her with Antifreeze, Texas Woman Accused of Strangling Best Friend, Then Stealing Her Newborn Girl Expected to Plead Guilty, Will Bryan Kohberger Face Death Penalty if Convicted of Idaho Murders? We join high-profile executives like Ariana Huffington, Facebooks Sheryl Sandberg, and Virgin Group founder Sir Richard Branson as part of this initiative and are making a pledge to highlight the injustices of the death penalty in our coverage. Please allow us to reconcile with Mariah's death and remember her without fresh pain, anguish, and grief. Serena Williams Father: Is Richard Williams Still Alive Or Dead? While prosecutors argued at trial that Lucio was an abusive mother who caused the injuries that led to the girls death, Lucios attorneys say those injuries were the result of a fall down stairs two days earlier outside the familys apartment. An appeals lawyer for Lucio filed a clemency petition with the federal government, citing medical experts who say that Mariah's bruising was caused by a fall. Intriguing unsolved cases the state says Lucio beat her daughter, melissa lucio daughter autopsy was six years old killing her daughter death. Sign up for PEOPLE 's free True crime newsletter for breaking crime news ongoing! Terrible tragedy loves her late daughter Mariah Alvarez my grandchildren Governor Greg Abbot to clemency. Needs to be executed on April 27, 2022 our family apart having struck her to. 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