Celebs, pols rally to save Melissa Lucio from being executed next week

“That’s when the tunnel vision kicks in and the case keeps building around unreliable evidence,” Potkin told The Post Wednesday. “Melissa was talking about the staircase that caused the accident at her previous apartment, but when the paramedic said he was suspicious, the presumption of guilt that led to her conviction began.”

What followed was a “marathon” five-hour interrogation of Lucio by multiple police officers and a Texas Ranger. Lucio denied hurting Mariah more than 100 times during the late night grilling as cops showed her pictures of her dead child. But interrogators reportedly refused to accept a response that was not an admission of guilt. Overwhelmed by shock and grief, Lucio “yielded to the interrogator’s demands to ‘get it over with,’” court papers say.

In more than 1,000 pages of reports from the state’s Child Protective Services, whose agents visited Lucio’s home over the years, there are no mentions of the mother abusing her children, according to her court file.

But the forced confession colored the autopsy results that led to her conviction, Lucio’s defenders say. The state’s medical examiner, Norma Jean Farley, was influenced by the homicide hypothesis and did not examine other factors that could have contributed to Mariah’s death, according to court papers.

Farley concluded that Mariah’s injuries must have occurred 24 hours before her death, and that marks on her neck were human bites. She failed to take into account that Mariah suffered from a blood coagulation disorder that caused bruising throughout her body.

“The autopsy was so biased by these unreliable statements that instead of considering the cause of injury and death, the medical examiner only reached conclusions that backed up murder,” Potkin said.

The push to convict Lucio was also driven by Armando Villalobos, the Cameron County District Attorney who was facing an election and under a great deal of pressure from voters about his perceived leniency on crimes against children. Villalobos is currently serving a 13-year federal sentence for bribery and extortion that occurred between 2006 and 2012. “Villalobos and others were involved in a scheme to illegally generate income for themselves and others through a pattern of bribery and extortion, favoritism, improper influence, personal self-enrichment, self-dealing, concealment and conflict of interest,” according to a Department of Justice statement.

When Lucio was convicted of murder and sentenced to death in 2008, she lost custody of her children. She gave birth in prison to her twins, who were taken away, Potkin told The Post. Alvarez, Mariah’s father, was prosecuted only for “causing injury to a child by omission.” He received a four-year prison term, and is now free.

“There are so many aspects of this case that are egregious,” Potkin said, adding that Lucio feels “encouraged” by the recent groundswell of support and is proud of the advocacy of her children on her behalf.

“The death of our sister Mariah, and the prosecution of our parents tore our family apart,” says the letter to Abbott and the Texas Board of Pardons and Parole, signed by the children. “The wounds never fully healed. They probably never will.”

The autopsy was so biased by these unreliable statements ... the medical examiner only reached conclusions that backed up murder.

— Vanessa Potkin of the Innocence Project