As questions mount, stop execution of Latina mother

There are massive holes in Melissa Lucio’s 2008 capital conviction, making her looming execution, set for April 27, an injustice that must be stopped.

Search online and you will see that Lucio’s Texas Department of Criminal Justice death row profile includes her stone-faced mugshot and details: age (53), date of offense (Feb. 17, 2007), race (Hispanic), highest grade completed (11), prior occupation ( janitor), prior prison record (none).

Next comes an incident summary: “On February 17, 2007, paramedics were dispatched to a residence where they found an unresponsive two-year-old child who subsequently died. Evidence of abuse let (led) to the arrest and conviction of Lucio, the child’s mother.”

More telling is what is missing — damning questions about a coercive interrogation and the failure to consider the medical history of Lucio’s daughter, Mariah Alvarez.

Was Mariah the victim of a heinous murder at the hands of her mother? Or was this a tragic accident and a wrongful conviction, as Lucio’s Innocence Project attorneys, her family, experts and some jury members who convicted her contend?

These are reasonable questions that warrant stopping the execution. A bipartisan appeal for clemency should also speak volumes.

There is more evidence indicting the state’s criminal justice system than there is evidence of Lucio’s guilt. Attorneys and experts have called this the weakest case they have ever seen — a conviction based on a coerced confession and false autopsy results.

Lucio, a Rio Grande Valley mother of 14 who refused a 30-year plea deal, is the first Latina to be sentenced to Texas’ death row in modern time. In the 2020 documentary “The State of Texas vs. Melissa,” some of Lucio’s family said Mariah, who was prone to falls due to a congenital foot deformity, fell down a 14-step flight of stairs outside the family’s second-floor Harlingen apartment a couple days before her death.

A recent bipartisan news conference led by state Reps. Jeff Leach, a conservative Republican from Plano, and Joe Moody, D-El Paso, was held two days after Lucio’s team submitted a clemency application to Gov. Greg Abbott and the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles seeking that her death sentence be commuted to a lesser sentence, or that a 120-day reprieve be granted to examine new evidence.

Leach, a death penalty supporter, said, “I have never seen a case more troubling than the case of Melissa Lucio. The system literally failed Melissa Lucio at every single turn.”

The effort to stop this execution is incredible. It includes bipartisan lawmakers, including about 90 House representatives who signed a letter to the parole board and Abbott, as well as more than 130 Baptist, evangelical and Catholic leaders, including the Texas Catholic Conference of Bishops.

The 5th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Lucio was denied her constitutional right to defend herself, but procedural rules barred the court from overturning her conviction. The U.S. Supreme Court declined to review the case last year.

Four jurors in the conviction have said they now have grave concerns about evidence being withheld. “Now that I think about it, it looks like a sham,” Johnny Galvan Jr., a juror, wrote in his declaration.

The jury was told Mariah’s injuries and death could have come only from abuse, but experts who didn’t testify have said that is false. The jury also didn’t hear testimony from Lucio’s mother, siblings and other children, who have said their mom was not abusive. And the jury wasn’t told how Lucio suffered a lifetime of abuse and trauma that made her especially vulnerable to coercive interrogation.

Appalling corruption and ethics breaches at the Cameron County Courthouse only make the case more problematic. Armando Villalobos, the former district attorney who faced an election amid scrutiny about his perceived leniency on crimes against children, sought the death penalty in Lucio’s case. He was convicted in 2014 of bribery and extortion. He is serving a 13-year federal prison sentence. Peter Gilman, Lucio’s lead defense attorney, went to work for the district attorney after Lucio’s trial.

Lucio’s case is undeniably tainted. This execution must be halted and the prosecution reviewed. We urge the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles and Abbott to grant clemency.

Texas culpable in this case.