Texas woman wins stay of execution after even some former jurors rallied on her behalf

A Texas appeals court on Monday delayed the execution of a woman amid growing doubts about whether she fatally beat her two-year-old daughter in a case that has garnered the support of lawmakers, celebrities and even some of the jurors who sentenced her to death.

The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals granted a request by Melissa Lucio's lawyers for a stay of execution so a lower court can review her claims that new evidence in her case would exonerate her. It was not immediately known when the lower court begin reviewing her case.

Lucio, 52, had been set to be executed Wednesday by lethal injection for the 2007 death of her two-year-old daughter Mariah in Harlingen, a city of about 75,000 in Texas's southern tip.

The execution stay was announced minutes before the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles had been set to consider her clemency application to either commute her death sentence or grant her a 120-day reprieve. The board said in a statement it would "not be making a clemency recommendation at this time."

Lucio's lawyers say new evidence shows that Mariah's injuries, including a blow to the head, were caused by a fall down a steep staircase, and many lawmakers and celebrities such as Kim Kardashian, an advocate for criminal justice reform, and Amanda Knox — an American whose murder conviction in the death of a British student in Italy was overturned — have rallied to Lucio's cause. Prosecutors, though, maintain that the girl was the victim of child abuse.

Nearly half of the jurors who voted to convict her had called for her upcoming execution to be halted and for her to get a new trial.

What are the issues?

Lucio's attorneys say her capital murder conviction was based on an unreliable and coerced confession that was the result of relentless questioning over a period of hours, during which she asserted her innocence dozens of times. They say Lucio wasn't allowed to present evidence questioning the validity of her confession.

Her lawyers also contend that unscientific and false evidence misled jurors into believing Mariah's injuries could have only been caused by physical abuse and not by medical complications from a severe fall.

"I knew that what I was accused of doing was not true. My children have always been my world and although my choices in life were not good I would have never hurt any of my children in such a way," Lucio wrote in a letter to Texas lawmakers.

Cameron County District Attorney Luis Saenz, whose office prosecuted the case, has said he disagrees with Lucio's lawyers' claims that new evidence would exonerate her. Prosecutors say Lucio had a history of drug abuse and at times had lost custody of some of her 14 children.

During a sometimes contentious Texas House committee hearing on Lucio's case this month, Saenz initially pushed back on requests to use his power to stop the execution, before later saying he would intervene if the courts didn't act.

"I don't disagree with all the scrutiny this case is getting. I welcome that," Saenz said.

Armando Villalobos was the county's district attorney when Lucio was convicted in 2008, and Lucio's lawyers allege that he pushed for a conviction to help his re-election bid. In 2014, Villalobos was sentenced to 13 years in federal prison for a bribery scheme related to offering favourable prosecutorial decisions.

Her lawyers also say Lucio's sentence was disproportionate to what her husband and Mariah's father, Robert Alvarez, received. He got a four-year sentence for causing injury to a child by omission even though he also was responsible for Mariah's care, Lucio's lawyers argue.

Who's rallying on her behalf?

More than half the members of the Texas legislature had asked that her execution be halted. A bipartisan group of Texas lawmakers travelled this month to Gatesville, where the state houses female death row inmates, and prayed with Lucio.

"Just knowing that Ms. Lucio's case is out there is enough to cause me to lose a lot of sleep," Republican representative Jeff Leach told a Dallas television station last week.

"We ought to not be at all afraid to ask questions and make sure we're not potentially executing an innocent fellow Texan."

Five of the 12 jurors who sentenced Lucio and one alternate juror have questioned their original decision and asked she get a new trial.

"She was not evil. She was just struggling.… If we had heard passionately from the defence defending her in some way, we might have reached a different decision," juror Johnny Galvan wrote in an affidavit expressing doubts about her conviction.

Lucio's cause also has the backing of faith leaders such as Sister Helen Prejean, the activist who's lobbied for decades for the abolition of the death penalty, and the case was featured on HBO's Last Week Tonight with John Oliver.

Lucio's family and supporters have been travelling throughout Texas and holding rallies and screenings of a 2020 documentary about her case, The State of Texas vs. Melissa, which has streamed on Hulu in the U.S. and been broadcast on SuperChannel in Canada.

How an execution can be stopped or appealed

Appeals seeking to stop Lucio's execution have been pending in state and federal courts.

The Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles can hear a request to either commute a death sentence to life imprisonment or grant an 120-day execution reprieve to an applicant.

Any decision by the board to commute her sentence or grant the reprieve would need the governor's approval. Abbott, who has granted clemency to only one death row inmate since taking office in 2015, also has the authority to unilaterally issue a 30-day execution stay. Abbott commuted a death sentence to life without parole for Thomas (Bart) Whitaker, who was convicted of fatally shooting his mother and brother. Whitaker's father was also shot but survived and led the effort to spare his son's life.

Women offenders are rarely executed

Women have accounted for only 3.6 per cent of the more than 16,000 confirmed executions in the U.S. dating back to the colonial period in the 1600s, according to data from the Washington-based Death Penalty Information Center, a nonprofit that opposes capital punishment.

Since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976, 17 women have been executed throughout the nation, according to the data. Texas has put more women to death — six — than any other state, though not since 2014. Oklahoma is next, with three, and Florida has executed two.

The federal government has executed one woman since 1976. Lisa Montgomery, of Kansas, received a lethal injection in January 2021 after the Trump administration resumed executions in the federal system following a 17-year hiatus. The Justice Department has halted executions again under the Biden administration.