Texas death row prisoner Melissa Lucio granted stay of execution
TSB News reports that a Texas court of criminal appeals has issued a stay of execution for Melissa Lucio, the Mexican-American woman who was set to be judicially killed within 48 hours, ordering a lower court to consider new evidence of her innocence in the death of her two-year-old daughter Mariah.
The court issued its order on Monday as the final clock was ticking on Lucio’s transfer to the death chamber. She would have been the first Hispanic woman executed by Texas.
As Wednesday’s scheduled execution date grew closer, calls for a stay to give time for new scientific evidence of her innocence to be reviewed grew to fever pitch. The intensity of the outcry against her pending death rivaled that of the case of Troy Davis, the African American man executed by Georgia in 2011 despite serious doubts around his guilt.
New evidence presented by Lucio’s legal team in a 266-page petition suggested that the murder of her toddler daughter had never even happened. Medical and eye-witness evidence pointed towards Mariah having died after accidentally falling down a steep flight of stairs at Lucio’s rental home.
In a statement, Lucio thanked the court of criminal appeals for giving her the chance “to live and prove my innocence. Mariah is in my heart today and always.”