Relatives and activists promote a signature campaign to prevent Melissa Lucio from being executed by lethal injection after being sentenced to death in 2008 for the death of her daughter Mariah, 2 years old.
Lucio is the only Hispanic on death row in Texas. The procedure is scheduled for April 27.
“My daughter is innocent,” Esperanza insisted this Monday. Together with other relatives and with the support of the organization Death Penalty Action, he tries to pressure the Cameron County prosecutor, Luis Sáenz, to stop the punishment.
“She doesn’t deserve to die. She deserves a lifetime,” the mother cried out as quoted by Telemundo.
Abraham J.Bonowitz, director of Death Penalty Action, said that they delivered some 27,000 signatures asking the prosecutor to see the documentary “The State of Texas vs. Melissa” by Sabrina van Tassel. The audiovisual material suggests that there is no evidence that Lucio killed his daughter.
“Watch the movie!” chanted the demonstrators outside the prosecutor’s office.
The documentary The State of Texas vs. Melissa, directed by Sabrina van Tassel, seeks to show Lucio’s innocence. “There is no proof of any kind. There is a woman on death row and not a single person has seen her hit her daughter. The only thing they have is what they call a confession,” Van Tassel told the Efe news agency.
For her part, Tivon Schardl, one of the sentenced woman’s lawyers, questioned the prosecutor allegedly basing her case on a coerced statement.
“Melissa Lucio faces imminent execution for a capital murder she never committed,” she told the Texas Observer newspaper. “Melissa, an innocent woman, faces to execution in less than 100 days because a corrupt prosecutor relied on a coerced statement by an overzealous Texas Ranger who harassed a traumatized woman into making a false confession”, he stated.
On the day of the events, on 2007, the paramedics arrived at the apartment that Lucio shared with his partner, Robert Alvarez, and nine of their children in the Rio Grande Valley. There they found Mariah lying on her back on the floor. Her mother claimed that she fell down the stairs. The minor was pronounced dead on arrival at the hospital. After examinations that confirmed that the girl had a broken arm, bruises and a head injury, the Police launched a homicide investigation.
The Cameron County Coroner said that the minor died of head trauma compatible with a case of child abuse and not with a fall.
The minor’s father, who claimed not to know what happened, was sentenced to four years in prison for reckless injuries. While Lucio was sentenced to death.
Among other things, the documentary suggests that Lucio could have pleaded guilty to protect his teenage daughter who was with her little sister at the time of the events. However, this information was never presented in court.
The call of the Latina’s supporters does not seem to make a dent in the prosecutor, who declared through a statement that the authorities are ready to execution.
“The time has come to comply with the sentence legally imposed by the jury and obtain justice for Mariah,” said Sáenz.