Melissa Lucio, a 53-year old woman and mother to 14 children, has been on Texas’ death row since 2007 for the abuse and capital murder of her toddler daughter. She was scheduled to be executed on April 27th; however, following a wave of bipartisan support for Lucio’s clemency last month, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals decided to grant her a stay of execution. Now, they are discussing whether Lucio ought to be granted a retrial.
Lucio was first arrested back in February of 2007 after the lifeless, bruised body of her 2-year-old daughter, Mariah, was brought to a hospital in Harlingen, Texas. Immediately, Lucio was suspected of being responsible for the child’s death; upon questioning by police, Lucio initially claimed that Mariah had fallen down the stairs a few days earlier, but after five hours of interrogation, Lucio admitted responsibility. In 2008, she was convicted of capital murder and sentenced to death.
As her execution date drew closer, so did speculation on the validity of Lucio’s trial. The Federal Appeals Court unanimously overturned Lucio's sentence in 2019, citing "trial court interference" in Lucio’s right to present a defense. However, this decision was again overturned, and Lucio stayed on death row. In 2020, Hulu released a documentary called The State of Texas vs. Melissa that brought the case national attention. Then, in January 2022, Lucio’s execution warrant was signed, and her execution was scheduled for the 27th of April that year. Lucio’s attorneys filed a clemency petition that garnered bipartisan support. Two days before her scheduled execution, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals granted her a stay of execution, finding merit in four out of nine claims raised in her application for a writ of habeas corpus.
The picture painted of Lucio by the prosecution at her trial was far from forgiving. According to the prosecution, Lucio was an abusive, neglective, and cruel mother who struggled with drug addiction and had a history of investigation by Child Protective Services. Paramedics who had first arrived at the scene were immediately skeptical of Lucio’s version of the events, as their house had only one floor and a few steps to the front porch. The medical examiner testified that Mariah was a “battered child” who had died of blunt-force trauma to the head, and one of the ER doctors present at Mariah’s attempted resuscitation called it the “absolute worst” case of child abuse he had ever seen. He also claimed that a fall down the stairs could not account for Mariah’s injuries, which included severe bruising across her entire body, a fracture in her arms from several weeks prior to her death, and alleged bite marks on her back.
But Lucio’s clemency petition paints a far different picture of Lucio. According to her attorneys and family, she led an extremely difficult life. Throughout her childhood, she was subject to sexual assault and abuse at the hands of her mother’s partners; at 16, she dropped out of high school to marry her first husband, whom she had five children with by the time she was 23. Her first husband eventually abandoned the family, and Lucio got remarried to a man with whom she’d have the rest of her children. Lucio’s relationships continued to be abusive all throughout her life.
Lucio’s seven youngest children were taken into foster care in 2004 due to neglect. She eventually regained custody of them in 2006. Several of Lucio’s children have pleaded for mercy for their mother, arguing that while she was often unable to properly care for them, she did the best she could under impoverished conditions, a history of drug addiction, and an abusive husband. Child Protective Services records corroborate their claims; while Lucio failed to keep their home clean, the children fed and supervised, and the entire family off the streets, there was never any evidence to show that she treated her children maliciously or physically abused them.
Surrounding the events that led to Mariah’s death, the clemency petition also tells a very different story. Mariah had a mild physical disability that made her prone to falls and accidents. While Lucio was busy packing up the apartment and preparing for the family’s move, Mariah fell down a flight of over a dozen stairs. When Lucio found her daughter, she was crying and bleeding from her lip, but Lucio did not believe her daughter to be seriously injured. The family moved, but over the course of the next two days, Mariah slept excessively and started refusing to eat. Lucio considered taking Mariah to the doctor, but chose to wait and let her daughter nap. When Mariah stopped breathing, the family called 911. She was pronounced dead after the hospital failed to resuscitate her.
Paramedics were unaware that the family had just moved, and believed the house they arrived at to be the house Lucio was claiming Mariah had fallen in. As for Mariah’s injuries, the clemency petition argued that the bruising could have been from a blood coagulation disorder that medical experts saw signs of. Additionally, the forensic pathologist had been told that Lucio had confessed to abusing Mariah, and did not review Mariah’s medical history of physical disability before they determined blunt force trauma as the cause of death.
Regarding the events following Mariah’s death, the clemency petition depicts a poorly-executed interrogation. On the day of Mariah’s death, Lucio, who was then pregnant with twins, vaguely admitted to being responsible for some of Mariah’s injuries after hours of interrogation, but never her death. Her attorneys argue Lucio’s history of abuse made her particularly susceptible to being coerced into a false confession. After she admitted to sometimes spanking her children, interrogators instructed Lucio on how much force to use when spanking the demonstration doll.
Perhaps most damningly, the clemency petition’s description of the trial claims that the prosecution had suppressed evidence that would have helped Lucio’s defense. The statements given to police by Lucio’s other children and family members were suppressed, and the state’s testimony, according to Lucio’s team, gave the jury a false impression. Several jurors from Lucio’s state trial have stated that they believe her execution should be stopped or that she should be retried.
For now, Lucio’s future remains uncertain. Her family members and legal team are hopeful that she may one day be vindicated, but the road there will undoubtedly be long. First, a trial court-level judge will have to make a recommendation to the state appeals court as to whether or not Lucio ought to receive a retrial. And that’s just the beginning.
https://www.cnn.com/2022/04/08/us/melissa-lucio-clemency-support/index.html
https://theintercept.com/2022/04/28/melissa-lucio-execution-stay-texas/
https://www.cnn.com/2022/05/01/us/melissa-lucio-claims-new-trial/index.html
https://www.cnn.com/2022/04/20/us/melissa-lucio-texas-death-row-inmate/index.html
https://www.cnn.com/2022/04/25/us/melissa-lucio-stay-of-execution/index.html
10 comments:
This story highlights one of the main issues with having the death penalty and the criminal justice system as a whole. While imprisoning an innocent person is bad enough, executing them is irreversible, and the potential innocence of a death row inmate is the biggest problem with the death penalty. In the case where a murderer is 100% guilty and has caused extreme damage to society, I would find it difficult to argue against the death penalty. However, I think that the issue of innocence is the main political argument against the death penalty. I believe that it is politically favorable to abolish the death penalty if it saves 1 innocent person from execution, even if 100 guilty murderers are saved from the death penalty. This is important because biases against race, gender, and social standing are important factors in the criminal justice system and these should not determine if one lives or dies. Based on the current evidence available, I think that Lucio should be granted a retrial given that her conviction was based on a confession that was coerced out of her. Additionally, there are a number of details that were overlooked in the trial that cast some doubt as to the reality of the case and this doubt should be strongly considered before she is subject to the death penalty.
Personally I agree with death penalty since it’s only applied in cases where someone is involved in murder, and from a political and moral standpoint it seems fair. A benefit is that tax payer dollars can be used for more beneficial purposes and not be wasted by keeping murderers in jail. However Melissa Lucio demonstrates the complexity of murder cases, and the downside for how an unfair and biased trial could incriminate and kill innocent people. Bias could negatively affect justice, especially if the judge has limited or negative experiences related to it then it's easier to make false assumptions. Even given perfect evidence on what happened the court would still find it difficult to accurately judge a case given its complexity, and having room for debate makes it easier for bias in decisions. As a result precedent and law is in place to eliminate bias. Biases can be reduced by having more detailed laws and better investigation into the facts surrounding the crime. You wrote that Lucio had a hard life, dropped out of school at 16, suffered sexual abuse growing up, struggled with drug addiction and had multiple children who she neglected, revealing that she likely has mental problems, has no job and is uneducated. Based on current evidence I believe that Lucio should be granted a retrial. Her first trial seems to be an obstruction of justice which could have led to her death, and considering her situation she is at the mercy of the court who could easily take advantage of her. I agree with what you and Alex wrote, the full facts of her case were not presented at the trial, and her confession seems to be coerced out of her. Her case should be considered more holistically before being subject to death penalty.
I know there’s a significant amount of evidence surrounding the economic side of the issue that I’m not super familiar with, but morally and politically I disagree with the death penalty. Even though crimes like those Lucio is accused of are morally reprehensible, I do not think the ethical solution is to execute that person. I also don’t think it’s a good idea to give the government the ability to execute people, especially when our justice system is so flawed. There is no way of knowing with 100% certainty that someone is guilty, and though there is still enough certainty to send people to jail, terminating their lives without 100% knowing if they are guilty or not is unacceptable. (I also don’t think guilty people should be executed either, regardless of what they did, but I know there’s two sides to that issue). And, as you pointed out in your post, our judicial system has significant issues with racism and classism, so I don’t think it’s a judicial system we should be trusting to sentence people to death.
However, even with a perfect judicial system, I still think the death penalty is inhumane and nobody should be subjected to it, which is where I disagree slightly with Alex and Stephanie. I don’t think that sentencing someone to death solves any problems, other than potentially carrying out the wishes of a victim’s family. In my opinion, the goal of the criminal justice system should always be to rehabilitate rather than punish, no matter what the case is.
I do not morally or politically agree with the death penalty. As Alex said, it has led to the execution of innocent people, which is a terrible fate that should be avoided at all costs. Since 1973, at least 186 people (of 1,543, which is 12%) who had been executed in the U.S. have been exonerated, and more than half of them were Black, highlighting the racial bias in the criminal justice system. There is also a socioeconomic bias, as wealthy people can afford to hire an effective lawyer. Furthermore, “The National Research Council of the National Academies concluded that studies claiming the death penalty has a deterrent effect are fundamentally flawed”—in reality, studies have shown that murder rates are higher in states that have the death penalty (EJI). In addition, life in prison without parole is not more expensive than the death penalty. From a constitutional standpoint, the ACLU argues that “the death penalty inherently violates the constitutional ban against cruel and unusual punishment and the guarantees of due process of law and of equal protection under the law.” Lastly, there have been many cases of botched executions that are truly horrifying and barbaric, which the ACLU writes about here (https://www.aclu.org/other/case-against-death-penalty) under the section “Capital punishment is barbaric.”
I agree that Lucio should be granted a retrial, as obstruction of justice occurred and her confession was coerced. Her case is a prime example of the dangers of the death penalty, and many others have been and will be in her position of being possibly executed on questionable or downright invalid grounds.
https://eji.org/issues/death-penalty/
The death penalty is a hard pill to swallow. Personally, I do not find it morally wrong. It makes sense that murderers / people that commit crimes bad enough to be locked up forever should face a death penalty instead of using taxpayer money to fund a lifetime of prison. However, the fact that innocent / not-so-severe crime committers could be sentenced to death row makes me severely question the position of the death penalty in the American justice system. I agree with Blackstone's ratio: better 10 guilty people escape than one innocent person suffer. In this situation, it's much better to let all people deserving of a death penalty to use taxpayer money and live in prison than let one innocent person be unjustly killed.
I absolutely believe that Lucio should be granted a retrial.
Some say that the death penalty helps deter crime by example and is cheaper than life-long sentences. One drawback is false imprisonment and accidentally killing innocent people unintentionally. I don’t morally agree with it, but I can imagine how the pain of losing a loved one can make victims' families feel strongly in favor of the death penalty. While I think of myself as not morally or politically agreeing with the death penalty, I don’t think it should be completely impossible to receive the death penalty, but it should definitely be much rarer than it already is, with strict regulation (100% guilty, heinous crime).
However, implicit biases especially affect the process of justice – even if people try to be objective, there will always be subjectivity that falls (at least in part) to biases. These biases cannot be completely eliminated from the justice system, juries and judges will always have some implicit biases that can only be improved through changes in the broader culture. In any case, depending on the justice system to fairly and accurately find these cases of 100% guilt is asking a lot.
I think Lucio should be granted a retrial because of the mistakes and misrepresentations of Lucio the first go around. The first trial was very fishy, to say the least, so it should be thoroughly investigated and a retrial is necessary to reach a conclusion that isn’t based on misrepresentations.
I believe there are plenty of moral issues with the death penalty and for these reasons, I have a very difficult time justifying its use. Some who are pro-death-penalty argue that it is only to “execute the worst of the worst” but then once one considers all of the innocent people being accidentally killed, it becomes clear how bad the system is. There are, in general, lots of issues with our justice system. The use of private for profit prisons in the US promotes the incarnation of criminals rather than their rehabilitation. Prosecutors have been known to suppress evidence to win cases, I can’t say how often it happens but it does happen. Systems in some European countries promote rehabilitation rather than long term punishment which has been shown to work better for getting criminals integrated back into society as non-criminals. I think this is the ideal system, focusing on rehabilitation rather than punishment, especially since many criminals are in jail for things relating to drug abuse and mental health crises, which can be treated. Obviously there is a difference between someone who is dealing drugs and goes to jail and someone who is addicted and goes to jail, I think rehab makes more sense for the person who is addicted, and that should be focused on especially given the various crises in the US like the opioid epidemic that wasn’t caused by people meaning to abuse drugs but rather by a corporation’s false marketing and people getting prescribed drugs. With regards to Lucio, since some information was hidden from the jury in her trial, then yes she of course deserves a retrial. She has the right to a full and fair trial in which the jury can examine all evidence, without anything hidden. Hiding evidence is illegal and should not be tolerated.
I completely agree with Alex's standpoint on the death penalty. While I am, admittedly, a bit uninformed about the full economic implications of the death penalty, I think that Alex's claim that if revoking the death penalty saves even one innocent life from being taken, it is a decision worth making despite the hundreds of guilty lives who arguably deserve to die. From a moral standpoint, whether or not those objectively guilty of the crime deserve to die for their actions is debatable, but I think that most people are able to agree upon the importance of saving lives. The death penalty, as others have said, is not something that can be undone. Unlike lifetime prison sentences--which can allow those in rare cases to be released and compensated after they are proven to actually be innocent--the death penalty provides no form of a correction of the facts post-conviction. There have been numerous cases of people charged with the death penalty who were later, too late, found to be innocent.
Thomas' point of rehabilitation being the goal of some European countries' "punishment" is an interesting one. The death penalty blurs the line between justice and pure vengeance. Rehabilitation methods as compared to the death penalty might be a better option if we want a better society that is focused on fixing rather than pure elimination. Again, this delves into the morality of the death penalty which goes into a lot of gray areas that are subjective in nature and impossible to agree upon.
With everything that I've said, I fully believe Lucio should be granted a retrial. It's clear that the crime is not certain. As I've said, putting an innocent person on death row is needlessly taking an innocent life. Death penalty trials need to be looked at especially closely if we don't want the deaths of innocent people but still want to have "justice" of that nature and magnitude.
The justice system is certainly flawed and has failed to ensure justice time after time. This is seen in the thousands of wrongful convictions that occur every year, as well as the stories of exonerations that occur, most of which are criticized as being "too little, too late." Racial injustice pervades the criminal justice system, especially for Black Americans, who are more likely to be racially profiled, arrested, subject to longer sentences, and resultantly more at risk of being subjected to the death penalty. While I do agree with many others that the the death penalty's morality is debatable, as I do believe there are crimes horrendous enough that the criminal deserves the death penalty, the flaws in the justice system may fail to protect those who are truly innocent and do justice to those who deserve it.
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