Several members of the upper chamber of the Texas Legislature have joined their counterparts in the state's House of Representatives in calling for a South Texas mother convicted of killing her two-year-old daughter in 2007 to be spared execution later this month. According to a report from Austin ABC affiliate KVUE, more than half of the 31-member Senate expressed in writing their support for Melissa Lucio.
The 20 senators requested the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles (BPP) to grant clemency for Lucio, who is scheduled to be put to death on April 27, the station reported.
State Sen. Eddie Lucio, Jr. (D-Brownsville) is leading the bipartisan effort.
He said in a statement that new evidence indicates that the death row inmate's conviction should be called into question.
"Accordingly, she deserves a reprieve from execution until her defense team can gather the new evidence needed to prove her innocence," the lawmaker said, per KVUE.
The senators' letter calls for the BPP to either commute Lucio's sentence or pause her execution, the station reported.
The panel then must tell Gov. Greg Abbott that he grant her clemency.
"The death penalty is the ultimate punishment in Texas, and our state has an absolute obligation to ensure that it never executes an innocent person," the senators wrote. "With eyewitness accounts of Mariah’s accidental fall, and no eyewitness accounts that point to murder, Ms. Lucio’s case is one that gives even proponents of the death penalty pause. Doctors who recently reviewed the autopsy — including a leading specialist from The University of Texas Medical Branch — concluded that the jury heard false testimony about whether Mariah was abused."
Last week, a cadre of Texas state representatives visited Lucio at a Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) facility in Gatesville as she awaited her fate, the Austin Journal reported.
The contingent – Reps. Joe Moody (D-El Paso), Jeff Leach (R-Plano), James White (R-Tyler), Lacey Hull (R-Houston), Toni Rose (D-Dallas) and Victoria Neave Criado (D-Dallas) – prayed with death row inmate Melissa Lucio, according to Moody's official Twitter account, the publication reported.