Kim Kardashian has asked for clemency for a domestic violence victim who faces execution in 22 days after ‘falsely’ pleading guilty to murdering her two-year-old daughter.
Melissa Lucio, 53, will be executed by lethal injection in Texas on April 27 for the 2007 death of her daughter Mariah.
Mariah died from injuries sustained after falling down the 14 steps of a high staircase outside the family’s residence in Harlingen, Texas, according to Lucio and her lawyers.
Lucio denied fatally hitting the toddler more than 100 times throughout hours of interrogation. But, her defenders claim, the Texas woman finally acquiesced to investigators after being worn down by a lifetime of abuse and the agony of losing her kid.
When asked if she was responsible for any of Mariah’s injuries, Lucio replied, “I guess I did it.” Prosecutors misinterpreted her statement as a murder confession, according to her lawyers.
Kardashian, who has been a vocal supporter of criminal justice reform in recent years, has encouraged Gov. Abbott to award Lucio clemency after she ‘falsely pleaded guilty’ after hours of interrogation by police.
‘It’s tales like Melissa’s that drive me to speak out so forcefully about the death penalty in general, and why it should be abolished when innocent people suffer,’ Kardashian said.
Lucio’s attorneys say that her admission of “I guess I did it” after hours of questioning was misinterpreted as a murder confession, tainting the rest of the investigation into Mariah’s death, with evidence acquired solely to support that conclusion, and leading to her capital murder conviction.
Lucio had been sexually attacked several times since he was six years old, and had been physically and mentally mistreated by two marriages. He had been on execution row for more than 14 years. Her lawyers claim that she was vulnerable to making a false confession because of her lifelong suffering.
As her execution date approaches on April 27, Lucio’s attorneys hope that new evidence and growing public support, including from jurors who now question the conviction and more than half of the Texas House of Representatives, will persuade the state’s Board of Pardons and Paroles and Gov. Greg Abbott to grant an execution reprieve or commute her sentence.
‘Mariah’s death was more of a tragedy than a homicide… If this execution takes place, it will send an utterly awful message. It would give the message that innocence doesn’t count,’ said Vanessa Potkin of the Innocence Project, one of Lucio’s attorneys.
‘[Melissa] has been on death row for nearly 14 years for her daughter’s death, which was a horrible accident,’ Kardashian wrote after learning about Lucio’s case.
Mariah, her 2-year-old daughter, tumbled down a flight of stairs and died two days later while napping. She was apprehended by the police after calling for assistance.
‘Melissa is a survivor of abuse and domestic violence who falsely pleaded guilty after being probed for hours. She wanted the interrogation to end, but the cops mistook her statements for a confession.’
‘She is slated to be executed on April 27 in Texas,’ Kardashian said, urging the public to join an Innocent Project petition for Gov. Abbott to postpone Lucio’s execution.
According to Lucio’s lawyers, jurors never heard forensic evidence that would have revealed that Mariah’s injuries were caused by a fall a few days prior. They also claim Lucio was not allowed to introduce evidence challenging her confession’s veracity.
Mariah suffered the ‘very worst’ case of child abuse her emergency department doctor has seen in 30 years, according to the Texas Attorney General’s Office.
‘Lucio continues to offer no solid and supportive evidence of her acquittal,’ the office noted in court records last month.
Lucio would be the first Latina and first woman to be executed in Texas since 2014. Since the Supreme Court removed its moratorium on the death sentence in 1976, only 17 women have been killed in the United States, the most recent being in January 2021.