Alicia Maule
Mothers like Sabrina Butler-Smith, Kristine Bunch, and Michelle Murphy, who have been all wrongly convicted for his or her youngsters’s deaths, are calling on Texas Gov. Greg Abbott to spare Melissa Lucio’s life in a brand new “Mothers for Melissa” PSA.
“Melissa skilled a mom’s worst nightmare,” the video says. “Now, time is working out.”
In 2008, Ms. Lucio was sentenced to loss of life largely primarily based on statements she was coerced into making throughout a marathon interrogation the night time her 2-year-old daughter Mariah died following a tragic fall. She faces execution in a single week in Texas.
One out of seven feminine exonerees have been accused of murdering a baby who in actuality died of an unrelated accident or undiagnosed pathology, in accordance with information from the Nationwide Registry of Exonerations.
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Mothers for Melissa
After the tragic loss of life of Ms. Lucio’s daughter Mariah, police rushed to judgment and erroneously concluded that the kid’s loss of life was a homicide. Officers aggressively interrogated Ms. Lucio, who was pregnant and in shock from the lack of her youngster, for greater than 5 hours. After asserting her innocence greater than 100 instances, Ms. Lucio lastly acquiesced and instructed interrogators, “I suppose I did it” and reluctantly agreed to take accountability for a few of Mariah’s accidents. Ms. Lucio is a survivor of lifelong, repeated sexual assault and home violence, making her much more susceptible to falsely confessing below such coercive circumstances.
Missing stable bodily proof, Cameron County District Legal professional Armando Villalobos offered Ms. Lucio’s conciliatory assertion to the jury as a “confession” to murder and sought the loss of life penalty.
The PSA calling for justice for Ms. Lucio options the voices of 13 ladies and moms, together with Carmen Perez, president and CEO of The Gathering for Justice, actress Edie Falco, media mogul Yandy Smith-Harris, and Bob Bland of Masks for America, who describe motherhood as life’s “best pleasure.”
The Mothers for Melissa initiative joins a rising motion urging clemency for Ms. Lucio. A bipartisan coalition of greater than 100 Texas lawmakers, lots of of non secular leaders and anti-domestic violence/sexual assault organizations from Texas and throughout the nation have already written to the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles in assist of clemency.
Gov. Greg Abbott has the facility to cease the state from finishing up an irreversible injustice.
Take motion Now
1. Share this PSA on Fb, Twitter and Instagram. Social media toolkit here.
2. Observe @innocenceproject on social media to remain up to date on the newest info on the case.
3. Name Gov. Abbott at present by dialing 956-446-2866 to be linked or visiting savemelissa.org
4. Add your title to her petition by texting SAVEMELISSA to 97016.
