Why I Am Against…

Executions, are political in the United States.

There is a party here in the U.S. that promotes itself as the “Law and Order” that party that believes killing people somehow makes the world safer.

The state of Texas is getting ready to murder a mother of twelve and a grandmother who was interrogated for five hours without a lawyer and all during the interrogation she denied pushing her child down the stairs. After 5 hours she said "I guess I did it." BINGO we got a confession!

During the prosecution they never mentioned that her “confession”  came after 5 hours of non-stop interrogation with out a lawyer nor an interpreter, she is now the first Hispanic woman on death row. 

Now the state of Texas is getting ready to kill her in sixteen days.

KTRK reports that,

During an interrogation, Melissa Lucio's attorney said she denied harming the girl more than 100 times before saying, "I guess I did it." Her legal team argues that isn't a confession and she didn't get a fair trial.

USA Today wrote,

But Lucio's lawyers say jurors were not allowed to see evidence that explained Mariah's injuries were caused by the fall.

[…]

According to the clemency petition, two experts on false confession confirmed Lucio was "was uniquely vulnerable" to coercion during the interrogation because of her "cognitive deficit, history of significant trauma and corresponding mental health issues." This exacerbated her to risk for manipulation, her lawyers argue. 

Texas Monthly wrote that on Amazon there is the movie The State of Texas vs. Melissa that,

This story is an important one, filled with the legal missteps that so often plague death row cases, and that can cost lives. The film gives important details about Lucio’s life and presents a plausible alternative explanation for Mariah’s death, but the jumbled narrative fails in its attempt to make the strongest possible case for Lucio’s innocence.

The Innocent Project says…

Mariah fell down a flight of stairs while the family was moving homes on Feb. 15, 2007. The toddler had a mild physical disability that made her unstable while walking and prone to tripping. Two days later, she took a nap and didn’t wake up.

[…]

Detectives jumped to judgment and just two hours after Mariah died, took Ms. Lucio in for questioning. During the interrogation, officers berated and intimidated Ms. Lucio, who was pregnant and in shock from the loss of her child, for five hours. Research has shown that survivors of sexual abuse and violence, like Ms. Lucio, are more vulnerable to falsely confessing under such coercive conditions. And experts who have reviewed Ms. Lucio’s case, including reviewed her interrogation records, have concluded that Ms. Lucio “was relentlessly pressured and extensively manipulated” during the interrogation.

At 3 a.m., Ms. Lucio said, “I guess I did it,” at 3 a.m. to get the officers to end the interrogation. Her statement was then misconstrued as a confession.

Thousands of pages of Child Protective Services records show that Ms. Lucio’s 12 children never said she was violent with them. No physical evidence showed otherwise.

“The State presented no physical evidence or witness testimony establishing that Lucio abused Mariah or any of her children, let alone killed Mariah,” Judge Catharina Haynes wrote on behalf of the seven dissenting judges from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. 

“The jury was deprived of key evidence to weigh: that is the point.”

[…]

The jury never learned about the extent of Ms. Lucio’s history of child sexual abuse and domestic violence and how it shaped her reactions immediately following her daughter’s death. The trial court prohibited this testimony but allowed the Texas Ranger who coerced Ms. Lucio’s incriminating statement to testify for the prosecution that Ms. Lucio’s slumped posture, passivity, and failure to make eye contact told him that she was guilty. 

Without that context, the jury convicted Ms. Lucio’s of capital murder based on her statement and the Texas Ranger’s testimony about her distant behavior during the interrogation.

[…]

At the time, Mr. Villalobos was seeking re-election, and came under fire for failing to thoroughly investigate or prosecute more than 100 previous allegations of child abuse. Ahead of the election, Mr. Villalobos sought to make an example in Ms. Lucio’s case, which helped him appear “tough on crime.” Today, the former district attorney is serving a 13-year federal prison sentence for bribery and extortion.

Questions:

• Do you think that because the prosecutor was running for election on a “Tough on crime” platform made a difference?
• Do you think that because Ms. Lucio was Latinx made a difference?
• Do you think that having a public defender made a difference?
• Do you think that her cognitive deficit and mental health issues during interrogation made a difference?

If you said yes to any of the questions then she should not be executed. At the very least she deserves another trial.

I am against the death penalty because we do not have a perfect legal system, innocent people get convicted all the time and when you kill someone you cannot go back and correct a wrong.

Executions leave no room for error.