texas court has granted a stay of
execution to melissa lucille a mother of
14 children who is set to be executed
wednesday in the death of her
two-year-old daughter mariah her case
will be sent back to a lower court to
look at what lucio says is new evidence
that will clear her in a short statement
she says i'm grateful the court has
given me the chance to live and prove my
innocence mariah is in my heart today
and always
so here's the deal here's why this was
such a high profile and controversial
decision and case lucille was convicted
of capital murder 14 years ago
prosecutors said she physically abused
her daughter and that mariah had bruises
a head injury an untreated broken arm
but defense attorneys lucio's lawyers
say the case was built on false medical
evidence and a coerced confession
lucille's had supporters from all over
the country even celebrities like kim
kardashian who called today's ruling the
quote best news ever danny cevallos
who's joining me now and danny one of
her lawyers today says this decision
signaled the court's willingness to
finally hear melissa's side of the story
the new york times has framed this whole
case as kind of a rare example of
agreement in a state like texas which is
fairly polarized how significant is it
that this texas board decided to give
her a stay of execution after she spent
this time on death row
it's not a rare case when you talk about
coerced confessions leading to
conviction but you're absolutely right
that this is a rare case in which folks
from all over the government different
sides of the legislative aisle they all
seem to agree that this is a case that
deserves a closer second look and in
reviewing the documents this seems to me
like a relatively common case of law
enforcement getting tunnel vision early
in a case based on
their subjective impressions of how uh
credible the suspect is and narrowing in
on a suspect very early and from their
confirmation bias just flies in and it's
very easy to come up with all kinds of
testimony including from a medical
examiner that's consistent with that
initial impression
and now that her case is getting sent
back to lower court is there new
evidence they could get here they might
not have had before is that how this
would work
it depends procedurally on what that new
evidence would be it generally has to be
something that was not available at the
time of trial but they have several
other grounds which are that the
original testimony was allegedly
falsified including potentially by the
medical examiner so these are all
grounds that that could possibly uh
result in a new trial or vacating the
conviction so i mean look in appellate
work you know everything's a long shot
but getting a second chance is still a
second chance she's still in the game
lucille would have been the first latina
woman ever executed by texas the first
woman who had been put to death in that
state since 2014.
you had mentioned the sort of support
that she'd gotten can you talk a little
bit more about that right it's not just
kim kardashian it's lawmakers too
politicians on both sides of the aisle
lawmakers and conservative republican
lawmakers which is a rarity i mean i
don't have data on this but generally
speaking it's not republican lawmakers
that uh that are particularly interested
in wrongful convictions or exonerations
i shouldn't say i mean i think they all
are look even da's offices now have
wrongful conviction units and those are
growing uh day by day so there really is
a movement to re-examine past
convictions not just by legislators
but the actual da's office that may have
convicted the defendant so i mean we're
definitely moving in a positive
direction uh for these wrongful
conviction exoneration cases
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