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#253 Jason Flom on Melissa Lucio · Wrongful Conviction

0:00
Speaker 1: Since the initial release of our coverage of Melissa Lucio's case,
0:03
Speaker 1: there have been some developments. This is a re release
0:06
Speaker 1: of that coverage with brand new content. Melissa Lucio grew
0:12
Speaker 1: up poor in South Texas, a victim of years of
0:15
Speaker 1: sexual abuse from multiple offenders in the home. At age sixteen,
0:19
Speaker 1: she married her first boyfriend to escape tying up her
0:22
Speaker 1: self worth and being a mother, so much so that
0:25
Speaker 1: she eventually had fourteen children. The final two were twins
0:28
Speaker 1: that Melissa delivered behind bars after having been accused of
0:32
Speaker 1: allegedly murdering the next youngest sibling, two year old Mariah,
0:36
Speaker 1: on February fifteenth, two thousand and seven. Mariah's older siblings
0:40
Speaker 1: witnessed her take a tumble down the stairs. Lethargy and
0:43
Speaker 1: a lack of appetite were hoped to be symptoms of
0:46
Speaker 1: something less severe than head trauma, but when she became
0:49
Speaker 1: unresponsive on February seventeenth, they called the MS. Mariah passed away,
0:53
Speaker 1: and an aggressive interrogation ensued, resulting in an admission to
0:57
Speaker 1: an overarching sense of guilt that most any mother would feel.
1:01
Speaker 1: The usual bruising from rough play with her siblings was
1:04
Speaker 1: later used to support the state's theory of a pattern
1:07
Speaker 1: of abuse. Melissa's conviction would also go a long way
1:10
Speaker 1: to shore up a tough on crime image for a
1:13
Speaker 1: corrupt district attorney and broiled it up scandal during an
1:17
Speaker 1: election year. Defying logic and the scientific method, the state's
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Speaker 1: forensic pathologists ruled out Maria's fall down the stairs as
1:25
Speaker 1: the cause of the fatal head trauma. Further, the children
1:28
Speaker 1: who witnessed the accident and denied the pattern of abuse
1:31
Speaker 1: were not called to testify. After trial, Melissa's defense attorney
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Speaker 1: was immediately hired to the DA's office with a bump
1:38
Speaker 1: and pay. The DA got reelected, but was later prosecuted
1:41
Speaker 1: by the FBI, and Melissa is still on death row.
1:46
Speaker 1: This is wrongful conviction. Welcome back to Wrongful Conviction with
2:03
Speaker 1: Jason Flamm. Today we're talking about the case of Melissa Lucio,
2:07
Speaker 1: an innocent woman on death row in Texas. To tell
2:12
Speaker 1: this incredible, heroin and urgent story, we have with us
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Speaker 1: Sabrina van Tasseled. Sabrina is an acclaimed documentary filmmaker and
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Speaker 1: investigative journalist who has made forty five films. And I
2:27
Speaker 1: think maybe it was all a build up to this one. Sabrina,
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Speaker 1: Welcome to Wronful Conviction, Thank you so much. And with
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Speaker 1: her is a Texas attorney named Margaret Schmucker, and Margaret
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Speaker 1: has been a fierce advocate for Melissa as her habeas attorney. Margaret,
2:45
Speaker 1: welcome to Ronful Conviction.
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Speaker 2: Thank you for having me.
2:48
Speaker 1: And thank you both for being here. So over the
2:51
Speaker 1: past few years, Sabrina has visited Melissa Lucia on death
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Speaker 1: row in Texas, where she's been stuck since two thousand
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Speaker 1: and eight. And throughout this episode, you're going to hear
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Speaker 1: excerpts from those interviews that you can also see in
3:04
Speaker 1: here in Sabrina's film The State of Texas Versus Melissa.
3:08
Speaker 1: And during those interviews, Melissa really was very candid with
3:12
Speaker 1: you about her life, which was just beyond tragic from
3:15
Speaker 1: the very beginning.
3:17
Speaker 3: So Melissa was born in Houston. Her father left the
3:20
Speaker 3: mom when she was three months old, and they moved
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Speaker 3: to Harlingen, Texas, and the mother kept being, you know,
3:28
Speaker 3: with different boyfriends. They were all abusive. She did tell
3:32
Speaker 3: her mother that the boyfriend was sexually abusing her, and
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Speaker 3: the mother basically did not believe her, and then she
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Speaker 3: basically allowed herself to be a victim to other men
3:42
Speaker 3: in the family. And once she was about fifteen years old,
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Speaker 3: the first boyfriend that she got involved with she married,
3:51
Speaker 3: and she started having a family right after. By the
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Speaker 3: age of twenty two, she already had five children. Her
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Speaker 3: husband introduced her to drugs, and one day the husband
4:02
Speaker 3: just left her, and so all of a sudden, she's
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Speaker 3: twenty two and she has five children, and she meets
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Speaker 3: her other partner, Robert Alvarez, and together they're going to
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Speaker 3: have nine other children, right.
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Speaker 1: And two of those nine were twins that Melissa delivered
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Speaker 1: in jail while she was being held for the alleged
4:21
Speaker 1: murder of her youngest child at that time, Mariah. So
4:26
Speaker 1: before Mariah died, there were five from the first guy
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Speaker 1: and seven from Robert Alvarez, for a total of twelve.
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Speaker 1: So some of them were still really little, some of
4:36
Speaker 1: them were teenagers. Some of them had even moved out
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Speaker 1: by the time Febuary two thousand and seven year old around,
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Speaker 1: which is when this incident happened. But before that they
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Speaker 1: were all living in desperate, desperate poverty and relying on
4:48
Speaker 1: a charity called Loaves and Fishes. For most of their meals.
4:52
Speaker 1: Melissa and robert had very unpredictable schedules because they were
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Speaker 1: doing all sorts of odd jobs trying to support the
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Speaker 1: family and to keep up with all all of it,
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Speaker 1: or to I don't know, maybe forget their troubles. Melissa
5:02
Speaker 1: and robert were using drugs out of the site of
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Speaker 1: the children, but regrettably also while she was pregnant with Mariah.
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Speaker 4: When Melissa had Mariah, the seventh child with Roberta Alvarez,
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Speaker 4: she was born with drugs in her system, and so
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Speaker 4: she was taken from Melissa or mister Albarez by CPS
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Speaker 4: Child Protective Services, along with all of the other kids
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Speaker 4: that were in the home at that time, and they
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Speaker 4: were placed in foster care. They were fairly well split up.
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Speaker 4: That continued for several years, and Melissa and Roberta were
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Speaker 4: given supervised visits with Child Protective Services with the kids,
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Speaker 4: and then finally, when Mariah's about two years old, over Thanksgiving,
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Speaker 4: CPS returned the seven children, who were still minors at
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Speaker 4: the time, back into the home of Melissa and Roberta,
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Speaker 4: And so it is from that point until the point
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Speaker 4: where Mariah dies, where there's nine children in the home
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Speaker 4: in this small second story apartment with a rickety, scary
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Speaker 4: stairwell on the exterior, which is the access point right.
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Speaker 1: And to make this accent even more likely to happen,
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Speaker 1: Mariah had this is important, a physical impairment as well.
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Speaker 1: One of her feet was turned in slightly, which caused
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Speaker 1: her to be unstable and to fall downstairs occasionally, as
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Speaker 1: was documented while she was in foster care. But that's
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Speaker 1: not all that was documented in those Child Protective Services reports.
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Speaker 1: There was a tremendous amount of inter sibling violence while
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Speaker 1: in foster care and when they were living at home,
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Speaker 1: especially from the older sisters disciplining the younger ones who
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Speaker 1: they resented having to care for while their parents were
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Speaker 1: at work. And then the boys were very rambunctious as well.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean the boys were fighting, you know, all
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Speaker 3: the time, and you know, they were big on Wwe
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Speaker 3: keep in mind, CPS comes by once in a while,
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Speaker 3: and so we have the CPS reports, and on one
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Speaker 3: of those the very less time they came to visit,
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Speaker 3: which was two months prior to Mariah's death, there's concern that,
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Speaker 3: you know, the place is too small, that those stairs
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Speaker 3: are very dangerous, and the parents are not around, and
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Speaker 3: basically it's up to the teenage daughters to supervise them.
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Speaker 1: So among the many problems, they've got to move out
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Speaker 1: of this decrepit, totally unfit apartment with the rickety stairs,
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Speaker 1: and they found a first floor apartment with just two
7:28
Speaker 1: or three steps leading up to the door, and that
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Speaker 1: move was going to be happening over the course of
7:33
Speaker 1: February fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth of two thousand and seven, and.
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Speaker 4: So Melissa and Roberto were in the process of trying
7:41
Speaker 4: to get the family moved, and so some of the
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Speaker 4: kids were with their mom, some of the kids are
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Speaker 4: with their dad. They're going back and forth in a
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Speaker 4: pickup truck taking loads. Mariah, being at that point about
7:52
Speaker 4: two and a half years old, was in the second
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Speaker 4: story apartment with her mom and at least one of
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Speaker 4: the teenage daughters. While they were trying to pack things up.
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Speaker 4: Several of the younger age children about eight nine years
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Speaker 4: old were downstairs playing.
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Speaker 2: In the backyard.
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Speaker 4: At some point, Melissa and the older daughter are in
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Speaker 4: one of the bedrooms. They're packing up clothes, what have you,
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Speaker 4: and one of the kids who's playing in the backyard
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Speaker 4: came upstairs he went into the apartment to get a
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Speaker 4: drink of water, and there was a screen door on
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Speaker 4: that exterior door that had a latch on it, and
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Speaker 4: when he went back downstairs to go play, he left
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Speaker 4: that door unlatched. And Mariah, who as we've already discussed,
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Speaker 4: was unstable on her feet because of her small deformity,
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Speaker 4: went to go follow her brother and she started down
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Speaker 4: the stairs and fell. One of her brothers saw her
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Speaker 4: as she sort of tumbled the last three or four
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Speaker 4: steps and hit her head on the pavement. Melissa, at
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Speaker 4: this point goes looking for her and finds Maria at
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Speaker 4: the bottom of the stairwell, and she checks her over
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Speaker 4: and doesn't see any serious injury. Doesn't look like she's
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Speaker 4: broken any bones or anything, and Mariah's not crying, she's
9:10
Speaker 4: not acting like she's hurt, and so she takes Mariah
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Speaker 4: and they go back upstairs and they continue to pack
9:17
Speaker 4: and complete the move to the new apartment.
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Speaker 2: So by time Saturday rolls.
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Speaker 4: Around, Mariah has already had this closed head injury from
9:26
Speaker 4: this fall down the stairs that is not noticeable from
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Speaker 4: her head or her scalp, and her progression of symptoms
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Speaker 4: during that time period is exactly what you would expect
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Speaker 4: for a child of that age who's had a serious
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Speaker 4: close head injury and who has swelling on the brain.
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Speaker 4: It progresses from lethargy to not wanting to eat, to
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Speaker 4: ultimately some more serious symptoms where she has lockjaw, and
9:52
Speaker 4: then she basically loses consciousness, although to her parents she's
9:56
Speaker 4: still just sleeping. And at that point they're already in
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Speaker 4: this first floor apartment, and Roberto Alvarez goes out on
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Speaker 4: air and he comes back and he goes to check
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Speaker 4: on Mariah and she is non responsive, and so they
10:11
Speaker 4: do end up calling EMS, and EMS shows up at
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Speaker 4: this apartment and they see injuries bruises on Mariah that
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Speaker 4: they don't have any explanation for, and they hear Melissa say, well,
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Speaker 4: she fell down the stairs a few days ago, and
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Speaker 4: we thought she was okay, but maybe she wasn't. And
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Speaker 4: the EMS sort of jumped to the conclusion that the
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Speaker 4: stairs Melissa is talking about are the two or three
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Speaker 4: steps from the ground floor apartment they are now in,
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Speaker 4: and they have no knowledge of this full flight of
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Speaker 4: stairs at the prior apartment that they were living in
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Speaker 4: just a few days earlier, and so the EMS are incredulous,
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Speaker 4: to say the least, they go, oh, you know, a
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Speaker 4: kid can't get this injured falling down two or three stairs.
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Speaker 5: My name is doctor Thomas Young. I am a forensic pathologist.
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Speaker 5: Back in twenty ten, I was contacted by Margaret Schmucker
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Speaker 5: on the case of Texas versus Melissa Lucio, Melissa Lucio's
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Speaker 5: little girl. She was not noted at first to have
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Speaker 5: any significant bruising, and eventually she came to the point
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Speaker 5: here where she stopped breathing. The bruising that was noted
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Speaker 5: later on was not present at first. It developed over time.
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Speaker 5: When a child the age of Mariah has even a
11:30
Speaker 5: minor head injury, some children will develop brain swelling. The
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Speaker 5: reasons for the brain swelling are not always entirely clear,
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Speaker 5: but this has been called malignant brain edema. What ends
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Speaker 5: up happening here with the brain swelling is the pressure
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Speaker 5: becomes high enough in the head that there isn't adequate
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Speaker 5: blood from the usual blood pressure coming from the heart
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Speaker 5: to allow circulation to blood through the brain. So as
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Speaker 5: the brain swells, there's less blood flow to the brain,
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Speaker 5: and that causes the brain to be starved for oxygen
12:00
Speaker 5: and blood flow, which causes more swelling, which causes less
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Speaker 5: circulation to the brain. What you have there is a
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Speaker 5: vicious cycle as the brain is being damaged here from
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Speaker 5: a lack of oxygen, there are substances that are released
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Speaker 5: into the bloodstream that can cause widespread clotting. Clotting factors
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Speaker 5: that normally circulate in the blood will be triggered and consumed,
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Speaker 5: just like kindling into a fire. And so what then
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Speaker 5: happens here is that her clotting factors disappear, and this
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Speaker 5: leads to very very easy bleeding beneath the skin. So
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Speaker 5: any movement on the child's part, or even any minor
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Speaker 5: handling of the child can lead the bruising.
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Speaker 4: And so the EMS try and resuscitate Mariah unsuccessfully, which
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Speaker 4: can leave its own kinds of bruises on a body.
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Speaker 4: But the MS take her to the hospital, she does
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Speaker 4: pass away, and Melissa is arrested and taken to the PlayStation.
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Speaker 1: Okay, so when Mariah was pronounced dead in the er,
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Speaker 1: she was examined, initially by an r physician named Vargas.
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Speaker 1: The autopsy later revealed pooling a blood in the cranial ball,
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Speaker 1: which forms the opinion about head trauma as the cause
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Speaker 1: of death, but at this time Bargas noted no outer
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Speaker 1: signs of head injury and what appeared to be evidence
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Speaker 1: of significant physical abuse in the form of injuries and
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Speaker 1: widespread bruising in various stages of healing, including pulled hair,
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Speaker 1: a broken arm from two to seven weeks prior, and
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Speaker 1: an injury that Bargas he mistook it for a bite mark,
13:30
Speaker 1: but as was explained, the CPS reports documented a history
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Speaker 1: of inter sibling violence. Then you not only have the
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Speaker 1: external injuries from the fall down the stairs, but also
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Speaker 1: the internal chain reaction that led to her death among
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Speaker 1: other medical issues, and as was explained by doctor Young,
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Speaker 1: all the clotting factors in her bloodstream had been used up,
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Speaker 1: causing widespread bleeding under the skin, resulting in bruises under
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Speaker 1: even the slightest pressure, let alone CPR. This condition is
14:02
Speaker 1: commonly known as DEIC, which is disseminated intravascular coagulation. And
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Speaker 1: so with the appearance of all her prior injuries are
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Speaker 1: the ones that stayed on the stairs and then the
14:15
Speaker 1: bruising from DIC, her poor little body looked like it
14:19
Speaker 1: had been through a horrific ordeal. So you can easily
14:23
Speaker 1: see how there's a straight line from Vargas's report of
14:27
Speaker 1: what appears to be rampant child abuse and Melissa's terribly
14:32
Speaker 1: flawed interrogation.
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Speaker 2: I mean, you're not wrong.
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Speaker 4: This information was all then conveyed to the police, and
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Speaker 4: the police went in to the interrogation room with Melissa
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Speaker 4: with already the preconceived notion that this had to have
14:45
Speaker 4: been physical abuse, and it had to have been physical
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Speaker 4: abuse by Melissa in their view, because she was Mariah's
14:52
Speaker 4: primary caretaker, because she was the mother, And that's where
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Speaker 4: her nightmare really sort of begins as her involvement with
15:01
Speaker 4: the criminal justice system in this case, because she is
15:04
Speaker 4: interrogated at length, well into the night and early wee
15:08
Speaker 4: hours of the morning by multiple police officers who are
15:13
Speaker 4: aggressively denying her explanation that Mariah had fallen down the
15:18
Speaker 4: stairs and her attempts to explain any older injuries that
15:23
Speaker 4: Mariah might have as having been the result of the
15:26
Speaker 4: rough play with her other older kids, which is well
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Speaker 4: documented by CPS and by other just sort of slips
15:33
Speaker 4: and falls because she has a tendency to do that,
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Speaker 4: and they just aggressively deny this, deny, this deny this,
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Speaker 4: they won't believe her, and finally, in the wee hours
15:41
Speaker 4: of the morning, they get her to say that she's responsible.
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Speaker 4: And they never get her to say really that she
15:49
Speaker 4: murdered Mariah, or that she hit her on the head
15:51
Speaker 4: or anything. They just get her basically to admit responsibility
15:55
Speaker 4: in the sort of overarching way of a mother being
15:59
Speaker 4: responsible for the circumstances that led to her child's death,
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Speaker 4: and so she is charged with capital murder.
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Speaker 1: At that point, it's actually remarkable that she was able
16:09
Speaker 1: to not really confess. I mean, they called it a confession,
16:12
Speaker 1: but she didn't really confess. But eventually she was questioned
16:17
Speaker 1: by a Texas ranger named Escalon. She confessed basically having
16:22
Speaker 1: spanked Mariah several times and other minor abuses which we
16:27
Speaker 1: now know didn't happen, like biting her. So she was
16:29
Speaker 1: confessing to things that didn't even make any sense at
16:32
Speaker 1: all because they weren't true. She was just basically trying
16:35
Speaker 1: to say, I guess anything she could to get out
16:36
Speaker 1: of this awful situation, and Tarriget went so far as
16:41
Speaker 1: to ask Willista to demonstrate the spanking on a doll,
16:45
Speaker 1: and it was encouraged by the investigator to spank the
16:50
Speaker 1: doll harder, right, I mean, and this is on video, right,
16:55
Speaker 1: show me how you.
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Speaker 5: Would do it, but I mean the way you actually
16:57
Speaker 5: did it.
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Speaker 6: Just give on her back.
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Speaker 1: We'll do it real hard, do it. But the way
17:07
Speaker 1: you would do it.
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Speaker 6: I mean, I wouldn't found on her.
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Speaker 3: M hmm.
17:14
Speaker 7: It was it harder.
17:19
Speaker 5: Because I just I will do it hard.
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Speaker 7: Well, you're doing it on yourself.
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Speaker 3: This is.
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Speaker 7: I mean, I wasn't polling on her.
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Speaker 5: Yes, okay, and this is just what it waspect.
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Speaker 6: My name is doctor John Pinkerman. I was the clinical
17:45
Speaker 6: psychologist appointed to Miss Melissa Lucio's defense team. Melissa had
17:50
Speaker 6: a history of certainly abuse, sexual abuse, and mistreatment going
17:55
Speaker 6: back into adolescence and continuing throughout her adulthood in which
18:00
Speaker 6: she acquiesced to multiple individuals that abused her. She became
18:07
Speaker 6: pretty compliant with individuals, didn't tend to break free from them,
18:11
Speaker 6: and often continue the relationships even though they were really
18:15
Speaker 6: self defeating. For so, we felt this was you know,
18:18
Speaker 6: and I felt it was really a problem issue that
18:21
Speaker 6: helped explain some of the behavior that she evidenced during
18:24
Speaker 6: the interrogation and how she came to provide an acquiescence.
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Speaker 6: I don't know if I want to call it a confession,
18:32
Speaker 6: but an acquiescence to the investigators in regard to her conduct.
18:37
Speaker 6: I was struck by how she was explaining that she
18:40
Speaker 6: was spanking the children, or spanking Melissa, and she was
18:45
Speaker 6: it appeared like coach to show stronger force in striking
18:51
Speaker 6: the table in the interview room. You know, all of
18:54
Speaker 6: that contradicted every piece of information that we had. You know,
18:59
Speaker 6: we never heard from any of the children that she
19:02
Speaker 6: provided physical discipline, and certainly not to the extent of
19:05
Speaker 6: causing the alleged injury and subsequent death.
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Speaker 4: It's important to note that he didn't just encourage her
19:13
Speaker 4: to spank the dull harder.
19:14
Speaker 2: I mean, he encouraged you to confess to things.
19:17
Speaker 4: Which she had no knowledge of or had no part of.
19:20
Speaker 4: He told her there was a bite on Mariah's back
19:23
Speaker 4: and got her to confess to having bitten Mariah and
19:29
Speaker 4: at least my medical expert, so that wasn't even a
19:31
Speaker 4: bite mark. It was a parallel striation bruises from having
19:37
Speaker 4: fallen down the flight of stairs on her shoulder blade.
19:40
Speaker 4: And so Ranger Escalon got Melissa to admit to a
19:47
Speaker 4: type of abuse of Mariah that did not exist, that.
19:52
Speaker 2: Had not happened at all.
19:54
Speaker 4: And again, that's sort of a hallmark of a false confession,
19:58
Speaker 4: is getting somebody to confess to something that there's no
20:01
Speaker 4: evidence of.
20:02
Speaker 1: At the end of it. And this really is such
20:04
Speaker 1: a painful thing to think about. And I saw it,
20:07
Speaker 1: of course in the film. But you know, she ultimately says,
20:11
Speaker 1: I wish it was me that got hurt and then
20:13
Speaker 1: started crying.
20:15
Speaker 5: How do you feel when you see these pictures.
20:20
Speaker 6: Noises?
20:20
Speaker 8: Maybe it not hurt.
20:27
Speaker 1: Is there anything else you want to add? Okay, listen,
20:51
Speaker 1: it's three fifteen am, and that will end the interview.
21:01
Speaker 1: This episode is underwritten by Paul Weiss Rifkin, Porton and Garrison,
21:05
Speaker 1: a leading international law firm. Paul Weiss has long had
21:09
Speaker 1: an unwavering commitment to providing impactful, pro bono legal assistance
21:13
Speaker 1: to the most vulnerable members of our society and in
21:16
Speaker 1: support of the public interest, including extensive work in the
21:20
Speaker 1: criminal justice area. So during the interrogation, Escalon asked Melissa
21:32
Speaker 1: if they would find a fractured skull during the autopsy,
21:35
Speaker 1: even though the er physician said there was no sign
21:38
Speaker 1: of head injury. But Escalon had this theory right. So
21:42
Speaker 1: on Monday February nineteenth, two thousand and seven, Escalon went
21:46
Speaker 1: to the chief forensic pathologist of Carmen and Hidalgo Counties,
21:49
Speaker 1: a woman named Norman Jean Farley, after having extracted this
21:54
Speaker 1: coerced and patently false statement, which I think it can
21:57
Speaker 1: be said was at least leading information, and that's probably
22:01
Speaker 1: too gentle of a word, and then Farley made her findings,
22:05
Speaker 1: ruling that due to the presence of blood in the
22:07
Speaker 1: cranial vault, that the cause of death was in fact
22:11
Speaker 1: blunt force had trauma. And then she went on during
22:15
Speaker 1: the trial to say that a fall down those same
22:17
Speaker 1: rickety stairs could not possibly have been the cause of
22:21
Speaker 1: blood force head trauma. But that doesn't sound anything like science.
22:27
Speaker 1: That sounds like pure conjecture, right.
22:30
Speaker 3: Absolutely.
22:32
Speaker 5: My name is doctor Thomas Young. Doctor Norma Jean Farley,
22:35
Speaker 5: who is also a forensic pathologist, has made a mistake
22:39
Speaker 5: very common in forensic pathologists, the idea that you can
22:43
Speaker 5: look at an autopsy, that you can look at findings
22:46
Speaker 5: on a body and be able to determine the very
22:49
Speaker 5: very complex succession of events that happened in the past
22:52
Speaker 5: to lead to that event. This is reasoning backwards. It
22:56
Speaker 5: doesn't work. It is like trying to solve blind plus
23:00
Speaker 5: blank equals four. If you think four is the consequence
23:04
Speaker 5: of blank plus blank, looking at four doesn't give you
23:07
Speaker 5: the answer to what goes in the blanks. What doctor
23:11
Speaker 5: Farley did was she reasoned backwards, ignoring all these witness accounts.
23:16
Speaker 5: She says that she knows for certain what happened here
23:21
Speaker 5: to Mariah Alvarez. And this is arrogant where you ignore
23:25
Speaker 5: what multiple witnesses say who were there to actually see
23:28
Speaker 5: what happened. This is absurd. This is just a flat
23:33
Speaker 5: out guess. But doctor Farley approaches it as if she
23:37
Speaker 5: is certain about this.
23:40
Speaker 3: How does she know that you cannot get blad trauma
23:43
Speaker 3: from a fall down the stairs. I mean, it makes
23:46
Speaker 3: no sense.
23:47
Speaker 4: You know, the science has developed at the time of
23:50
Speaker 4: Maria's death in since that it is possible for a
23:53
Speaker 4: child to fall down even a very short flight of
23:56
Speaker 4: stairs and have a fatal head injury. All I can
23:58
Speaker 4: say is Norma Farley just wrong on the science on that.
24:02
Speaker 4: You know, you put an expert on the witness stand
24:04
Speaker 4: and the jury, you know, gives them an awful lot
24:06
Speaker 4: of credence if they have appropriate credentials, And of course
24:08
Speaker 4: Norma Jean Farley was the medical examiner for the county,
24:12
Speaker 4: and so they give her testimony quite a bit of
24:14
Speaker 4: credibility clearly in reaching the verdict that they did.
24:19
Speaker 1: Yeah, it sure sounds like the science is being adjusted
24:21
Speaker 1: to fit the narrative when that is exactly the opposite
24:24
Speaker 1: of how this all should function. Right. So now we
24:27
Speaker 1: get to the trial, which the state argued that Melissa
24:31
Speaker 1: had confessed to a pattern of abuse and inflicting the
24:34
Speaker 1: fatal blows that killed Mariah, even though the video clearly
24:38
Speaker 1: shows that that is not the case. So they supported
24:42
Speaker 1: the theory that Melissa was abusive with evidence that Mariah
24:45
Speaker 1: had bruises, which we know she did, that were at
24:47
Speaker 1: various stages of healing. But we also have covered why
24:49
Speaker 1: they were there, and that had nothing to do with
24:51
Speaker 1: Melissa except the fact that she was not in control
24:54
Speaker 1: of her own life at that point. And Norma Jean Farley,
24:57
Speaker 1: again as the chief forensic pathiylogist, testified that Mariah's death
25:03
Speaker 1: was the result of blood force head trauma. She continued
25:06
Speaker 1: that it must have occurred within twenty four hours of death,
25:09
Speaker 1: and that it would have been immediately apparent that Mariah
25:11
Speaker 1: was in distress and in need of medical attention. We
25:14
Speaker 1: of course, now know that one can experience up to
25:17
Speaker 1: seventy two hours of lucidity after blunt force head trauma
25:20
Speaker 1: as the brain swelling and bleeding develops over time, resulting
25:25
Speaker 1: in an eventual death. So, like so many instances in
25:29
Speaker 1: which the doctor is trying to diagnose child abuse, Farley's
25:32
Speaker 1: assertion here is one of many leaps in logic. And
25:37
Speaker 1: Farley continued to testify that Mariah suffered multiple contusions to
25:41
Speaker 1: her head area, but somehow she was magically able to
25:45
Speaker 1: rule out that the strikes to the head were not
25:48
Speaker 1: the result of tumbling down the stairs. Now, I don't
25:51
Speaker 1: think she witnessed the tumbling down the stairs, so again,
25:54
Speaker 1: how in the world would she know that? Well, she wouldn't,
25:57
Speaker 1: but this is probably what she thought that the authorities
26:01
Speaker 1: wanted to hear. So just so we're clear, Melissa's defense
26:05
Speaker 1: did put on the stand an expert named doctor Curry.
26:08
Speaker 2: Correct, yes, they did.
26:10
Speaker 4: But when they qualified doctor Curry as an expert, since
26:13
Speaker 4: he was a pediatric neurologist, he was not a forensic scientist,
26:17
Speaker 4: and so they did not allow him to testify it
26:20
Speaker 4: regarding the source of any of her other injuries anywhere
26:23
Speaker 4: below the neck. And so because the defense didn't hire
26:25
Speaker 4: a better expert or more appropriate expert, they were not
26:29
Speaker 4: able to counter the state's case that all of these
26:34
Speaker 4: prior injuries were from being beaten repeatedly over a period
26:38
Speaker 4: of weeks or months. But he did contradict Norma Jean
26:42
Speaker 4: Farley's testimony in the timing of the head injury that
26:46
Speaker 4: caused her death. Norma Jean Farley had said that the
26:49
Speaker 4: injury had to have occurred approximately twenty four hours prior
26:52
Speaker 4: to her death. Doctor Curry, who was a pediatric neurologist,
26:57
Speaker 4: testified that it could have occurred earlier than that, you know,
27:00
Speaker 4: anywhere from forty eight to seventy two hours before she died.
27:03
Speaker 4: And so that becomes important when you look at the
27:06
Speaker 4: timeline of events of the family moving and everybody being together,
27:11
Speaker 4: you know, either at the old place so the new place,
27:13
Speaker 4: or in transit about whether or not Melissa was ever
27:16
Speaker 4: alone with Mariah.
27:18
Speaker 3: Melyssa was never alone with Mariah.
27:20
Speaker 4: Yeah, when you go back through all of the evidence
27:24
Speaker 4: that the state had collected whether they used it or not.
27:26
Speaker 4: At trial, you find that Melissa was never alone with
27:31
Speaker 4: the kids at all, whether you look at the timeline
27:34
Speaker 4: suggested by doctor Farley or you look at the timeline
27:38
Speaker 4: suggested by doctor Curry.
27:40
Speaker 1: How could you possibly be alone in a two room
27:43
Speaker 1: or so apartment with nine kids, It's preposterous.
27:47
Speaker 4: They did not present the evidence that she was never
27:50
Speaker 4: alone within that twenty four to seventy two hours prior
27:52
Speaker 4: to Mariah's death, and that the kids were never allowed
27:55
Speaker 4: to testify that they'd never seen their mom hit Mariah
27:59
Speaker 4: during that period of time. She was never alone with
28:00
Speaker 4: Maria during that period of time. And then there's the
28:03
Speaker 4: issue with doctor Pinkerman. The defense did try to put
28:06
Speaker 4: doctor Pinkerman on to talk about why my Melissa might
28:10
Speaker 4: have made this so called confession of being responsible when
28:14
Speaker 4: in fact she was not, and the court refused to
28:19
Speaker 4: allow doctor Pinkerman to testify to that.
28:24
Speaker 6: My colleague, Normal Villanueva, was a social worker, and she
28:28
Speaker 6: and I developed different theories about the case as we
28:31
Speaker 6: went along. In our meetings with the defense team. We
28:34
Speaker 6: raised questions in our meetings to the second Chay Council,
28:40
Speaker 6: just sort of asking is it possible that we could
28:42
Speaker 6: take a look at these issues and concerns that individual
28:45
Speaker 6: deferred to the lead attorney, mister Gilman. I was not
28:50
Speaker 6: asked to provide any testimony during the guilt innocence phase
28:53
Speaker 6: of the trial, but in the sentencing phase. I felt
28:57
Speaker 6: my testimony was abbreviated in a way because there was
29:00
Speaker 6: a lot of background information that I was prepared to
29:03
Speaker 6: offer to the court that would, I hope, mitigate the
29:06
Speaker 6: ultimate sentence. It seemed that there was not much interest
29:10
Speaker 6: in having that information, as I understand, of course, the
29:13
Speaker 6: appeal was based on, specifically on my lack of opportunity
29:17
Speaker 6: to present that kind of viewpoint.
29:20
Speaker 3: Melissa didn't have anybody on her behalf. Her kids weren't
29:24
Speaker 3: allowed to testify, nobody was allowed to testify.
29:27
Speaker 4: She was alone in her defense because no one was
29:32
Speaker 4: really brought in to testify. Even though her trial attorneys
29:35
Speaker 4: knew that the older girls had admitted to causing Mariah's injuries,
29:42
Speaker 4: they knew that the younger kids had testified to seeing
29:45
Speaker 4: Mariah fall down the stairs, and they knew or should
29:49
Speaker 4: have known if they put sort of two and two
29:51
Speaker 4: together of all the various pieces of evidence that were available,
29:54
Speaker 4: to them that Melissa was never alone with Mariah at
29:58
Speaker 4: the time, but they never put any of the evident.
30:00
Speaker 1: On with what the jury was presented with. The results
30:04
Speaker 1: were as predictable as they were tragic and wrong. She
30:09
Speaker 1: was convicted and sentenced to death.
30:12
Speaker 7: When the jury came back and said that they found
30:17
Speaker 7: me guilty, even though I did hear the word guilty,
30:22
Speaker 7: I didn't want to step it. The best way to
30:24
Speaker 7: describe it is, I felt like I was in a
30:26
Speaker 7: dream and then I will wake up and I would
30:28
Speaker 7: be at home with my kids.
30:31
Speaker 3: You know.
30:31
Speaker 7: Everybody was screaming and crying, and they let me out
30:35
Speaker 7: from the courtroom. They took me back to my cell
30:37
Speaker 7: and I remember I slept. I just tried to block
30:43
Speaker 7: out everything that had happened in that courtroom. I figured
31:00
Speaker 7: my children would be able to testify, that they would
31:03
Speaker 7: be able to get on that stand, and I know
31:06
Speaker 7: that they would come out and say the truth. And
31:11
Speaker 7: mister Gilman, he didn't want to. He told me no
31:14
Speaker 7: because he didn't know what the prosecutors had in store
31:18
Speaker 7: for them, and he didn't want them to try to
31:22
Speaker 7: manipulate them. And he felt that it wasn't there wasn't
31:27
Speaker 7: a need for my children to be understand.
31:32
Speaker 1: You know, someone listening to this cold would probably come
31:35
Speaker 1: away with the impression that the defense attorney was almost
31:37
Speaker 1: like an adjunct prosecutor. And as crazy as that sounds,
31:41
Speaker 1: it's not that crazy when you think about the fact
31:44
Speaker 1: that he went to work for the prosecutor immediately after
31:47
Speaker 1: the trial, and why would the prosecutor's office hire him
31:51
Speaker 1: at a higher salary than the seasoned prosecutors that were
31:55
Speaker 1: already working there immediately after having watched him do as
31:59
Speaker 1: terrible of a job as an attorney can possibly do
32:02
Speaker 1: for their client. It's just stinks so bad.
32:06
Speaker 2: It does stink.
32:08
Speaker 4: But let me make some clarifying points about what really happened.
32:11
Speaker 4: Right before Mariah dies, there was another murder case in
32:15
Speaker 4: the Brownsville area, and the defendant was a guy by
32:18
Speaker 4: the name of Amat Livingston.
32:20
Speaker 2: Mister Livingston ends up, I.
32:23
Speaker 4: Believe, pleading guilty to murder, but with the agreement of
32:27
Speaker 4: the District attorney's office, Armanda Vielobos, he is released in
32:31
Speaker 4: order to go put his affairs in order before he
32:33
Speaker 4: has to go to prison. When he's released, he disappears.
32:37
Speaker 4: He's found more than a decade later, hiding out in India.
32:41
Speaker 2: But in any event, at the time he's gone missing
32:44
Speaker 2: in action.
32:45
Speaker 4: And the newspapers picked this up and they're like, you know,
32:48
Speaker 4: why did the District Attorney's office agree with this? This
32:50
Speaker 4: was all very bad press for mister vo Loobos, who
32:54
Speaker 4: was getting ready to run for reelection of the District
32:58
Speaker 4: Attorney of Cameron County.
32:59
Speaker 2: He needed a win, and he needed a win big.
33:03
Speaker 4: And right after all this happened is when Mariah died.
33:06
Speaker 4: And Melissa's the perfect target. She's poor, she's Hispanic, there's
33:10
Speaker 4: a dead baby with a lot of bruises. This is
33:13
Speaker 4: the perfect vehicle for mister vo Lobos to go, I'm
33:17
Speaker 4: hard on crime. Re elect me to District Attorney's office.
33:21
Speaker 4: So obviously Melissa gets convicted since to death, mister vo
33:26
Speaker 4: Lobos gets re elected, and within a fairly reasonable time
33:31
Speaker 4: after mister Vio Lobos is reelected, that's when Pete Gilman
33:34
Speaker 4: goes to work for the District Attorney's office.
33:36
Speaker 1: Un fucking believable. Please continue now.
33:41
Speaker 4: I did an open records request to find out about
33:45
Speaker 4: the hiring process for mister Gilman, and what I found
33:50
Speaker 4: out was he was supposedly interviewed on an unknown or
33:55
Speaker 4: unstated date by mister vo Lobos himself, and was hired
34:01
Speaker 4: and had accepted the job before he'd even submitted a
34:04
Speaker 4: CD or a resume to the human resources department. He
34:08
Speaker 4: was hired first, and then he submitted those papers, so
34:11
Speaker 4: that was kind of shady. And then you find out
34:14
Speaker 4: that he gets a pretty good salary. District attorneys don't
34:17
Speaker 4: usually get paid the way attorneys in private practice do.
34:20
Speaker 4: It's usually a starter salary, a stepping stone to something bigger.
34:25
Speaker 4: He gets hired in at a pretty significant rate, and
34:28
Speaker 4: then his wife is also hired.
34:31
Speaker 1: Wow, you know, just when you think you've heard everything,
34:34
Speaker 1: so he's accepted the job. We don't know exactly what
34:37
Speaker 1: it could have been before the trial. For all we know, right,
34:39
Speaker 1: he could have actually been working for the prosecution while
34:42
Speaker 1: supposedly defending Melissa. And let's just look at what he
34:46
Speaker 1: did and did not do during the trial. This Gilman
34:50
Speaker 1: character failed to call as witnesses any Melissa's children who
34:53
Speaker 1: had seen mariafle down the stairs. Okay, that alone is
34:56
Speaker 1: fucking shocking. Then there was the social worker, right Norma Villanueva,
35:01
Speaker 1: to whom Melissa's daughter Alexandra bravely had said that she
35:06
Speaker 1: was the reason Mariah fell down the stairs. The social
35:08
Speaker 1: worker was instructed by Gilman to not alert anyone to
35:13
Speaker 1: this statement that sounds like the work of an adjunct prosecutor.
35:17
Speaker 1: She was, not, of course, called to testify. There was
35:21
Speaker 1: also a host of witnesses that were interviewed and or
35:24
Speaker 1: put on the stand by the state that together never
35:27
Speaker 1: placed Melissa alone with Mariah. Yet to that that no
35:31
Speaker 1: witness ever saw Melissa beat Mariah at any time, and
35:35
Speaker 1: Melissa and Riah whenever alone. We know that Farley's theory.
35:37
Speaker 1: A first year law student could have connected these dots
35:41
Speaker 1: and shown that Farley's theory was nonsense. But none of
35:45
Speaker 1: that was ever done for the jury. And then just
35:49
Speaker 1: process this with me for a second. Right, So there's
35:53
Speaker 1: a horrible interview with Gilman after he had already joined
35:57
Speaker 1: the prosecutor's office formally, instead of only you know well anyway,
36:02
Speaker 1: but he said and I quote, she was not a
36:06
Speaker 1: good mother. Did she kill her child? I don't know
36:11
Speaker 1: end quote.
36:12
Speaker 3: When I interviewed Peter Gilman, because that's in the film,
36:15
Speaker 3: you would have thought that Melissa was his worst enemy.
36:18
Speaker 3: He had nothing nice to say about her. He went
36:21
Speaker 3: on and on. It was quite an extraordinary And I
36:24
Speaker 3: said to him, I kept asking him. I was like,
36:26
Speaker 3: what was your strategy? What was your strategy at troll?
36:30
Speaker 3: And he couldn't answer. I think I asked him that
36:33
Speaker 3: question maybe seven times. What was your strategy? I mean,
36:36
Speaker 3: did you believe that it was an accident? Did you believe?
36:39
Speaker 3: He couldn't answer. He had no strategy.
36:42
Speaker 1: He had a strategy. It wasn't a defense strategy, but
36:45
Speaker 1: he had a strategy and to get himself a better job. So,
36:49
Speaker 1: in case you haven't heard enough yet, and in case
36:53
Speaker 1: you were looking for an even more terrible villain in
36:59
Speaker 1: this story, if such a thing as possible, boy, do
37:03
Speaker 1: we have one for you now. The elected district attorney,
37:07
Speaker 1: a gentleman named Armando Via Lobos and mister Villa Lobos
37:14
Speaker 1: was at the time of this all that stuff taking place,
37:17
Speaker 1: He himself was at the center of an FBI investigation,
37:21
Speaker 1: and for good reason. There was a public scandal that
37:25
Speaker 1: emerged because he was using his office to enrich and
37:31
Speaker 1: empower himself through several different schemes, one of which was
37:37
Speaker 1: bribery in exchange for favorable outcomes.
37:39
Speaker 3: At trial, he was involved with cartels. He would bring
37:43
Speaker 3: lawyers and judges to Las Vegas and pretend to lose
37:47
Speaker 3: in poker games so you know, he could bribe them.
37:50
Speaker 3: It goes on and on. Basically, his agenda was to
37:53
Speaker 3: take money from, you know, people who could pay him,
37:56
Speaker 3: and then for people like Melissa he would use to
37:59
Speaker 3: be reelected. The moment he heard about Melissa's case, he
38:02
Speaker 3: was at the police station, I mean while Melissa's being interrogated.
38:06
Speaker 3: I mean he's already there. He just completely used her case.
38:10
Speaker 3: You know, Margaret will tell you how very rare for
38:12
Speaker 3: DA's to actually get personally involved, you know, in cases.
38:17
Speaker 3: I mean, he even did the ending statement at her trial.
38:20
Speaker 4: He not only did the ending statement, but he actually
38:23
Speaker 4: examined one of the state's witnesses, and he had the
38:27
Speaker 4: state's witness get up off the witness stand and pretend
38:31
Speaker 4: to shake a child like shaken baby syndrome, which has
38:35
Speaker 4: questionable scientific background, especially for a child of Mariah's age.
38:41
Speaker 4: If you talk to the scientist, they will tell you
38:44
Speaker 4: that a child as large as Mariah, if you'd shaken
38:46
Speaker 4: her hard enough to cause the brain to sort of
38:50
Speaker 4: shake back and forth inside the skull and be damaged.
38:53
Speaker 2: You have to have broken her neck.
38:55
Speaker 4: But he nevertheless has this witness pretend to violently shake
38:59
Speaker 4: a child as a demonstration. You know, I don't know
39:03
Speaker 4: how intensely that played into the jury's verdict, but I'm
39:06
Speaker 4: sure it wasn't ignored.
39:08
Speaker 1: And then he took part in this sentencing phase to
39:10
Speaker 1: make sure that she got.
39:12
Speaker 3: Death I mean, and he had to prove to the
39:15
Speaker 3: jury future dangerousness. And Melissa had no prior history of
39:19
Speaker 3: violence whatsoever. So all of a sudden, he needs to
39:23
Speaker 3: prove to the jury that, you know, she is so
39:26
Speaker 3: violent that she actually might be a danger and that's
39:29
Speaker 3: why she needs to be on death row. Right, let's
39:32
Speaker 3: put it this way. I mean, if Melissa Lucio is
39:35
Speaker 3: the type of person that is actually the most dangerous
39:38
Speaker 3: person in America, that she would end up on death row.
39:40
Speaker 3: I mean, you know, we were in trouble.
39:42
Speaker 1: She wasn't even the most dangerous person in the courtroom.
39:45
Speaker 1: That da was the most dangerous person in the courtroom.
39:48
Speaker 1: He was running a continuing criminal enterprise. He's doing backroom
39:52
Speaker 1: deals with cartels, He's bribing judges and lawyers, He's selling verdicts,
39:58
Speaker 1: letting murderers serial murderers run free. I mean, this guy,
40:01
Speaker 1: he'd be a cartoon villain, except there's nothing funny about
40:04
Speaker 1: any of it. So we know how rare it is
40:07
Speaker 1: for prosecutors to be prosecuted, but this one the FBI
40:10
Speaker 1: took very seriously and they got involved, to say the least, right,
40:13
Speaker 1: how did it end up?
40:14
Speaker 7: Well?
40:15
Speaker 3: I interviewed Michael Wynn, who was the lead prosecutor against
40:18
Speaker 3: Armando Villa Lobos, and of course I never had any
40:22
Speaker 3: contact with the ABI, but he told me that they
40:25
Speaker 3: were trying to get him because he was running for
40:29
Speaker 3: Congress and they wanted to make sure that that did
40:33
Speaker 3: not happen. So they were trying to get him, and
40:35
Speaker 3: they had so much on him. You know.
40:37
Speaker 4: The feedback that I got on that later was there
40:41
Speaker 4: was so much on mister Volobos that they decided to
40:46
Speaker 4: stick to sort of their slam dunk case for conviction
40:50
Speaker 4: because they just needed him gone. And so Melissa's stuff,
40:54
Speaker 4: it came out a little bit in the Fiolobo's trial,
40:58
Speaker 4: and the bit about a living and Melissa's involvement, and
41:01
Speaker 4: that came out on trial, but it was very very limited.
41:03
Speaker 4: It wasn't the focus of their energies at mister Vealogos's
41:07
Speaker 4: federal criminal truth.
41:08
Speaker 3: You know, I find that extraordinary as an outsider that
41:11
Speaker 3: you know you have, you know, a quarter pointed attorney
41:14
Speaker 3: who now works at the DA's office, who basically did
41:17
Speaker 3: not defend Melissa at all, and then you have a
41:20
Speaker 3: DA who got thirteen years of federal prison, but you
41:24
Speaker 3: know that has nothing to do with Melissa's case, and
41:27
Speaker 3: you know her case should not be re examined. It's infuriating.
41:31
Speaker 1: Every single case that this guy had anything to do
41:34
Speaker 1: with needs to be immediately reopened and thoroughly re examined.
41:38
Speaker 1: And I'm not saying, to be clear that everybody that
41:40
Speaker 1: he prosecuted is innocent, but a lot of them probably are.
41:44
Speaker 1: And in any case, it's abundantly clear that almost none
41:48
Speaker 1: of them could have possibly gotten a fair trial. And
41:51
Speaker 1: Melissa absolutely did not get what she is constitutionally guaranteed,
41:56
Speaker 1: which is a fair trial. And what I find particularly
41:59
Speaker 1: shocking is if Gilman hasn't even been disbarred. I mean,
42:03
Speaker 1: this case is a literal poster child for ineffective assistance
42:06
Speaker 1: of counsel. But Melissa remains a death row to this
42:10
Speaker 1: very day, and the State of Texas is desperately continuing
42:14
Speaker 1: to try to execute her. So her direct appeal was denied,
42:18
Speaker 1: you filed her state habeas and then it moved on
42:21
Speaker 1: to federal habeas and ended up in the Fifth Circuit
42:23
Speaker 1: Court of Appeals, which is the conservative federal court that
42:27
Speaker 1: sits on top of Texas among other states.
42:29
Speaker 2: And it's at that.
42:30
Speaker 4: Point that I ended up kind of being dropped out
42:32
Speaker 4: of the case. But what ended up happening there was
42:35
Speaker 4: ultimately a panel of the Fifth Circuit three judges ordered
42:39
Speaker 4: that Melissa should get a new trial. The state was
42:41
Speaker 4: not happy with that outcome. They asked for what's called
42:44
Speaker 4: a rehearing en banc, which is a rehearing in front
42:47
Speaker 4: of all of the justices of the Fifth Circuit Court
42:49
Speaker 4: of Appeal. The request for on bank rehearing was granted,
42:53
Speaker 4: and just recently the Fifth Circuit issued an opinion which
42:57
Speaker 4: was deeply divided, that denied Melissa the right to a new
43:00
Speaker 4: trial and again affirm what happened in the state court.
43:03
Speaker 4: So from here she has to file a request for
43:07
Speaker 4: her case to be heard in the United States Supreme Court.
43:09
Speaker 3: And we pick what one percent of cases.
43:13
Speaker 4: Probably probably less than one percent of the cases, so
43:17
Speaker 4: you know her adds you know of having our case
43:19
Speaker 4: taken are not good and there are some additional post
43:23
Speaker 4: conviction procedural maneuvers which may take place. Since I'm no
43:27
Speaker 4: longer her attorney, I don't know what they're going to
43:29
Speaker 4: be doing.
43:31
Speaker 1: We had a chance to speak with Melissa's current counsel,
43:34
Speaker 1: Vanessa Potkin, who heads up Melissa's team from the Innocence
43:37
Speaker 1: Project in New York. Vanessa, please bring us up to
43:40
Speaker 1: date on what has been filed on Melissa's behalf and
43:43
Speaker 1: where we're at now.
43:45
Speaker 9: In the middle of January, the state of Texas set
43:48
Speaker 9: an execution date for Melissa Lucio for April twenty seventh,
43:51
Speaker 9: and after that date was set, the Innocence Project joined
43:55
Speaker 9: Melissa's legal team. We recognize the urgency that was involved
43:59
Speaker 9: here and that Texas was on the verge of executing
44:02
Speaker 9: an innocent woman, and so we teamed up to look
44:06
Speaker 9: into the forensic issues that existed at the time of trial,
44:10
Speaker 9: and since that time have just worked with over seven
44:13
Speaker 9: new forensic and medical experts that supported a clemency petition
44:18
Speaker 9: that was filed on Melissa's behalf on March twenty second
44:22
Speaker 9: and we're also looking into, you know, whether we can
44:25
Speaker 9: get back into court with some of this new evidence
44:27
Speaker 9: that supports Melissa's innocence and that no court has ever considered.
44:31
Speaker 1: It's so terrifying that here we are again on the
44:36
Speaker 1: verge of another state, another Southern state, in this case,
44:39
Speaker 1: executing another innocent person and Vanessa. My understanding is that
44:44
Speaker 1: there's a politically diverse array of groups and folks who
44:48
Speaker 1: have made their concerns known about this initizen woman who,
44:53
Speaker 1: let's face it, she suffered a grave tragedy that was
44:55
Speaker 1: bad enough, right she lost her little daughter and now
44:59
Speaker 1: has had that tragedy. Can you tell us about this
45:01
Speaker 1: coalition that's joined together and supported this innocent woman, Melissa Lucio.
45:06
Speaker 8: What we're seeing is really unprecedented here. There is a
45:10
Speaker 8: group of nearly one hundred lawmakers from Texas Republicans and
45:14
Speaker 8: Democrats that have come forward to try to stop this
45:18
Speaker 8: execution and to call on the Board of Partments and
45:20
Speaker 8: Parole and Governor Abbott to issue clemency here. And I
45:24
Speaker 8: think that's reflective of this innocence claim. And people are
45:26
Speaker 8: seeing that this was a rush to judgment, that there's
45:29
Speaker 8: evidence of Melissa's innocence that no court has ever considered,
45:33
Speaker 8: and just what is at stake here if this execution
45:35
Speaker 8: goes forward. So you have people who are proponents of
45:38
Speaker 8: the death penalty stepping in and saying, you know, this
45:41
Speaker 8: can't go forward because there's too much doubt, there's too
45:43
Speaker 8: much inequity between the sentence that Melissa got and what
45:46
Speaker 8: her husband got. There's too many questions given this new
45:49
Speaker 8: medical evidence of her innocence.
45:51
Speaker 1: Right, I mean, there's a tremendous outpouring of support, hundreds
45:55
Speaker 1: of faith based groups, dozens of anti domestic violence and
45:58
Speaker 1: sexual assault groups, hoops ex hoonnaies themselves, death row ex honeries.
46:04
Speaker 1: It's all over social media now. Kim Kardashian and the
46:07
Speaker 1: people who are most affected by this, right, the brothers
46:11
Speaker 1: and sisters of the little girl who tragically died, are
46:14
Speaker 1: unanimous in their support of their mother, and they were
46:18
Speaker 1: there absolutely.
46:20
Speaker 8: They lost their youngest sibling and their mother has been
46:24
Speaker 8: you know, on death row for nearly a decade and
46:26
Speaker 8: a half now, and so I imagine the trauma that
46:29
Speaker 8: this family has endured in executing her for something she
46:33
Speaker 8: didn't do. For what was a tragedy, not a crime.
46:37
Speaker 8: Would just exponentially increase the injustice in the family's pain.
46:42
Speaker 1: But still these efforts, which would seem to be you know,
46:47
Speaker 1: a tidal wave, haven't been enough yet anyway, So if
46:51
Speaker 1: our audience wants to join, which there's still more to
46:54
Speaker 1: be done, She's still sitting on death row. So what
46:58
Speaker 1: can people do to help?
47:00
Speaker 8: So we would ask people to go to Save Melissa
47:03
Speaker 8: dot org. There's a petition. Sign your name to the petition.
47:06
Speaker 8: If you live in Texas, call Governor Abbott and the
47:09
Speaker 8: Texas Board of Pardons and Parole and let them know
47:12
Speaker 8: that you support clemency for Melissa Lucio. If you live
47:17
Speaker 8: in Texas, you can call the Cameron County District Attorney
47:19
Speaker 8: and ask him to withdraw Melissa Lucio's execution date. If
47:23
Speaker 8: you can make a video, a post a story about
47:26
Speaker 8: Miss Lucio's case on Instagram, TikTok, or any other platform
47:30
Speaker 8: and use the hashtag save Melissa Lucio, We're.
47:33
Speaker 1: Going to put links in the bio to all of
47:36
Speaker 1: these different actions that you can take. Every single person,
47:41
Speaker 1: make your voice heard, and let's save Melissa Lucio's life
47:45
Speaker 1: before it's too late. And now we turn to the
47:48
Speaker 1: part of our show that always seems to be the best.
47:52
Speaker 1: Closing arguments and how this works is very simple. First
47:56
Speaker 1: of all, I want to thank are two esteemed guests
48:00
Speaker 1: for just coming and sharing your passion and your expertise.
48:05
Speaker 1: Of course, I'm talking about Sabrina van Tassel and Margaret Schmucker.
48:10
Speaker 1: Thank you both again for being here.
48:12
Speaker 2: Thank you for having us.
48:13
Speaker 3: Thank you Jason so much.
48:14
Speaker 1: Closing arguments works like this, I turn off my microphone,
48:18
Speaker 1: kicked back in my chair and just listen to whatever
48:21
Speaker 1: you have to say, whatever you feel there is left
48:23
Speaker 1: to say after this extraordinary conversation. So we'll start off
48:28
Speaker 1: with Margaret, then Sabrina, and then Melissa.
48:32
Speaker 4: I've talked about other lawyers in this I feel like
48:36
Speaker 4: I need to make it clear that you know, there's
48:38
Speaker 4: nothing I've said today that isn't readily available as a
48:41
Speaker 4: matter of court record. But you know the key take
48:44
Speaker 4: home points. You know that there is and was, you know,
48:47
Speaker 4: some level of corruption involved in this case. There is
48:52
Speaker 4: evidence that you know, Melissa could not have caused more
48:56
Speaker 4: injuries in the time frame that she was said to
48:59
Speaker 4: have cast women, that she's never been violent with her kids.
49:02
Speaker 4: There is an absolute difference between physical abuse, which is
49:07
Speaker 4: an action, and neglect, which is an absence of an action,
49:11
Speaker 4: and her entire history is neglect because she.
49:14
Speaker 2: Just had too many kids.
49:16
Speaker 4: And we have to always also be concerned about the
49:19
Speaker 4: fact that are we looking at all this evidence through
49:23
Speaker 4: the lens of sort of white privilege, and we have
49:26
Speaker 4: to take a step back and say, you can't do that.
49:28
Speaker 4: You have to look at it from her perspective and
49:30
Speaker 4: what was going on in her life and why she
49:33
Speaker 4: was acting the way she was. And of course for
49:35
Speaker 4: that we had doctor Pinkerman, and as to the physical stuff,
49:39
Speaker 4: obviously we have doctor Young.
49:41
Speaker 2: I would really hope that.
49:43
Speaker 4: At some point Melissa's case we'll get back into court
49:46
Speaker 4: and that she will be fully exonerated and will be
49:49
Speaker 4: set free to be with her children.
49:51
Speaker 3: She's been away from her children for thirteen years. She
49:56
Speaker 3: hasn't seen most of her kids and that time, and
50:01
Speaker 3: she's never seen her mother again. She's never seen her
50:05
Speaker 3: brothers and sisters. I mean, she's been all alone on
50:08
Speaker 3: that throw twenty four hours a day, waiting for her fate.
50:13
Speaker 3: And she's someone who didn't stand a chance from the
50:17
Speaker 3: first day. And I hope and pray that you know,
50:21
Speaker 3: people will get interested in her case and start tweeting
50:25
Speaker 3: about her and talking about her and raise this horrible story.
50:30
Speaker 3: You know, together we'll, you know, find a way to
50:32
Speaker 3: get her out of there.
50:35
Speaker 1: And now we'll hear from Melissa.
50:38
Speaker 7: My name is Melissa Elizabeth Lucio. I'm forty eight years old.
50:44
Speaker 7: I have fourteen children. It's been very hard to wake
50:48
Speaker 7: up each morning and not and now I hear them
50:51
Speaker 7: calling out for me. The state of Texas wants to
50:55
Speaker 7: kill me every day. I asked God, why I often
51:02
Speaker 7: think about my daughter Mariah. I've had a lot of
51:05
Speaker 7: dreams about her. I've dreamed that her and I are
51:10
Speaker 7: out there and that she's running around in her little
51:15
Speaker 7: dress and she's wanting me to comb her hair, brush
51:19
Speaker 7: her hair, put Baretts on her hair, paint her nails,
51:24
Speaker 7: paint her toenails, and put some lipstick on her lips.
51:31
Speaker 7: It's hard to have dreams about your children because when
51:35
Speaker 7: you wake up and then you see where you're at,
51:40
Speaker 7: you wish that it wouldn't happen, a dream, that it
51:42
Speaker 7: would have been reality. There are days that I feel
51:48
Speaker 7: that I could just leave this place and be reunited
51:54
Speaker 7: with Mariah.
51:56
Speaker 2: And just.
52:00
Speaker 7: I'm sorry that I wasn't there to protect her and
52:04
Speaker 7: I failed her. I failed her in many ways.
52:13
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction. I'd like to
52:16
Speaker 1: thank our production team Connor Hall, Jeff Kleibern, and Kevin Wardis,
52:20
Speaker 1: with research by Lyla Robinson. The music in this production
52:23
Speaker 1: was supplied by three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph.
52:27
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