AUSTIN, Texas — At least 81 Texas House members have signed onto a letter asking the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles to either cancel or commute Death Row inmate Melissa Lucio’s impending execution in the alleged murder of her 2-year-old daughter Mariah. 

Texas is well known as a law-and-order state, with a record 573 executions between 1982 and the end of 2021, according to death penalty opponents. Rep. Jeff Leach, R-Plano, who describes himself as a conservative Republican and a death penalty supporter, led off a news conference on Thursday morning calling the trial of Lucio a miscarriage of justice. 

“I have never seen a more troubling case than the case of Melissa Lucio,” said Leach, the chair of the Judiciary & Civil Jurisprudence Committee. “The six of us, in conjunction with our House colleagues, are asking for the Board of Pardons and Paroles to spare her life and delay her execution, which is currently scheduled in about a month on April 27.” 

Leach was joined by Reps. Joe Moody, D-El Paso; Senfronia Thompson, D-Houston; Lacey Hull, R-Houston; Rafael Anchia, D-Dallas; and James White, R-Hillister. 

Lucio, a mother of 14 children who lived in Harlingen, was convicted of killing her young daughter in 2008. Subsequent investigations of the case concluded Mariah’s death could have been caused by an accidental fall down the stairs at the family’s apartment.

Concerns about the case cited by lawmakers included a lengthy interrogation and coerced confession; a medical examiner who eventually was linked to a wrongful conviction in a similar alleged child abuse death; and a prosecuting district attorney who would end up in federal prison on bribery and extortion charges. 

“Typically, Republicans have been hesitant or reluctant to talk about the question of the integrity of the death penalty, and I think that’s the wrong approach. I know it’s the wrong approach,” Leach said. “I encourage legislators to ask the tough questions and to review the documents, the transcripts, the case file, to call us or call her attorneys, and to figure out where you are on this case, one way or another.” 

Texas House members need to think deeply about what reforms need to move forward to prevent executions like Lucio’s, Leach said. Moody, a one-time prosecutor in the El Paso District Attorney’s office, went even further in his comments. 

“It is easy to dismiss people like Melissa Lucio. In fact, the system is set up for us to forget her and treat her as less than human. That’s the way it’s been set up for years and years,” Moody said. “For years, in this body, it was easy to ignore issues that touch the justice system because we think of those people as less than human and we throw them away. No more.” 

Texas leads the nation in executions. In fact, Texas has executed four times the number of Death Row inmates executed in any other state, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. The state also ranks third in exonerations, behind Florida and Illinois.

If Texas lawmakers choose to tackle aspects of the death penalty in the coming legislative session, it will be the most substantive discussion lawmakers have had since the Timothy Cole Act was passed in 2009. The Timothy Cole Act, carried by former Sen. Rodney Ellis, D-Houston, created a system of financial restitution for wrongfully convicted Death Row inmates.

This story has been updated to include the letter from Rep. Joe Moody and Rep. Jeff Leach to the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles — March 28, 2022.