Nancy Preyor-Johnson: Neglectful mom looked guilty, so state ran with it

Melissa Lucio is no Mother of the Year. That’s what Peter Gilman, Lucio’s lead defense attorney, said during her 2008 capital murder trial for the death of her 2-year-old daughter, Mariah. On this point, there is no dispute. Whether she is guilty of murder, or deserving of the death penalty, is very much in question. Lucio, a 53-year-old Harlingen mother of 14, is scheduled for execution April 27. But her Innocence Project attorneys have raised compelling questions about her prosecution and conviction: a coerced confession, a false autopsy report, regretful jury members, an ineffective defense and a district attorney who was sentenced to prison. Appearances can be everything, and during interrogation, Lucio’s slumped posture and passive behavior painted the picture of guilt. She was a drug addict, high school dropout and mother of 12, who was pregnant with twins and well known to Child Protective Services.

Experts have said Lucio’s flat affect and lack of emotion were survival skills. She had been bowing to abusive male authority figures her whole life. Her mother’s boyfriend and other family members sexually abused her at the age of 6. She married at 16, but her first and second husbands abused her. As the Texas Council on Family Violence wrote in support of Lucio: “Her story is a woeful illustration of a family’s plight and fate in the absence of supportive services and tailored interventions.” Instead of helping Lucio, our state’s systems failed her. According to Lucio’s attorneys, of the nearly 20 women convicted of capital murder of a child in Texas, only Lisa Coleman, who starved and abused her girlfriend’s 9-year-old son, also received a death sentence. Unlike Lucio’s case, CPS had documented Coleman’s abuse of the child. Ernestina Espinoza, one of four jury members and one alternate juror from the trial who now support clemency or a reprieve for Lucio, said she believed CPS was “equally responsible” for Mariah’s death. Court records include thousands of pages of CPS records, detailing reports of neglect but never abuse. Lucio’s younger brother Rene said he witnessed daily his sister locking herself in the bathroom to either get high or sober. “Her demons took over everything she had,” he said in the documentary “The State of Texas vs. Melissa.”