Kim Kardashian has called on Texas Republican Governor Greg Abbott to grant clemency to Melissa Lucio, 53, a domestic violence victim whose lawyers argue she “falsely” admitted to killing her two-year-old daughter after hours of police interrogation.
Lucio’s execution by lethal injection is set to take place on 27 April following the 2007 death of her daughter Mariah. Her lawyers say that her daughter died from falling down a steep staircase outside their apartment in Harlingen, South Texas.
She denied beating the child more than 100 times during the aggressive interrogation. Her lawyers say she was worn down by her grief and being abused throughout her life and finally admitted to a crime she didn’t commit.
Police asked her if she was responsible for some of her child’s injuries.
“I guess I did it,” she said at 3am on 17 February 2007. Her lawyers have since argued that that statement has been inaccurately interpreted by prosecutors as Lucio confessing to murder.
Ms Kardashian has spoken out about criminal justice reform in the last few years. In August 2020 her lobbying helped secure a pardon for Alice Johnson, who had been given a life sentence for a first drug offence.
She has now called on Mr Abbott to grant Lucio clemency after she “falsely pleaded guilty” following hours of questioning.
“I recently just read about the case of Melissa Lucio and wanted to share her story with you. She has been on death row for over 14 years for her daughter’s death that was a tragic accident,” Ms Kardashian tweeted on Tuesday. “Her 2-year old daughter Mariah fell down a flight of stairs and two days later passed away while taking a nap. After she called for help, she was taken into custody by the police.”
“Melissa is a survivor of abuse and domestic violence herself and after being interrogated for hours and falsely pleaded guilty. She wanted the interrogation to end, but police made her words out to be a confession. She is scheduled to be executed on April 27 in Texas,” she added.
She urged her followers to sign a petition to “urge Governor Greg Abbott to stop her execution”.
“It’s stories like Melissa’s that make me speak so loud about the death penalty in general and why it should be banned when innocent people are suffering,” Ms Kardashian added.
The Independent has previously reported on Lucio’s case.
“Melissa Lucio’s case is an example of how the US legal system continues to ignore the consequences of gender-based violence in sentencing women to death,” Sandra Babcock, faculty director of the Cornell Center on the Death Penalty Worldwide and consultant to Lucio’s legal team, told The Independent in October of last year. “As a result, a battered woman is facing execution for a crime she did not commit.”
“Melissa’s entire life was shaped by the violence she experienced at the hands of men,” Ms Babcock added. “But a jury was denied from hearing how her experiences of gender-based violence explained her behaviour in a way that is completely consistent with her innocence.”
Ms Babcock explained that Lucio’s behaviour was a “survival strategy” typically seen in victims of abuse.
“Women who experience this trauma are uniquely affected by male authority figures so the aggressive interrogation by a male police officer affected her reaction,” she said.
“It’s a survival strategy when you have experienced sexual abuse at an early age – make yourself invisible, don’t irritate your abuser, cast your eyes down, withdraw… those are all symptoms of severe trauma,” she added.
“But the jury was allowed to make judgements of her behaviour and guilt without being informed of her history and how that affected her interrogation and her acquiescence to a male cop,” Ms Babcock told The Independent last year.
The Texas Attorney General’s Office still argues that Mariah was the victim of the “absolute worst” child abuse seen by her emergency room doctor in 30 years.
“Lucio still advances no evidence that is reliable and supportive of her acquittal,” the office stated in a court filing last month.
One of the jurors who sentenced Lucio to death has written a newspaper editorial claiming he was misled and pressured during the mother’s trial for murdering her two-year-old daughter, The Independent previously reported.
Johnny Galvan Jr wrote in The Houston Chronicle that he was wrong to succumb to “peer pressure” and change his vote from a life sentence to the death penalty, or they’d “be there all day” if he didn’t.
“There were so many ... details that went unmentioned. It wasn’t until after the trial was over that troubling information was brought to light,” Mr Galvan wrote.
“If I had known all of this information, or even part of it, I would have stood by my vote for life no matter what anyone else on the jury said,” he added.
Mr Abbott can unilaterally delay the execution by 30 days. He can grant clemency if a majority of the parole board recommends that he do so.
The Independent has reached out to the governor for comment.
The Independent and the nonprofit Responsible Business Initiative for Justice (RBIJ) have launched a joint campaign calling for an end to death penalty in the US. The RBIJ has attracted more than 150 well-known signatories to their Business Leaders Declaration Against the Death Penalty - with The Independent as the latest on the list. We join high-profile executives like Ariana Huffington, Facebook’s Sheryl Sandberg, and Virgin Group founder Sir Richard Branson as part of this initiative and are making a pledge to highlight the injustices of the death penalty in our coverage.
