Melissa Lucio - latest: Family look forward to celebrating Mother’s Day after stay of execution

Kim Kardashian is best known for her reality TV shows and modeling, but in recent years has become a vocal proponent for wrongfully convicted death row inmates.

Shortly after the news that Lucio’s execution was halted and her case returned to a lower court, Kardashian took to Twitter to celebrate the news.

Cheers of joy from activists supporting Melissa Lucio broke out after they learned that Lucio’s execution was being halted and her case returned to a trial court for further consideration.

Lucio was scheduled to be put to death on Wednesday.

Read more about the public’s reaction to the news in Josh Marcus’s reporting below...

Melissa Lucio’s execution was halted by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals and will be sent back to a trial court to examine evidence supporting her claim of innocence.

She gave a brief statement following the announcement, including a reference to her daughter, Mariah.

“Mariah is in my heart today and always. I am grateful to have more days to be a mother to my children and a grandmother to my grandchildren,” Lucio said.

Melissa Lucio has been granted an 11th-hour stay of execution, just 48 hours before she was scheduled to be put to death for a crime she says she didn’t commit.

The Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles is expected to decide today whether the state should move ahead with Melissa Lucio’s execution or grant the mother-of-14 clemency.

The parole board is considering Lucio’s case on Monday to determine if her death sentence should be commuted to life in prison, if she should be granted a 120-day reprieve from execution or if the execution should go ahead as planned.

The board has until 1.30pm CT to decide its recommendations.

Once the board reaches a decision, Governor Greg Abbott will then have the power to decide whether or not to act on its recommendations.

He will then have until 6pm CT on Wednesday to take action.

Melissa Lucio’s attorneys have made a last-ditch bid to Cameron County District Attorney Luis Saenz asking him to withdraw her execution date, pointing to his own promise under oath to save the Hispanic mother-of-14’s life.

On Monday morning, Lucio’s legal team filed an additional supplement to a previous motion asking the DA to withdraw the order setting the 53-year-old’s execution date.

Mr Saenz requested Lucio’s death warrant and execution date and so he also has the power to withdraw the date at any time.

Yet, he has given mixed messages about whether or not he will step in and stop the execution.

Last week, during a contentious hearing led by a bipartisan group of state lawmakers, Mr Saenz initially refused to take any action to stop Lucio’s execution.

But, later in the hearing, Mr Saenz relented saying that he believes the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals will issue a stay and that, if it doesn’t, he will.

“If defendant Lucio does not get a stay by a certain day, then I will do what I have to do and stop it,” he said.

Republican State Rep. Jeff Leach warned that he would hold the prosecutor to his promise saying “we got it on tape”.

Now – just 48 hours until Lucio will be put to death – Mr Saenz is yet to take any action to halt the execution.

The Independent’s Rachel Sharp has the full story:

With two days to go until Melissa Lucio will be executed in Texas for a crime she says she didn’t commit, a growing number of famous faces have joined the fight to save her life.

Kim Kardashian drew national – and even global – attention to Lucio’s plight in early April by tweeting about the case to her 72.1m followers.

On 7 April, she shared a “heartbreaking” letter signed by the Texan mother’s children begging for her life to be saved and told her followers that there are many “unresolved questions” around Lucio’s case.

Amanda Knox has also joined in calls to stop Lucio’s execution, comparing the conviction of the mother of 14 for the murder of her two-year-old daughter Mariah to her own wrongful conviction in Italy for the murder of her British roommate Meredith Kercher.

Ms Knox shared a Medium post about Lucio’s case on 19 April – just one week away from the execution date – saying that she wishes she could “welcome her into our exoneree family”.

The Independent’s Rachel Sharp has the full story:

Speaking after a “Call to Action” day on Saturday for Melissa Lucio, one of her sons told News 4 he was overwhelmed by the support for his mother.

“It means a lot to me that people are supporting my mom, sharing her story and speaking out on this injustice,” said Bobby Alvarez. “Knowing her date is four days away is very emotional. Very hard to grasp knowing my moms days are limited.”

Reports suggested as many as 16 rallies were held for Ms Lucio and her appeal for clemency ahead of a Wednesday execution date on Saturday, with the rallies stretching from San Antonio to Boston.

Asked about Melissa Lucio’s case by The Independent this month, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said there was “nothing to predict” regarding the 53-year-old and her appeals for clemency.

Pointing to US President Joe Biden’s public position on the death penalty, Ms Psaki said:“Well, you know the president’s position and view on the death penalty, and there’s an ongoing review at the Department of Justice, at a federal level, this is obviously at a state level. I don’t have anything to predict beyond that.”

The remarks came as campaigners and Texas lawmakers called on Texas’s governor Greg Abbott to step-in and grant Ms Lucio a reprieve or a commuted sentence. Her lawyers say she was unfairly tried in 2008 for the death of her two-year-old daughter.

Sister Helen Prejean, a Catholic nun who has spent decades campaigning for the death penalty to be abolished, wrote on social media that “psychological pressure and coercion” led MS Lucio to “admit to things that never happened”.

The author of the book Dead Man Walking: An Eyewitness Account of the Death Penalty in the United States, tweeted that “Melissa Lucio was interrogated by investigators trained to extract confessions, not to find the truth”.

“When psychological pressure and coercion are applied with clinical precision, people buckle and admit to things that never happened,” she continued, in comments echoing the 53-year-old’s lawyers.

As Rachel Sharp writes, Sister Prejean has previously witnessed the executions of two death row inmates who she spiritually advised in the 1980s: