A Texas appeals court has delayed the execution of a mother amid increasing doubts about whether she beat her 2-year-old daughter to death.
Melissa Lucio's case has drawn support from politicians, celebrities and several of the jurors who convicted her.
She was due to be executed by lethal injection on Wednesday for killing her daughter Mariah in 2007 in Harlingen, a city of about 75,000 people on Texas’s southern tip.
Prosecutors say the girl was the victim of abuse, whose body was covered in bruises. Ms Lucio’s lawyers say Mariah died from injuries she sustained in a fall down a steep staircase several days before she died.
“I am grateful the court has given me the chance to live and prove my innocence,” Lucio said in a statement provided by her lawyers on Monday.
“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. I will use my time to help bring them to Christ. I am deeply grateful to everyone who prayed for me and spoke out on my behalf.”
Lucio was first told her execution had been delayed in a phone call with Jeff Leach, a Republican state representative who has helped lead a bipartisan effort to halt her execution, said Vanessa Potkin, one of Lucio’s attorneys who is with the Innocence Project.
“She sobbed. She was just overwhelmed,” said Ms Potkin.
Mr Leach said he was grateful the appeals court had “pushed the pause button on her execution, saving the state of Texas from the irreversible blunder of potentially killing an innocent citizen”.
Mr Leach was part of a bipartisan cohort of state politicians who visited and prayed with Lucio at Gatesville Correctional Facility, where Texas holds women on death row.
Kim Kardashian called the delay of execution “the best news ever".
The reality star said on her Instagram story: “Melisa Lucio has been on death row for over 14 years for her daughter's death that was a tragic accident.”
Kardashian previously said there were “many unresolved questions in Lucio's case”. She has advocated for commuting sentences of several women in the past.
Lucio's case was also featured on the HBO series Last Week Tonight with John Oliver.
Her lawyers say her 2008 conviction was based on an unreliable and coerced confession that resulted from long hours of extensive questioning and her history of being sexually and physically abused.
After nearly six hours of interrogation and telling officers more than 100 times that she was not guilty, Lucio said: “I don’t know what you want me to say. I’m responsible for it … I guess I did it.”
Her lawyers say unscientific evidence misled jurors into believing Mariah's injuries could only have resulted from abuse and not from a severe fall.
Five of the jurors in the 2008 trial have questioned the verdict and are now asking for a new trial.
The Associated Press contributed to this report
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- Olympic-size swimming pool with a split bulkhead for multi-use configurations, including water polo and 50m/25m training lanes
- Premier League-standard football pitch
- 400m Olympic running track
- NBA-spec basketball court with auditorium
- 600-seat auditorium
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- An elevated football field that doubles as a helipad
- Specialist robotics and science laboratories
- AR and VR-enabled learning centres
- Disruption Lab and Research Centre for developing entrepreneurial skills
Fixtures and results:
Wed, Aug 29:
- Malaysia bt Hong Kong by 3 wickets
- Oman bt Nepal by 7 wickets
- UAE bt Singapore by 215 runs
Thu, Aug 30: UAE v Nepal; Hong Kong v Singapore; Malaysia v Oman
Sat, Sep 1: UAE v Hong Kong; Oman v Singapore; Malaysia v Nepal
Sun, Sep 2: Hong Kong v Oman; Malaysia v UAE; Nepal v Singapore
Tue, Sep 4: Malaysia v Singapore; UAE v Oman; Nepal v Hong Kong
Thu, Sep 6: Final
TO A LAND UNKNOWN
Director: Mahdi Fleifel
Starring: Mahmoud Bakri, Aram Sabbah, Mohammad Alsurafa
Rating: 4.5/5
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Three tips from La Perle's performers
1 The kind of water athletes drink is important. Gwilym Hooson, a 28-year-old British performer who is currently recovering from knee surgery, found that out when the company was still in Studio City, training for 12 hours a day. “The physio team was like: ‘Why is everyone getting cramps?’ And then they realised we had to add salt and sugar to the water,” he says.
2 A little chocolate is a good thing. “It’s emergency energy,” says Craig Paul Smith, La Perle’s head coach and former Cirque du Soleil performer, gesturing to an almost-empty open box of mini chocolate bars on his desk backstage.
3 Take chances, says Young, who has worked all over the world, including most recently at Dragone’s show in China. “Every time we go out of our comfort zone, we learn a lot about ourselves,” she says.
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UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
Scotland v Ireland:
Scotland (15-1): Stuart Hogg; Tommy Seymour, Huw Jones, Sam Johnson, Sean Maitland; Finn Russell, Greig Laidlaw (capt); Josh Strauss, James Ritchie, Ryan Wilson; Jonny Gray, Grant Gilchrist; Simon Berghan, Stuart McInally, Allan Dell
Replacements: Fraser Brown, Jamie Bhatti, D'arcy Rae, Ben Toolis, Rob Harley, Ali Price, Pete Horne, Blair Kinghorn
Coach: Gregor Townsend (SCO)
Ireland (15-1): Rob Kearney; Keith Earls, Chris Farrell, Bundee Aki, Jacob Stockdale; Jonathan Sexton, Conor Murray; Jack Conan, Sean O'Brien, Peter O'Mahony; James Ryan, Quinn Roux; Tadhg Furlong, Rory Best (capt), Cian Healy
Replacements: Sean Cronin, Dave Kilcoyne, Andrew Porter, Ultan Dillane, Josh van der Flier, John Cooney, Joey Carbery, Jordan Larmour
Coach: Joe Schmidt (NZL)
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