(CNN) --
The family and advocates of the only Hispanic woman on Texas death row, Melissa Lucio, are fighting to stop her impending execution, arguing that she was wrongfully convicted of the murder of her 2-year-old daughter in 2007.
"We don't want our mother to be executed," John, Melissa Lucio's eldest son, told CNN.
"We already lost our sister. And now losing our mother to an accident is just horrible."
Lucio's attorneys are pleading for leniency, asking the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles to recommend to Texas Governor Greg Abbott either commutation of his sentence before his scheduled execution on April 27 or a reprieve of at least 120 days to review the evidence they say will prove his innocence.
His lawyers, including those from the Innocence Project, are also defending his case in court.
Plea for clemency has increased in recent days, including from Texas lawmakers of both parties, and from celebrities like Kim Kardashian.
Even some jurors in Lucio's state case now say that his execution should be stopped or that he should have a new trial based on evidence they didn't hear.
At trial, prosecutors argued that Lucio was an abusive mother who likely caused the injuries that led to her daughter Mariah's death.
But Lucio's clemency petition says they were the result of an accidental fall down the stairs outside the family's second-floor apartment and authorities, plagued by a crucial misunderstanding about the fall, assumed Mariah's injuries stemmed of the abuse and discarded or ignored evidence that could have proven Lucio's innocence.
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Lucio, now 53, was convicted largely, according to her lawyers, on the basis of a coerced "confession" she gave authorities in an "aggressive" overnight interrogation the same night her daughter died.
Lucio was especially susceptible to coercion by authorities because of her record as a lifelong survivor of sexual abuse and domestic violence, they say, citing medical experts who reviewed her case.
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For Lucio's surviving children, like John, the prospect of losing their mother is hard to accept.
He is the first to admit that his mother had "blemishes", pointing to her struggles with drug addiction.
"But she's a great mother," he told CNN, who "never laid a hand on any of us."
Living in "survival mode"
"It's been a journey."
This is how 32-year-old John describes the decade and a half since his mother was found guilty and sentenced to death.
But the last few months have been the most harrowing, he says, after the court set her execution date.
"It was devastating news," he said.
"It completely tore our family apart."
It is a big family.
Lucio had 12 children at the time of Mariah's death and later gave birth to twins while in prison.
But Lucio's children are "united in calling for their mother not to be executed," Tivon Schardl, a federal public defender and one of Lucio's attorneys, told reporters last month, "that the pain they've suffered all these years, that those wounds be allowed to heal and not be torn apart by the state of Texas."
"They have now lived for 14 years with this threat hanging over them, having already lost Mariah in a tragic accident," he said.
"Now that trauma is back."
Lucio's imminent execution would follow a long series of traumatic events for his family, according to his son, his plea for clemency and court documents.
Growing up was tough, John said, describing a childhood in poverty in which he watched his mother try her best, but struggled to give them what they needed.
There were times when the family had their electricity or water cut off for non-payment or had to rely on community organizations for food.
Child Protective Services records from that time "tell a story of Melissa's love for the children, as well as her inability to properly care for them," according to Lucio's clemency petition.
The house was not clean, there was not enough food, and the children did not have enough supervision, according to the records mentioned in the petition.
The family struggled not to be homeless.
But among the more than 1,000 pages of records, according to their lawyers, none indicate that the children have reported abuse by Lucio.
"Basically, we were in survival mode," John said.
But her mother was no stranger to it, he added: Her own childhood was tough, and she "was a very stressed woman. She was a battered woman," he said.
"She had been through a lot."
Lucio herself was sexually assaulted, abused and raped by her mother's partners and others during her childhood, according to her petition.
She continued to suffer abuse at the hands of her own partners, beginning at age 16 when she dropped out of high school and married her first husband.
At 23, she had already had five children with him, but he abandoned the family, according to court documents.
Lucio she married for the second time with the man with whom she had her youngest children, including Mariah.
Melissa Lucio holds her daughter Mariah, while one of her other daughters, Adriana, stands next to them.
In 2004, the youngest seven children were placed in a foster home and divided between different homes, on allegations of neglect, their lawyers said in a court filing, not abuse.
But Lucio worked hard to bring them back, getting a job and staying away from drugs, the petition says.
The family was finally reunited in the fall of 2006.
Looking back, John believes that his mother did not receive the support she needed to properly care for her children.
She had stayed off drugs, yes, but her life wasn't quite stable yet, she said.
She had no car and no long-term, solvent housing.
"But of course she's not going to say, I can't take them," John said of his younger siblings' return home.
"My mother had been fighting for her children for two years."
Maria's death
The family undertook another move early the following year.
Lucio got up on Feb. 15, 2007, got some of the children ready for school, and then packed his "run-down second-floor apartment," the petition says.
In the meantime, he went to great lengths to keep an eye on 2-year-old Mariah, who had trouble walking and was prone to falling due to a mild physical handicap, according to court records.
But while Lucio was busy, Mariah opened an unlocked screen door, stepped outside and fell down a "steep" flight of more than a dozen steps.
Lucio realized almost immediately that Mariah was missing and found his daughter outside, crying at the foot of the stairs.
His lip was bleeding, but the 2-year-old girl did not appear to be seriously injured, the petition says.
But her appearance was deceiving: the girl had just suffered internal injuries that, according to Lucio's plea for mercy, would lead to her death.
Over the next two days, during the family's move, Mariah's condition deteriorated: she slept too much and eventually refused to eat.
On February 17, Lucio considered taking the two-year-old to the doctor, but he preferred to wait until the next day and put Mariah down for a nap.
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Soon, Mariah stopped breathing and the family called 911. Paramedics at the scene and at the hospital tried to revive her, but were unsuccessful.
His body was covered in bruises "in various stages of healing," his arm had been broken several weeks earlier, and he had a bite mark on his back, according to court documents recounting the case.
At the scene, Lucio told paramedics that Mariah had fallen down the stairs days earlier, but one of the first responders was skeptical, according to the petition, because the residence was one story with a few steps in front. .
He did not understand, the petition says, that the girl had fallen in the family's previous home.
"This critical misunderstanding set in motion a biased investigation," Lucio's petition says, "in which investigators continually assumed the worst about Melissa without investigating or considering alternatives."
The reasons to doubt “are innumerable”, says the petition
That night, hours after Mariah's death, Lucio, pregnant with twins, was questioned by investigators, who, her lawyers write, "yelled at Melissa; reproached her for being a neglectful mother; repeatedly showed her photos of her dead daughter; and they insinuated that if she wasn't guilty, one of her other children would have to be.
During the course of questioning, Lucio's lawyers say he denied hurting Mariah more than 100 times.
Lucio admitted that he sometimes spanked his daughters, according to a motion filed by his lawyers after her execution date was set, but consistently denied the abuse allegations.
Over time, however, his resolve waned and Lucio began "vaguely indicating that he was 'responsible' for Mariah's injuries," his petition says.
But he never confessed to being responsible for her death, his lawyers say.
Lucio told investigators that he "spanked" Mariah, according to court documents recounting the interrogation.
"I don't know what they want me to say," he told investigators when asked for more details, according to court documents.
"I am responsible for it."
Hours after the interrogation, an investigator brought a doll for Lucio to show how hard he hit the girl.
After doing so, the investigator told him: "Well, do it very hard like... like you would."
Lucio responded by saying he had demonstrated exactly how he would have spanked Mariah, and the investigator "performed what he believed to be a severe beating himself and had Lucio demonstrate it again," court documents say.
Lucio was charged with first-degree murder and sentenced to death.
Her attorneys say her alleged guilty plea was used to convict her in a jury trial.
Lucio's defense argued that while he was guilty of "injury to a minor" and failing to provide Mariah with timely medical treatment, he was not guilty of causing the injuries that led to her daughter's death.
But the medical examiner who performed the girl's autopsy testified to the state that Mariah's injuries must have occurred within 24 hours of her death.
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"This is a battered girl" who died of head trauma, the medical examiner said, according to court documents.
The ER doctor who tried to resuscitate Mariah also said that it was the "worst" case of child abuse she had seen in her career and that the injuries could not have been caused by a fall down the stairs.
Prosecutors told jurors they could "draw conclusions from the evidence," pointing to Mariah's other injuries and arguing that if Lucio had abused her daughter in the past, it would be "consistent with his behavior" to cause the injuries that resulted. his death.
Lucio was found guilty, and has been on Texas death row ever since.
His conviction was upheld on appeal, although a panel of judges for the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in 2019 that he had been denied the opportunity to present a full defense.
The panel noted the court's exclusion from his trial of two expert witnesses, including a psychologist who indicated he planned to testify about his "behavior" during questioning and how it and his alleged confession "could have been explained" by his abusive relationships. with the men.
That psychologist and a social worker said they would have testified about what Lucio might have been going through immediately after Mariah's death and during questioning, and how that might have influenced his behavior and confession, according to court documents.
But the Fifth Circuit later reversed its decision in February 2021, and Lucio's conviction and death sentence were reinstated.
The Clemency Argument
A similar argument is now at the center of the latest effort to save Lucio's life.
His plea for clemency is based on five grounds, including the claim that symptoms of his own trauma resulting from abuse throughout his life were misunderstood or dismissed by authorities at all levels of the investigation. and prosecution.
As a survivor of abuse, Lucio suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder, clinical depression and "battered woman syndrome," his lawyers say, citing the evaluation of the psychologist who reviewed his case.
As a result, she turns "inward" and becomes "passive" in the face of stressful situations, a psychological defense and "survival tactic" that, according to Lucio's request, could explain her behavior during the interrogation that secured her alleged death. coerced confession.
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This misinterpretation of his behavior and background led "directly to his conviction and death sentence," his petition says.
John Lucio, left, prays with his wife, Michelle Lucio, center, and Jennifer Allmon, executive director of the Texas Conference of Catholic Bishops, before a hearing on his mother by the Interim Study Committee on Church Reform. Criminal Justice.
Lucio's clemency petition also asserts that there are scientific explanations for Mariah's severe bruising, citing his medical experts who say there were indications that Mariah suffered from a blood clotting disorder known as disseminated intravascular coagulation, or DIC. , which could explain the bruises that were seen on his body.
According to the petition, head trauma is a common cause of disseminated intravascular coagulation, such as the type of trauma that might have occurred in his fall down the stairs two days before his death.
"The reasons for doubt here are innumerable," Lucio's lawyers write in their petition.
"The prospect that innocent blood may be shed by the state over a death that Melissa Lucio did not cause, let alone plan, should strike a chord in the hearts of Texans."
"Free Melissa Lucio"
The moment his mother was convicted was "inconceivable," said John, who recalled thinking, "This can't be real. This can't be true."
That's how he's felt for the past 15 years, in which he's also gotten into trouble with the law, he said.
It's been a little over a year since he got out of jail, and he said he's done everything he can to mature and "come to his senses."
He aspired to become a barber and get his license, while training for marathons and a triathlon in his spare time.
But once her mother's execution date was set, she felt she had to put those ambitions aside and throw herself into raising awareness of her mother's case.
John feels a responsibility to be his mother's advocate just as she was his, attending his own court dates when he got into trouble as a teenager.
Lucio's family isn't the only one who believes she doesn't deserve to die: dozens of Texas state legislators have signed a letter urging the Board of Pardons and Paroles to grant clemency.
Even Kardashian, who has defended other cases in the context of wrongful conviction, expressed his support for Lucio, saying in a Facebook post that she hopes her life is spared.
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But perhaps most importantly, at least five of the jurors who convicted Lucio have come forward to call for the execution to be stopped, citing evidence they never heard.
"I was disheartened to learn that there was additional evidence that was not presented at trial," Melissa Quintanilla, the forewoman of Lucio's jury, wrote in a statement.
"I believe that Ms. Lucio deserves a new trial and a new jury to hear this evidence. Knowing what I know now, I do not believe that she should be executed."
Texas death row inmate Melissa Lucio, dressed in white, prays April 6 with Texas lawmakers at the Mountain View unit in Gatesville, Texas.
John also credits his mother with restoring his and his wife's faith in God, something John says he lost when Mariah died and his mother went to prison.
On death row, she says Lucio's plea for mercy, she has become a devout Catholic, attending mass every week and reading the Bible daily.
John has visited his mother frequently, driving about seven hours from her home in Harlingen, Texas, to see her where she is being held in Gatesville, Texas.
Her visits always begin with a half hour of prayer and worship, he said.
“She is an amazing woman,” he said, reiterating his hope that not only will her execution be stopped, but that she may one day be able to return home.
"I have tunnel vision right now and all the walls say 'Free Melissa Lucio,'" she says.
"That's my mother. I know she's innocent."