DALLAS — Representative Jeff Leach (R-Allen) vows to continue fighting to halt the execution of Melissa Lucio -- although he is hopeful the Cameron County District Attorney will do as he promised Tuesday, and step in to pause the execution if no one else does first.
A meeting of the Criminal Justice Reform Committee in Austin on Tuesday revealed that five of the jurors who agreed to sentence Lucio to death now admit they believe they were wrong.
"Now just days away from her planned execution, I feel deep regret," juror Johnny Galvan said in a statement read to the committee by his daughter.
Galvan said now that he knows that Lucio was interrogated for five hours, that she claimed more than 100 times in that interview that she was innocent, that her eventual confession was forced and that she is an abuse survivor herself, he wouldn't have voted for her death.
"The idea that my decision to take another person's life was not based on complete and accurate information in a fair trial is horrifying," Galvan wrote.
The current Cameron County District Attorney, not the one who convicted Lucio of murdering her daughter, joined the committee hearing remotely.
"I do not believe this execution is going to go through on April 27," Luis Saenz said, telling the committee he will withdraw the death warrant before April 27 if the courts, the board of pardons and paroles, or the governor doesn't step in first.
"This case is not over; it has not been finally decided. I do not believe that the execution is going to be carried out on that day," said Saenz.
Today, Lucio's fate still in limbo. The Lucio family, on social media, asked the Cameron County DA "to do the right thing" and rescind the death warrant.
"She is an innocent woman. And I want to say thank you to all the supporters," Melissa Lucio's son John Lucio said after the hearing.
"I am hopeful that if the Court of Criminal Appeals or the Board of Pardons and Paroles and the governor don't step in to stop this execution that the DA in Cameron County Luis Saenz will do so," said Rep. Leach in an interview with Inside Texas Politics.
"But look, April 27 execution date is still set and until the pause button is pushed, and it's removed from the calendar, we are not going to let up and we are not going to rest," he said.