Melissa Lucio Appeals to Texas Pardons Board and Governor for Clemency

This month, Melissa Lucio’s legal team submitted an application for clemency to Gov. Greg Abbott and the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles. In the application, seven nationally recognized experts, including scientists and forensic specialists, reviewed the evidence and concluded that Melissa’s conviction was based upon an unreliable “confession” that is essentially a mere “regurgitation” of facts and words officers fed her during the five-hour interrogation. They also concluded that unscientific evidence misled the jury into believing that Mariah’s death had to have been caused by abuse. In reality, the evidence is consistent with an accidental death from medical complications after a fall. Take a moment to read more about the clemency filing here [[link removed]] You can support Melissa right now by adding your name to our petition to prevent Texas from
making an irreversible mistake or by texting SAVEMELISSA to 97016.

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Celebrating Women’s History Month

March marked Women’s History Month, a time to both celebrate the accomplishments of women and acknowledge how much more we must do to reach true equality. We wanted to close out the month by celebrating some amazing Innocence Project staff members and clients in a new video. Check it out now!

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Facing Execution in One Month, Innocent Mom Melissa Lucio Still Hopes She’ll Be Free One Day

“Mariah was my baby, I loved her,” Melissa Lucio said of her youngest daughter, who died after a tragic accident in 2007. Melissa has never had a chance to truly grieve her baby because she’s spent the last 15 years incarcerated for a crime that never occurred: Mariah’s murder. Melissa has survived a lifetime of unimaginable tragedies and trauma — the most devastating of all being her daughter’s death. She’s now facing execution on April 27, despite several judges saying she did not have a fair trial and several experts concluding that false and misleading evidence was presented at her trial. Read more about Melissa’s story here [[link removed] Join the over 100,000 people who have already signed a petition calling to stop Melissa’s execution
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Christina Swarns’ Op-ed in New York Daily News: Why the Dangerousness Standard is Racist

In an op-ed for the New York Daily News, Innocence Project Executive Director Christina Swarns expressed concern over New York Mayor Adams’ latest blueprint to end gun violence, including his calls for bail and discovery reform rollbacks. Check it out today [[link removed]]

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Indiana Gov. Holcomb Signs Bill Requiring Proper Preservation of Evidence

This month, Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb signed SB 263, a bill designed to ensure biological crime scene evidence is properly retained. In the United States, 375 people have been exonerated based on DNA evidence to date. None of these exonerations would have been possible if the biological evidence in their cases had been destroyed, tainted, contaminated, mislabeled, or otherwise corrupted. Out of these 375 exonerations, the people who actually committed the crimes were subsequently detected in 50% of the cases. The new law is a key step in revealing wrongful convictions and solving cold cases in the Hoosier state — learn more about it now [[link removed]

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Exonerations Around the U.S.

Michigan Innocence Clinic [[link removed]] client Melvin DeJesus was exonerated on March 22, 2022 after having served 25 years wrongfully incarcerated. WMU-Cooley Innocence Project [[link removed]] client George DeJesus was exonerated on March 22, 2022 after having served 25 years wrongfully incarcerated.

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The Innocence Project works to free the innocent, prevent wrongful convictions, and create fair, compassionate, and equitable systems of justice for everyone. Founded in 1992 by Barry C. Scheck and Peter J. Neufeld at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law at Yeshiva University, the organization is now an independent nonprofit. Our work is guided by science and grounded in antiracism.

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