Texas lawmakers meet with woman facing execution

By JUAN A. LOZANO
Associated Press

HOUSTON (AP) — A group of bipartisan Texas lawmakers visited a death row inmate whose execution they are trying to stop amid doubt about whether she fatally beat her 2-year-old daughter.  State Reps. Jeff Leach and Joe Moody on Wednesday led a group of lawmakers to the Mountain View Unit in Gatesville, Texas, where the state houses women on death row, and visited Melissa Lucio. Lucio was convicted of capital murder for the 2007 death of her daughter Mariah. Prosecutors say Mariah was the victim of child abuse and there is no evidence that would acquit Lucio of her daughter’s death. But her attorneys say she’s innocent and jurors never heard evidence that would have acquitted her. Leach described his visit with Lucio as “very powerful.”