纽约时报 美德州14孩母亲被判死刑--两党认为应该赦免（在线收听）

    From Houston — In less than a week, Texas is set to execute Melissa Lucio, a mother of 14 who was convicted of murder in the death of her 2-year-old daughter more than a decade ago.

    休斯顿报道——在不到一周的时间里，德克萨斯州将处决14个孩子的母亲梅丽莎·卢西奥，她十多年前因杀害两岁女儿而被判谋杀罪。

    The execution would be the first of a Hispanic woman in Texas,这将是德克萨斯州第一个西班牙裔妇女被处决的案件，and it has drawn widespread attention — from a 2020 documentary to a recent segment on “Last Week Tonight With John Oliver” — because of new evidence and expert testimony casting strong doubt about her guilt.

    该事件——从2020年的一部纪录片到最近的《约翰·奥利弗上周今夜秀》的视频片段中——引起了广泛关注，因为新的证据和专家证词对她的罪行产生了强烈的怀疑。

    Ms. Lucio’s case has also done something rare in the intensely polarized political climate of Texas:

    在德克萨斯州两极分化严重的政治气候中，卢西奥的案子也引发了一些罕见的事情：

    It has brought Democratic and Republican lawmakers together in mutual outcry.

    它让民主党和共和党议员走到了一起，共同发出了强烈的抗议。

    Scores of legislators have called for clemency or at least a reprieve, including those who are ordinarily vigorous backers of the death penalty.

    许多立法者呼吁赦免或至少缓刑，这些呼吁者中包括那些通常大力支持死刑的人。

    “It will be a historic, irreversible blunder on the part of the State of Texas if we go forward with this,” said State Representative Jeff Leach,“如果我们继续这样做，那将是德克萨斯州的一个历史性的、不可逆转的错误，”州众议员杰夫·利奇说。

    a Republican from north of Dallas who has been a leading voice in Texas urging a halt to the execution.

    他是一位来自达拉斯北部的共和党人，他一直是德克萨斯州敦促停止处决的主要声音。

    “I’ve never seen a more troubling case than the case of Melissa Lucio.”

    “我从未见过比梅丽莎·卢西奥更令人不安的案件。”

    Five of the jurors in her case have also come out in favor of clemency or a reprieve, citing in part the new evidence.

    参与此案的五名陪审员也表示支持宽大处理或缓刑，部分援引了新证据。

    “I voted to sentence Melissa Lucio to death. I was wrong,” one wrote in The Houston Chronicle.

    “我投票赞成判处梅丽莎·卢西奥死刑。 我错了，”其中一人在《休斯顿纪事报》上写道。

    The challenges to Ms. Lucio’s execution highlight familiar failings of the nation’s criminal justice system,卢西奥被处决所面临的挑战，突显了美国刑事司法系统常见的缺陷，including a confession given after hours of interrogation, evidence presented as scientific that has since been questioned, an inadequate defense and gender bias.

    包括在数小时的审讯后认罪的供词、质问后被认为是科学的证据、辩护不足以及性别偏见。

    “Police targeted Melissa because she didn’t fit their image of how a grieving mother should behave” in the aftermath of her daughter’s death, said Sandra Babcock,“警方锁定梅丽莎是因为她不符合他们眼中悲伤的母亲在女儿死后应该表现出的样子，”桑德拉·巴布科克说，one of Ms.Lucio’s lawyers and the director of the Cornell Center on the Death Penalty Worldwide.

    她是卢西奥女士的律师之一，也是康奈尔全球死刑中心的主任。

    Ms. Lucio’s daughter Mariah died at home.

    卢西奥的女儿玛丽亚在家中去世。

    Her lawyers have said that Mariah went down for a nap and did not wake up and that, two days earlier, she had fallen down a flight of stairs.

    她的律师说，玛丽亚打了个盹，没有醒来，而两天前，她从一段楼梯上摔了下来。

    An autopsy said the cause of death was blunt force trauma to the head.

    验尸报告说死因是头部受到钝器重击。

    The fact that Ms. Lucio is on death row at all is an outlier.

    卢西奥女士被判死刑是一个例外。

    It is rare for prosecutors to seek the death penalty in a case where a mother has been charged with killing her children, her lawyers said.

    她的律师说，在母亲被指控杀害子女的案件中，检察官要求判处死刑的情况很少见。

    One issue her lawyers are raising is the legal provision — unique to Texas — under which prosecutors must prove a person’s “future dangerousness” in order to secure a death sentence.

    她的律师提出的一个问题是德克萨斯州独有的法律条款，根据该条款，检察官必须证明一个人的“未来危险程度”，才能获得死刑判决。