17 November 2024:
November 14, 2024 – Texas. The judge declares Melissa Lucio “effectively innocent” and recommends that the Texas Court of Appeals overturn the guilty verdict and subsequent death sentence.
Texas death row inmate Melissa Lucio is “actually innocent: she did not kill her two-year-old daughter,” Judge Arturo Nelson explained in his October 16 decision, made public November 14, 2024. Judge Nelson’s findings and facts They now move to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals (TCCA), which will make the final decision on overturning Lucio’s 2008 conviction and death sentence. This decision marks the latest dramatic development for Lucio, who narrowly avoided a 2022 execution date after a highly publicized clemency campaign that garnered broad support from a bipartisan group of Texas lawmakers, the Commission Inter-American Human Rights Committee and a coalition of activists.
Judge Nelson concluded that there was “clear and convincing evidence that no rational juror could convict” Ms. Lucio of killing her daughter Mariah, whose fatal head injury was caused by an accidental fall down the stairs two days before her death, and not from abuse as the prosecution had claimed. This conclusion, supported by medical evidence and expert testimony, is consistent with Ms. Lucio’s initial account to police, who subjected her to five hours of aggressive interrogation on the night of Mariah’s death until she obtained a false confession. Judge Nelson agreed that due to Ms Lucio’s history of trauma, she was “highly susceptible to making a false confession with the interrogation techniques used”. A victim of physical, emotional and sexual abuse from an early age, Ms. Lucio has been diagnosed with PTSD, battered woman syndrome, depression and intellectual disability, all factors which, according to forensic and domestic abuse experts, have made her more vulnerable to coercive interrogation.
“Melissa Lucio lived every parent’s nightmare when she lost her daughter after a tragic accident. It became a nightmare she couldn’t wake up from when she was sent to death row for a crime that never happened,” said Vanessa Potkin, director of the Innocence Project and an attorney on Lucio’s defense team. “After 16 years on death row, it’s time for the nightmare to end. Melissa should be home now with her children and grandchildren.”
Previously, in April 2024, Judge Nelson ruled that the prosecution withheld favorable evidence from Lucio’s defense attorney during the trial, violating her constitutional rights established in Brady v. Maryland (1963). In January 2023, current Cameron County District Attorney Luis Saenz, who had not been involved in the original trial, admitted that the prosecution had committed a “Brady violation” and submitted findings agreed with the attorney of the defense. This evidence included testimonies from Ms. Lucio’s other children denying physical abuse and confirming Mariah’s accidental fall. On June 19, the TCCA remanded the case to Judge Nelson, seeking recommendations on arguments related to three outstanding claims – factual innocence, perjury presented by the State, and new scientific evidence – which Judge Nelson addressed in his recent decision when ruled that Ms. Lucio was wrongly convicted.
“This is the best news we could have received ahead of the holidays,” John and Michelle Lucio, Mrs. Lucio’s son and daughter-in-law, said in a statement. “We pray that our mother comes home soon.”
(Source: DPIC, 11/15/2024)
