Rare Agreement Between District Attorney and Defense Counsel Acknowledge Prosecutorial Misconduct and Need for New Trial for Melissa Lucio

On April 5, 2024, Cameron County District Attorney Luis Saenz and Innocence Project attor­ney Vanessa Potkin released a joint state­ment regard­ing Melissa Lucio’s case, which has been pend­ing addi­tion­al review for almost two years. On January 11, 2023, the par­ties sub­mit­ted an Agreed Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law stat­ing that the defense was not giv­en access to favor­able infor­ma­tion in the prosecution’s pos­ses­sion at tri­al, an error that they agree should enti­tle Ms. Lucio to a new tri­al. ​“Under Texas pro­ce­dure the tri­al court must make a rec­om­men­da­tion to the CCA which is the only court that can vacate a con­vic­tion,” explained the state­ment. ​“We are hope­ful that Melissa’s case will be resolved.”

Ms. Lucio’s son John and his wife Michelle also issued a state­ment. ​“We are grate­ful to District Attorney Saenz for rec­og­niz­ing that evi­dence that our baby sis­ter Mariah’s death was an acci­dent, not a mur­der, was nev­er pre­sent­ed to the jury. We are also thank­ful to Melissa’s legal team. We hope and pray that our moth­er can soon come home to her family.”

Ms. Lucio was sen­tenced to death in 2008 after pros­e­cu­tors alleged that she beat her two-year-old daugh­ter to death. Ms. Lucio’s lawyers recent­ly pre­sent­ed expert opin­ion that her daugh­ter Mariah was not mur­dered at all, but like­ly died from head trau­ma fol­low­ing an acci­den­tal fall two days pri­or to her death. Ms. Lucio, who was phys­i­cal­ly, emo­tion­al­ly, and sex­u­al­ly abused from a young age, has been diag­nosed with PTSD, ​“bat­tered woman syn­drome” (inti­mate part­ner vio­lence), and depres­sion. She also has intel­lec­tu­al impair­ments, all of which, foren­sic and domes­tic abuse experts agree, made her more vul­ner­a­ble to coer­cive inter­ro­ga­tion tech­niques. After five hours of aggres­sive ques­tion­ing by police on the night of Mariah’s death, Ms. Lucio acqui­esced to police pres­sure, say­ing, ​“I guess I did it.” 
 
Ms. Lucio’s case has gar­nered wide­spread atten­tion and sup­port. In February 2022, the Inter-American Court on Human Rights (IACHR) issued pre­cau­tion­ary mea­sures ask­ing the state to refrain from exe­cu­tion until her case is reviewed and to ensure deten­tion con­di­tions align with inter­na­tion­al human rights stan­dards. In March 2022, 81 mem­bers of the Texas House of Representatives, led by Republican Representative Jeff Leach, signed a let­ter call­ing on Governor Greg Abbott and the par­dons board to grant her clemen­cy. Before the Texas Board of Pardons and Parole could vote on the mat­ter, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals (TCCA) grant­ed Ms. Lucio a stay of exe­cu­tion just days pri­or to her April 27, 2022 exe­cu­tion date. The TCCA high­light­ed four issues for the tri­al court to review: whether pros­e­cu­tors obtained her con­vic­tion using false tes­ti­mo­ny, whether the jury’s expo­sure to pre­vi­ous­ly unavail­able sci­en­tif­ic evi­dence would have result­ed in her acquit­tal, whether she is actu­al­ly inno­cent, and whether pros­e­cu­tors sup­pressed favor­able evi­dence that was mate­r­i­al to the out­come of her tri­al. The fourth ques­tion, answered in the affir­ma­tive, was the sub­ject of the January 2023 joint filing.