Texas Court of Criminal Appeals Stays Melissa Lucio’s Execution and Orders Hearing on Her Innocence Claims

The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals has halt­ed the sched­uled April 27, 2022 exe­cu­tion of Melissa Lucio and direct­ed that a Cameron County tri­al court con­duct a hear­ing to address evi­dence that she may be inno­cent of charges that she mur­dered her two-year-old daugh­ter, Mariah (pic­tured, being held by her mother).

In an unpub­lished three-page order issued April 25, 2022, the Texas appeals court grant­ed Lucio review of four issues: that pros­e­cu­tors obtained her con­vic­tion using false tes­ti­mo­ny, that the jury’s expo­sure to pre­vi­ous­ly unavail­able sci­en­tif­ic evi­dence would have result­ed in her acquit­tal, that she is actu­al­ly inno­cent, and that pros­e­cu­tors sup­pressed favor­able evi­dence that was mate­r­i­al to the out­come of her tri­al. The court denied review of five oth­er issues. The judges stayed Lucio’s exe­cu­tion ​“pend­ing res­o­lu­tion of the remanded claims.”

Lucio has pre­sent­ed affi­davits from lead­ing foren­sic experts that Mariah, who had a med­ical con­di­tion that caused her to be an unsteady walk­er, was not mur­dered at all, but died from injuries sus­tained after falling down a steep set of stairs in the new fam­i­ly home. She also pre­sent­ed evi­dence that abu­sive inter­ro­ga­tion prac­tices coerced her into false­ly agree­ing with police sug­ges­tions that she had caused Mariah’s death and that pros­e­cu­tors twist­ed those state­ments before the jury to false­ly imply that she had con­fessed to murdering Mariah. 

Texas State Representative Jeff Leach (R – Plano), the dri­ving force behind a bipar­ti­san leg­isla­tive effort that result­ed in majori­ties of both the Texas House and Senate sign­ing let­ters call­ing for Lucio’s sen­tence to be com­mut­ed, broke the news of the stay to Lucio in a phone call. As report­ed by the Texas Tribune, Lucio respond­ed with a com­bi­na­tion of laugh­ter and tears. ​“Are you seri­ous?” she said. ​“That is won­der­ful. … Oh thank you, God.”

The court issued its deci­sion short­ly before the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles was sched­uled to vote on Lucio’s appli­ca­tion for clemen­cy. With the exe­cu­tion stayed, the board said that it would not issue a rec­om­men­da­tion on Lucio’s application.