Trial Judge Declares Melissa Lucio to be ​“Actually Innocent,” Recommends Texas CCA Overturn Conviction and Death Sentence

Texas death-sen­tenced pris­on­er Melissa Lucio is ​“actu­al­ly inno­cent; she did not kill her [two-year-old] daugh­ter,” explained Judge Arturo Nelson in his October 16^th deci­sion, which was made pub­lic on November 14, 2024. Judge Nelson’s Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law now go to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals (TCCA), which will make the final deci­sion about whether to over­turn Ms. Lucio’s con­vic­tion and 2008 death sen­tence. This deci­sion marks the lat­est dra­mat­ic devel­op­ment for Ms. Lucio, who nar­row­ly avoid­ed a 2022 exe­cu­tion date after a high­ly pub­li­cized clemen­cy cam­paign that gar­nered wide­spread sup­port from a bipar­ti­san group of Texas leg­is­la­tors, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, and a coali­tion of activists. 

Judge Nelson con­clud­ed that there is ​“clear and con­vinc­ing evi­dence that no ratio­nal juror could con­vict” Ms. Lucio of killing her daugh­ter, Mariah, whose fatal head injury result­ed from an acci­den­tal fall down the stairs two days pri­or to her death, not abuse as the pros­e­cu­tion had argued. This con­clu­sion, which is sup­port­ed by med­ical evi­dence and expert tes­ti­mo­ny, aligns with Ms. Lucio’s ini­tial account to police, who sub­ject­ed her to five hours of aggres­sive ques­tion­ing the night of Mariah’s death until she made a false con­fes­sion. Judge Nelson agreed that due to Ms. Lucio’s his­to­ry of trau­ma, she was ​“high­ly sus­cep­ti­ble to mak­ing a false con­fes­sion under the inter­ro­ga­tion tech­niques used.” The vic­tim of phys­i­cal, emo­tion­al, and sex­u­al abuse from a young age, Ms. Lucio has been diag­nosed with PTSD, bat­tered woman syn­drome, and depres­sion, and has intel­lec­tu­al impair­ments, all of which, foren­sic and domes­tic abuse experts say, 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 from which she couldn’t wake up when she was sent to death row for a crime that nev­er hap­pened,” said Vanessa Potkin, Director of Special Litigation at the Innocence Project and an attor­ney on Ms. Lucio’s defense team. ​“After 16 years on death row, it’s time for the night­mare to end. Melissa should be home right now with her chil­dren and grandchildren.” 

Earlier, in April 2024, Judge Nelson had agreed that the pros­e­cu­tion had with­held favor­able evi­dence from Ms. Lucio’s defense coun­sel at tri­al, vio­lat­ing her con­sti­tu­tion­al rights estab­lished in Brady v. Maryland (1963). In January 2023, cur­rent Cameron County District Attorney Luis Saenz, who was not involved in the orig­i­nal tri­al, con­ced­ed that the pros­e­cu­tion com­mit­ted a Brady vio­la­tion and sub­mit­ted Agreed Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law with defense coun­sel. This evi­dence includ­ed tes­ti­mo­ny from Ms. Lucio’s oth­er chil­dren who denied phys­i­cal abuse and con­firmed Mariah’s acci­den­tal fall. On June 19, the TCCA returned the case to Judge Nelson, request­ing rec­om­men­da­tions on argu­ments regard­ing three out­stand­ing claims — actu­al inno­cence, false tes­ti­mo­ny pre­sent­ed by the state, and new sci­en­tif­ic evi­dence — which Judge Nelson addressed in his recent deci­sion when he found that Ms. Lucio was wrongfully convicted. 

“This is the best news we could get going into the hol­i­days,” John and Michelle Lucio, Ms. Lucio’s son and daugh­ter-in-law, said in a state­ment. ​“We pray our moth­er will be home soon.”