Trial Judge Signs Agreed Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law, Recommending Melissa Lucio’s Conviction and Death Sentence Be Overturned

On April 12, 2024, Judge Arturo Nelson signed an Agreed Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law sub­mit­ted by the pros­e­cu­tion and defense stat­ing that Melissa Lucio (pic­tured) was not giv­en access to favor­able infor­ma­tion in the prosecution’s pos­ses­sion at the time of tri­al. The acknowl­edge­ment of this con­sti­tu­tion­al error result­ed in Judge Nelson’s rec­om­men­da­tion to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals (TCCA) that Ms. Lucio’s con­vic­tion and death sen­tence be over­turned. The rul­ing marks the lat­est chap­ter in a saga that saw Ms. Lucio nar­row­ly avoid an exe­cu­tion date in 2022 fol­low­ing a high­ly pub­li­cized clemen­cy cam­paign over con­cerns she had been wrongfully convicted.

Ms. Lucio was con­vict­ed and sen­tenced to death for the death of her 2‑year-old daugh­ter in 2008 but has always main­tained her daugh­ter died of com­pli­ca­tions relat­ing to fall. Ms. Lucio says she false­ly con­fessed after five hours of intense police inter­ro­ga­tion on the evening her daugh­ter died. Attorneys for Ms. Lucio recent­ly pre­sent­ed expert opin­ion that her daugh­ter was not mur­dered, but rather suc­cumbed to head trau­ma from the acci­den­tal fall two days pri­or to her death. Judge Nelson ulti­mate­ly deter­mined that Ms. Lucio ​“met her bur­den of proof, by a pre­pon­der­ance of the evi­dence, that she would not have been con­vict­ed in light of the sup­pressed evi­dence.” The TCCA will now have the final say about whether Ms. Lucio’s con­vic­tion will be set aside.

A week before Judge Nelson’s find­ings were entered, Cameron County District Attorney Luis Saenz and Innocence Project attor­ney Vanessa Potkin released a joint state­ment about the Agreed Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law they sub­mit­ted in January 2023. ​“Under Texas pro­ce­dure the tri­al court must make a rec­om­men­da­tion to the CCA which is the only court that can vacate a con­vic­tion,” the state­ment explained. ​“We are hope­ful Melissa’s case will be resolved,” the state­ment added. Jordan Steiker, the Director of University of Texas Law School’s Capital Punishment Center called this agree­ment ​“excep­tion­al­ly rare,” as both the pros­e­cu­tion and defense con­curred that pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al mis­con­duct occurred dur­ing Ms. Lucio’s trial.

Just two days before her sched­uled exe­cu­tion in April 2022, the TCCA ruled that four claims filed by Ms. Lucio’s attor­neys met the require­ments to grant a stay of exe­cu­tion. In its opin­ion, the TCCA asked the Cameron County court to review these four issues, includ­ing whether pros­e­cu­tors failed to turn over favor­able evi­dence that was mate­r­i­al to the out­come of her tri­al. The Agreed Findings focused on the ques­tion about mate­r­i­al evi­dence, par­tic­u­lar­ly evi­dence indi­cat­ing that one of Ms. Lucio’s oth­er chil­dren saw the child fall and that reports from Child Protective Services indi­cate her chil­dren told offi­cials she was not abu­sive to any of them. Additional evi­dence indi­cates that Ms. Lucio’s chil­dren told CPS that she was wor­ried about her daugh­ter after the fall and cared great­ly for her before she died. At the time of Ms. Lucio’s tri­al, her attor­neys did not have full copies of these reports, only sum­maries that did not include this favorable evidence.

In a state­ment from Ms. Lucio’s sons and daugh­ter-in-law, her fam­i­ly thanked her ​“legal team for their hard work to bring the truth to light and to D.A. Saenz for tak­ing anoth­er look at [their] mother’s case and rec­og­niz­ing that she did not receive a fair tri­al and her con­vic­tion should be over­turned.” Acknowledging that evi­dence was with­held in their mother’s case, her fam­i­ly ​“hope[s] and pray[s] the Court of Criminal Appeals will agree with the District Attorney, the defense, and Judge Nelson and our moth­er can come home to her fam­i­ly. It’s been 17 years that we have been with­out her. We love her and miss her and can’t wait to hug her.