Melissa Elizabeth Lucio, a death row inmate convicted of murdering her toddler daughter, is “actually innocent”, the trial judge who presided over her capital murder case said last month.
In support of her appeal, the 56-year-old’s trial judge, Arturo Nelson of the Cameron County District Court, declared that the “conviction and sentence of death should be vacated.”
In court filings initially cited by ABC News, Nelson stated that Lucio “satisfied her burden and produced clear and convincing evidence that she is actually innocent of the offense of capital murder.”
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Lucio was convicted of the 2007 killing of her 2-year-old daughter Mariah in Harlingen, a community of around 71,000 people on the extreme southern coast of Texas. 13 of her children are still alive today.
When paramedics arrived at a home on February 17, 2007, they discovered a two-year-old child who was not responding and later passed away, according to Lucio’s death row profile kept up to date by the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. “Evidence of abuse led to the arrest and conviction of Lucio, the child’s mother.”
“Melissa Lucio lived every parent’s nightmare when she lost her daughter after a tragic accident,” said Vanessa Potkin, Lucio’s attorney, in a statement issued by the Innocence Project, an advocacy group that works to exonerate wrongfully convicted prisoners.
“It became a nightmare from which she couldn’t wake up when she was sent to death row for a crime that never happened. 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.”
Reality TV personality and wannabe lawyer Kim Kardashian brought Lucio’s case to the public’s attention. It became viral and is now before the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals.
Kardashian posted in 2022, “So heartbreaking to read this letter from Melissa Lucio’s children begging for the state not to kill their mother.”
“There are so many unresolved questions surrounding this case and the evidence that was used to convict her. This is one of the many reasons why I am against the death penalty — and why I pray her children’s wish is granted and their mother’s life is spared.”
Lucio was scheduled to be executed on April 27, 2022. However, two days before the execution, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals stepped in to consider fresh evidence indicating Mariah’s fatal injuries resulted from a fall down a steep staircase.
Over the years, however, a surprising and varied group of advocates have come to Lucio’s aid, including Amanda Knox, an American who was previously charged with murder in Italy and who publicly bemoaned in 2022 that Lucio was on death row “for a crime that never even occurred.”
Filmmaker Sabrina Van Tassel’s 2020 Netflix documentary, “Melissa vs. the State of Texas,” also followed Lucio’s journey on death row as she filed her final appeal.
In an interview with ABC News, Abraham Bonowitz, executive director of Death Penalty Action and coordinator of the #FreeMelissaLucio Campaign, said that Lucio agrees that the film helped bring attention to her case.
Bonowitz told the outlet, “Melissa Lucio was once two days from execution. It took a film viewed by millions and a massive public relations campaign just to halt her execution and get the courts to order a fresh look at the evidence.”
The appeals to free the Texas woman were also supported by a bipartisan coalition of senators, and the calls for her release from celebrities helped to strengthen her case.
State Rep. Jeff Leach has also previously been on Lucio’s side, having said that authorities must “do everything that we can to ensure that an innocent Texan is not put to death by the state, or even a potentially innocent Texan is not put to death.”
Cameron County’s district attorney, who was not involved in Lucio’s initial prosecution, also supported the appeal.
Lucio was convicted of capital murder in 2008. She denies hurting her daughter, adding that Mariah fell on the stairs two days before her death. She said Mariah was initially okay until her condition got worse and she became congested and lethargic.
The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals must now decide whether to accept Nelson’s recommendation to overturn Lucio’s conviction and death sentence.
