Editorial: Melissa Lucio’s retrial, ordered three years ago, needs to happen soon

Three years have passed since an appellate court spared Melissa Lucio from a scheduled April 2022 execution and ordered a retrial. The Harlingen mother was convicted in July 2008 for killing her 2-year-old daughter Mariah. The judge who would retry the case and the district attorney who would prosecute her both say she likely will be acquitted.

And yet Lucio continues to languish in a state prison awaiting a retrial or ruling that most people involved in the case now agree will set her free.

If that is the case, every day she continues to spend in a concrete box is an injustice.

This case needs to be resolved, as soon as possible.

Lucio’s continued incarceration only enlarges the tragedy that began Feb. 17, 2007, when little Mariah died from head injuries that Lucio and other family members said resulted from a fall down the stairs.

The mother, whom Child Protective Services previously had investigated for neglect, was arrested. Records show that during long hours of intense grilling and sleep deprivation under Harlingen police investigators, Lucio made statements that were taken to suggest that she felt responsible for Mariah’s death.

Largely on the basis of those statements, a Cameron County jury in July 2008 convicted Lucio of murdering the child, and called for her execution.

During the more than a dozen years Lucio sat on death row, family, friends and advocates, including her other children, insisted she was innocent and fought for a retrial or dismissal of the charges. Their campaign inspired a 2020 documentary film about the case that included police footage of interrogators goading an obviously exhausted Lucio into spanking a doll.

Further investigation, inspired in part by the film, found that the district attorney at the time, Armando Villalobos, had withheld evidence that was favorable to Lucio, including reports from interviews her other children gave to both Harlingen Police and CPS corroborating her alibi and indicating she was not violent toward them.

On April 25, 2022 — nearly 14 years after her conviction and two days before she was scheduled to be put to death — the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals stayed her execution and ordered a retrial.

Current Cameron District Attorney Luis Saenz has said the new evidence puts the chances of a second conviction in doubt. State District Judge Arturo Nelson, who heard the original case and reviewed all the evidence, has issued a Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law to the appellate court stating that based on the new evidence, Lucio is “actually innocent; she did not kill her daughter.”

Meanwhile, her children and others continue to fight for resolution of the case.

Lucio was deprived f a fair trial that might have led to her acquittal. Her other children have grown up without a mother, and the strength of their advocacy belies any suggestion that they had any reason to fear violence at her hand.

Our Constitution gives everyone a right to a fair and speedy trial. That applies to retrials as well. Given the new evidence, it’s a new review of Lucio’s case will be short, ane exculpatory.

In the name of justice for all concerned, let’s make this happen.

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