Trial judge recommends overturning Melissa Lucio’s death sentence, conviction

The trial judge in the case of 56-year-old Melissa Lucio — who remains on death row — has found that she is actually innocent and did not kill her daughter.

State District Judge Arturo Nelson made the finding on Oct. 16. On Thursday, his facts and findings and conclusions of law were unsealed, Lucio’s legal team said in a news release.

Lucio was convicted in July 2008 of the killing of her daughter, Mariah Alvarez, and was sentenced to death.

She is the first Mexican-American woman sentenced to death in Texas and has long maintained her innocence, saying her daughter fell down a staircase at their Harlingen apartment. She also claimed she falsely confessed after about five hours of interrogation at the Harlingen Police Department.

Lucio avoided a scheduled execution on April 27, 2022 by just two days after the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals ruled four claims in a writ of habeas corpus met the requirements to stay her execution.

In April, both the Cameron County District Attorney’s Office and Lucio’s attorneys agreed that favorable evidence was withheld from her during her trial, namely evidence that corroborated her story that her 2-year-old child had fallen down the stairs as witnessed by one of her other children.

Nelson had sent this finding on one of Lucio’s claims to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, which sent the case back to Nelson and ordered him to rule on the three other claims.

The unsealed findings indicate that Nelson found that Lucio “is actually innocent; she did not kill her daughter.”

“Judge Nelson agreed with Cameron County District Attorney Luis Saenz that a previous prosecution team suppressed evidence supporting Ms. Lucio’s defense at trial that her daughter died after an accidental fall,” Lucio’s appellate team said in the release.

Nelson has recommended that the death sentence and conviction be set aside.

“This is the best news we could get going into the holidays,” said John and Michelle Lucio, her son and daughter-in-law.

Another son, Bobby Alvarez, added: “We pray our mother will be home soon.”

Vaness Potkin, director of special litigation at the Innocence Project, and one of Lucio’s attorneys, said she is living every parent’s nightmare.

“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,” Potkin said. “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.”

Nelson found that there is clear and convincing evidence that Mariah Alvarez fell down some stairs two days before she died, just like Lucio told police.

The judge also found that Lucio was susceptible to making a false confession under the interrogation techniques used on her and that the child’s extensive bruising was not caused by abuse, but rather complications from a fall.

John Lucio arrives for a news conference to cheers from advocates, after he finished a visit with his mother Melissa Lucio, on Monday, April 25, 2022, at the Gatesville Civic Center in Gatesville. (Ryan Henry/The Brownsville Herald)

Nelson also found that the child’s fatal head injury was caused by the fall.

“The Court therefore concludes that Applicant has met her burden of proof … for actual innocence as no rational juror could have convicted Applicant of killing her daughter after hearing all of the evidence from her original trial alongside all of the new evidence she has presented,” Nelson wrote.

Saenz, the district attorney, has also acknowledged that his predecessor withheld evidence from the defense about witnesses seeing Mariah Alvarez fall down some stairs and were aware of her deteriorating conditions in the days following the fall.

“The suppressed evidence, viewed cumulatively and in light of the record as a whole, provides evidentiary support for the defense that Mariah’s head injury was accidental, and counters the State’s evidence that the injuries could have only been the result of intentional abuse,” Nelson wrote.

Her case is now in the hands of the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals.

The post Trial judge recommends overturning Melissa Lucio’s death sentence, conviction appeared first on MyRGV.com.