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The trial decide who presided over dying row inmate Melissa Lucio’s capital homicide case discovered final month that she is harmless of her daughter’s dying and really helpful that her sentence and conviction be overturned, in line with court docket paperwork unsealed Thursday.
Choose Arturo Nelson of Cameron County discovered on Oct. 16 that there was clear and convincing proof that the dying of Lucio’s 2-year-old daughter, Mariah, was brought on by an unintended fall on some stairs, and that prosecutors had relied on false testimony and flawed scientific proof to persuade a jury of her guilt.
Lucio, he discovered, “is actually innocent; she did not kill her daughter.”
The case now goes to the Texas Courtroom of Prison Appeals, which should resolve whether or not to simply accept Nelson’s suggestion to overturn Lucio’s conviction and dying sentence.
“This is the best news we could get going into the holidays,” John and Michelle Lucio, Lucio’s son and daughter-in-law, stated in a press release. “We pray our mother will be home soon.”
Lucio was convicted of capital homicide in 2008. However doubts surrounding the reason for Mariah’s dying and the equity of Lucio’s conviction reached a fever pitch in 2022, as Lucio’s supporters — together with a lot of the Texas Legislature — argued that there have been too many questions on her trial to hold out her execution.
When paramedics arrived on the household’s Brownsville residence in 2007, they discovered Mariah “turning purple and unresponsive,” with bruising all through her physique.
Lucio repeatedly denied hurting her daughter. She described how Mariah had fallen on the steps two days earlier than her dying, and although she appeared superb at first, her situation rapidly deteriorated, and she or he grew to become congested and torpid.
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Then, after roughly 5 hours of police interrogation the night time Mariah died, Lucio advised officers that she had slapped, pinched and bitten Mariah, although she by no means admitted inflicting her daughter’s dying.
The state’s case relied totally on that “confession” at trial, whereas the decide barred testimony from consultants that Lucio, a long-time sufferer of home and sexual abuse, had sought to elucidate why she would make a false confession whereas beneath stress from male authority figures.
Prosecutors additionally centered a health worker’s testimony that Mariah’s accidents “could only have been caused by intentional physical abuse.”
The Courtroom of Prison Appeals stayed Lucio’s execution in 2022, ordering the trial court docket to think about whether or not Lucio was really harmless, and whether or not the state had introduced false testimony at trial and hid proof from the protection.
In April, Nelson agreed that the prosecution had suppressed proof that supported Lucio’s innocence throughout trial and really helpful that her conviction be overturned.
In interviews with police after Mariah’s dying, 5 of Lucio’s kids had denied that their mom was bodily abusive and affirmed that Mariah had fallen on the steps. At the very least considered one of her kids stated they noticed Mariah fall.
Prosecutors didn’t share these interviews with the protection in the course of the trial, which Lucio’s attorneys and Cameron County District Lawyer Luis Saenz — who was not concerned within the prosecution — stated in 2022 was a violation of her constitutional rights.
In June, the Courtroom of Prison Appeals requested Nelson to additionally make suggestions on three excellent arguments Lucio had introduced in successful a keep, associated to her precise innocence, false testimony introduced by the state and new scientific proof.
Final month, Nelson really helpful in her favor on all three claims.
The decide discovered “clear and convincing evidence” that Mariah’s deadly head damage was brought on by a fall on the steps two days earlier than she died, and that even when Lucio’s “confession” have been true, the actions she admitted to wouldn’t have triggered her daughter’s dying.
“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,” he wrote.
Nelson additionally agreed that scientific proof not introduced at trial would have undermined the state’s case.
He discovered that there was persuasive proof that Lucio was somebody extremely vulnerable to creating a false confession throughout an intense interrogation, and that accidents on Mariah’s physique have been seemingly linked to her fall and to not biting or abuse because the state had contended.
And the decide discovered that the state had used “false and misleading evidence regarding two central factual issues contested at trial.”
At trial, the state’s health worker testified that it was unimaginable for Mariah’s accidents and dying to have resulted from an unintended fall.
However Nelson agreed that Mariah’s post-mortem, eyewitness accounts of her fall and her subsequent deterioration offered credible proof that she died of head trauma from an unintended fall on the steps — not from abuse.
A Texas Ranger additionally testified that he may decide Lucio’s guilt based mostly on her demeanor and physique language within the interrogation room. The decide discovered that the scientific consensus stated that nobody can decide if an individual is telling the reality based mostly on their demeanor.
These core items of false testimony, Nelson discovered, “affected the jury’s verdict” and violated Lucio’s due course of rights.
“Melissa Lucio lived every parent’s nightmare when she lost her daughter after a tragic accident,” Vanessa Potkin, Lucio’s lawyer and director of particular litigation on the Innocence Undertaking, stated in a press release. “After 16 years on death row, it’s time for the nightmare to end.”
