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lite.cnn.com - on gopher - inofficial
ARTICLE VIEW:
A Texas death row inmate is ‘actually innocent’ of her toddler’s
murder and her conviction should be overturned, judge finds
By Andy Rose, CNN
Updated:
3:21 PM EST, Fri November 15, 2024
Source: CNN
Melissa Lucio was from being put to death in Texas for the murder of
her 2-year-old daughter when an appeals court intervened in 2022.
Now, a judge says Lucio the crime at all.
“Applicant is actually innocent; she did not kill her daughter,”
state district Judge Arturo C. Nelson wrote in an October filing
released to the public Thursday.
It is now up to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, which had asked
the judge to revisit the case, to determine whether Lucio should be
released.
“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,” Vanessa Potkin with the Innocence Project, one of
Lucio’s attorneys, .
The case highlights an inherent risk of capital punishment: putting an
innocent person to death. At least 200 people sentenced to die since
1973 were later exonerated, including 18 in Texas, . Lucio is one of on
death row in Texas, which includes in all.
No execution date has been set for Lucio since the Criminal Court of
Appeals ordered Nelson to review the case. No further hearings were
scheduled in the case as of Friday, and it was not clear when the
appellate judges might consider Nelson’s ruling.
“There’s no time frame within which the (Criminal Court of Appeals)
has to decide a case that is submitted to them,” Potkin told CNN on
Friday.
Lucio’s family hopes a decision comes quickly.
“This is the best news we could get going into the holidays,” said
Lucio’s sons, John Lucio and Bobby Alvarez, and a daughter-in-law in
a statement released by their attorneys. “We pray our mother will be
home soon.”
Judge cites critical errors in murder trial
After an hourslong interrogation in which she first “insisted she was
innocent,” Lucio ultimately said she was “‘responsible’ for
what happened” to her daughter in 2007 but never made an “express
admission to causing her daughter’s death,” Nelson’s ruling
states. Lucio’s defense has maintained she never actually confessed
to causing the death of 2-year-old Mariah Alvarez.
Nelson Lucio’s conviction be overturned because the state withheld
evidence showing Mariah may have died from an accidental fall down the
stairs rather than because of physical abuse by her mother. Lucio’s
attorneys and the Cameron County District Attorney’s Office more than
a year earlier submitted a court filing including an acknowledgment the
state withheld evidence favorable to Lucio, with both sides agreeing
she was entitled to relief.
The new findings of fact go even further.
“This Court concludes there is clear and convincing evidence that no
rational juror could convict Applicant of capital murder or any lesser
included offense,” Nelson wrote in his ruling released this week.
Lucio’s trial jury also was improperly influenced by a prosecution
witness’ claim he could determine Lucio’s credibility based on her
“demeanor” during testimony, Nelson found, a claim the court ruled
has since been scientifically debunked.
The jury also should have been informed Lucio was a victim of
“physical and sexual abuse,” which “increase a person’s risk of
a false confession,” the judge found.
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