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lite.cnn.com - on gopher - inofficial
ARTICLE VIEW:
Texas judge recommends Melissa Lucio’s conviction and death sentence
be overturned
By Dakin Andone, CNN
Updated:
5:13 PM EDT, Tue April 16, 2024
Source: CNN
A Texas judge last week recommended the conviction and sentence of a be
overturned, finding prosecutors withheld key evidence that could have
prevented her from being found guilty in the 2007 death of her
2-year-old daughter.
The evidence – namely a Child Protective Services report and
interviews with inmate Melissa Lucio’s surviving children – would
have corroborated the defense’s theory at trial, according to a
filing submitted by her attorneys and prosecutors and signed by the
judge on Friday: Lucio’s toddler, Mariah Alvarez, died because of
injuries sustained in an accidental fall down stairs and not from abuse
at the hands of her mother, as the state claimed.
The case now returns to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, which two
years ago two days before it was set to be carried out, back to the
trial court in Cameron County for review. The appeals court has the
authority to overturn Lucio’s conviction, and it’s unclear when it
might make a decision.
Lucio’s case in recent years, particularly ahead of her scheduled
execution. Kim Kardashian – the celebrity and entrepreneur who has
championed a number of death row inmates’ cases – as well as a
bipartisan group of Texas lawmakers called for mercy on Lucio’s
behalf, as did five members of her jury.
At least 197 people sentenced to death in the United States since 1973
have been exonerated, 16 of them in Texas, according to the non-profit
.
The recommendation in Lucio’s case by Judge Arturo Nelson – who
presided over her capital murder trial – comes more than a year after
Lucio’s attorneys and the Cameron County District Attorney’s Office
submitted a filing of agreed-upon facts and conclusions in the case,
including an acknowledgement the state withheld evidence favorable to
Lucio. Both sides agreed she was entitled to relief, they said this
month in a joint statement.
On Friday, Nelson signed that filing, indicating his agreement with its
conclusions and finding Lucio had “met her burden of proof, by a
preponderance of the evidence, that she would not have been convicted
in light of the suppressed evidence.”
“We are grateful to our mother’s legal team for their hard work to
bring the truth to light and to D.A. (Luis) Saenz for taking another
look at our mother’s case and recognizing that she did not receive a
fair trial and her conviction should be overturned,” two of Lucio’s
sons, Bobby Alvarez and John Lucio, and her daughter-in-law Michelle
Lucio said in a statement provided by Melissa Lucio’s attorneys.
“We hope and pray the Court of Criminal Appeals will agree with the
District Attorney, the defense, and Judge Nelson and our mother can
come home to her family,” their statement said. “It’s been 17
years that we have been without her. We love her and miss her and
can’t wait to hug her.”
‘Reasonable probability’ trial outcome would be different
Then a toddler, Mariah died February 17, 2007, two days after, Lucio
contends, she fell down a set of steep stairs outside the family’s
apartment, potentially causing a traumatic head injury that caused her
death. Prosecutors, meanwhile, argued Lucio was an abusive mother
responsible for her daughter’s injuries, in part citing a purported
“confession” she gave authorities the night of Mariah’s death.
Lucio’s attorneys have denied she ever confessed, arguing her
statement was coerced during an “aggressive” interrogation and
Lucio was susceptible to coercion because of her history as a lifelong
survivor of sexual abuse and domestic violence.
The key evidence now at issue stems from Child Protective Services
interviews with five of Lucio’s other children in the hours after
Mariah died and statements two of the older children – one a
teenager, the other 20 – gave police.
According to the filing of agreed-upon facts and conclusions by defense
attorneys and the district attorney’s office, several of Lucio’s
children denied to Child Protective Services that their mother was
abusive and said she had never hit them or Mariah. At least one of them
witnessed Mariah’s fall down the stairs.
Additionally, two of Lucio’s oldest daughters provided sworn
statements to police, corroborating details about Mariah’s declining
health and their mother’s mounting concern in the days before she
died.
Both Lucio’s attorneys and prosecutors agreed, however, that this
evidence, was not disclosed to her trial lawyers – a so-called Brady
violation. If the evidence had been shared, the filing notes, Lucio’s
attorneys would have been able to present it as evidence that Mariah
had fallen and challenge testimony that suggested Lucio was lying. The
withholding of evidence also prevented Lucio’s attorneys from being
able to fully investigate the true cause of Mariah’s death, the
filing says.
Ultimately, if the evidence had been disclosed to Lucio’s lawyers and
presented to the jury, “there is a reasonable probability that the
outcome of the trial would have been different,” the filing signed by
the judge concludes.
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