On the night that 2-year-old Mariah Alvarez died, a Child Protective Services investigator made her way to the Harlingen, Texas, police station to interview the toddler’s siblings.
Mariah’s lifeless body had arrived at a local hospital covered in bruises, which authorities immediately assumed were evidence of abuse. Her mother, 38-year-old Melissa Lucio, who had a history of being investigated by the child welfare agency, tried to explain that Mariah had fallen down a flight of stairs. But the police subjected Lucio to a punishing late-night interrogation lasting more than five hours. After repeatedly denying that she killed her daughter, Lucio finally conceded that she was responsible. In 2008, Lucio was convicted of murder and sentenced to die.
The possibility that Mariah’s death was not murder but the result of a tragic accident was never investigated. Police ignored evidence that included a report compiled by the child welfare investigator, Florence Arreola, who interviewed several of Mariah’s siblings while Lucio was being interrogated in another room. The children corroborated their mother’s account, reiterating that Mariah had fallen down the stairs two days earlier. Lucio had never abused Mariah, they said, and the only injuries they saw on the toddler were bruises “from when she fell.”
Jurors at Lucio’s trial never heard these statements. Cameron County District Attorney Armando Villalobos withheld Arreola’s report from the defense, casting Mariah’s death as the violent culmination of “a cruel and brutal life” at the hands of her mother. Despite Lucio’s insistence that she was innocent, the DA’s office spent years defending her conviction, seeking an execution date in 2022. Lucio came within two days of execution before the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals intervened, sending the case back to the trial court to consider whether withholding the evidence had violated Lucio’s constitutional rights.
In a dramatic reversal, the DA’s office now admits that Villalobos failed to disclose the exculpatory statements. Today, Cameron County District Attorney Luis Saenz agrees with Lucio’s attorneys that, had the records been disclosed, Lucio likely would not have been convicted. In a joint filing with the attorneys, Saenz told the trial court that Lucio’s conviction should be overturned.
On April 12, two years after Lucio narrowly avoided execution, Cameron County Judge Arturo Nelson signed off on the agreement. The case is now back before the Court of Criminal Appeals, which will decide whether to grant the joint request to vacate Lucio’s conviction. If it does, Lucio will have spent 16 years on death row for a crime that never happened. There is no timeline for the court to rule.
In a statement, Lucio’s family thanked her legal team and the district attorney’s office alike. “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. It’s been 17 years that we have been without her. We love her and miss her and can’t wait to hug her.”
Photo: Courtesy of the Lucio family
The case against Melissa Lucio was full of red flags, from a coerced interrogation and reliance on junk forensics to lackluster defense lawyering and prosecutorial misconduct. “I’ve been doing capital defense work in Texas for 30 years,” Sandra Babcock, a Cornell Law School professor who is now part of Lucio’s defense team, told The Intercept in 2022. “And this is by far the weakest capital case I’ve ever seen.”
Lucio was prosecuted by embattled District Attorney Villalobos, who used the case to boost his tough-on-crime reputation as part of his reelection campaign. At the time of Lucio’s 2008 trial, Villalobos was facing corruption charges and a challenger who had taken him to task for failing to prosecute child abuse cases. In the wake of the conviction, Villalobos became known as the man who sent the first Latina woman to Texas’s death row. The district attorney was subsequently sentenced to 13 years in federal prison for racketeering and extortion.
Lucio was represented by defense lawyer Peter Gilman, who had never handled a death penalty case and went on to work at the DA’s office immediately after the trial. A mitigation specialist who worked for Gilman later said that the lawyer had refused to pursue exculpatory evidence that could have saved his client’s life.
The state’s evidence against Lucio went mostly unchallenged until 2010, when veteran forensic pathologist Thomas Young reviewed the medical evidence. Young concluded that there had been a rush to judgment by medical examiner Norma Farley, who told the court that simply upon seeing Mariah’s body, she knew that the child had died from abuse. “This child was severely abused,” Farley told the jury at Lucio’s trial. “I mean, it would have been evident to a first-year nursing student.”
But Farley’s examination didn’t occur until after Lucio had been interrogated for hours and admitted to hurting her daughter, and it was conducted while one of the interrogating officers was present — meaning Farley was already aware of the cops’ theory of the crime before she conducted her review. These factors undoubtedly skewed her conclusions, according to Young, who said such dynamics are all too familiar in forensic pathology. “You develop a belief, and come hell or high water, you’re going to defend your belief,” he told The Intercept.
Young discovered that Mariah’s brain had likely swelled due to the fall, leading to various physical effects over several days, such as a coagulation disorder that resulted in widespread bruising. He concluded that the medical evidence supported an accidental fall, consistent with Lucio and her family’s claims.
Despite this, the case remained unnoticed until documentarian Sabrina Van Tassel highlighted it in her 2020 film “The State of Texas v. Melissa.” The film presented additional evidence supporting Lucio’s account of the fall that caused Mariah’s death, including interviews with Lucio’s sons confirming the accident. However, Gilman, involved in the case, dismissed the children’s testimony as unhelpful.
During the documentary’s production, Van Tassel realized that the state had not provided Lucio’s defense team with all the relevant information. Many of Lucio’s children mentioned being interviewed at the police station, but there was no record of these conversations in the case file.
Following the film’s release, public attention on the case grew. As Lucio’s 2022 execution date approached, the documentary served as a rallying point for a campaign to save her life. Death Penalty Action organized screenings and demonstrations, while State Rep. Jeff Leach, an unlikely ally, led a bipartisan effort to support Lucio.
With the impending execution date, Lucio’s legal team filed a new challenge, pointing out flaws in the case and asserting Lucio’s innocence. The Court of Criminal Appeals granted a last-minute stay of execution, leading to further review of the evidence and the revelation that exculpatory evidence had been withheld from the defense.
After acknowledging this misconduct, the district attorney signed an agreement with Lucio’s lawyers, paving the way for a potential resolution of the case. With the news breaking recently, there is hope for Lucio’s exoneration and release.
Van Tassel received a hopeful message from Lucio, indicating her anticipation of coming home soon. While there is joy and relief, the long road to justice has taken its toll on Lucio and her family, with moments of despair and loss along the way.
As preparations are made for Lucio’s potential release, a GoFundMe campaign has been started to assist her transition back into society. Lucio looks forward to starting anew and rebuilding her life, despite the challenges that lie ahead.
Please rephrase
Source link
