from Texas Tribune:

The trial judge presiding over the capital murder case of death row inmate Melissa Lucio last month found her innocent in her daughter’s death and recommended that her sentence and conviction be overturned, according to court documents Thursday unsealed.

Cameron County Judge Arturo Nelson found on Oct. 16 that there was clear and convincing evidence that the death of Lucio’s 2-year-old daughter, Mariah, was caused by an accidental fall down some stairs and that prosecutors relied on the testimony liar and flawed scientific evidence to convince a jury of her guilt.

Lucio, he found, “is actually innocent; she didn’t kill her daughter.”

The case now goes to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, which must decide whether to accept Nelson’s recommendation to overturn Lucio’s conviction and death sentence.

“This is the best news we could get over the holidays,” John and Michelle Lucio, Lucio’s son and daughter-in-law, said in a statement. “We pray that our mother will come home soon.”

Lucio was convicted of capital murder in 2008. But doubts about Mariah’s cause of death and the fairness of Lucio’s conviction reached a fever pitch in 2022 as supporters of Lucio — inclusive most of the Texas Legislature — claimed there were too many questions about her trial to carry out her execution.

When paramedics arrived at the family’s Brownsville home in 2007, they found Mariah “turning purple and unresponsive,” with bruises all over her body.

Lucio has repeatedly denied harming his daughter. She described how Mariah fell down the stairs two days before her death, and although she seemed fine at first, her condition quickly deteriorated and she became congested and lethargic.

Then, after about five hours of police questioning, on the night Mariah died, Lucio told officers he slapped, pinched and bit Mariah, although he never admitted to causing his daughter’s death .

The state’s case rested primarily on that “confession” at trial, while the judge barred expert testimony that Lucio, a longtime victim of domestic and sexual abuse, sought to explain why she would make a false confession at the time what was under the pressure of a man. authority figures.

Prosecutors also focused on a medical examiner’s testimony that Mariah’s injuries “could only have been caused by intentional physical abuse.”

Court of Criminal Appeal stopped Lucio’s execution in 2022, ordering the trial court to consider whether Lucio was in fact innocent and whether the state presented false testimony at trial and withheld evidence from the defense.

In April, Nelson agreed that the prosecution suppressed evidence who maintained Lucio’s innocence during the trial and recommended that her conviction be overturned.

In police interviews after Mariah’s death, five of Lucio’s children denied that their mother was physically abusive and claimed that Mariah fell down the stairs. At least one of her children said she saw Mariah fall.

Prosecutors did not share those interviews with the defense during the trial, which Lucio’s lawyers and Cameron County District Attorney Luis Saenz — who was not involved in the prosecution — said in 2022 was a violation of his constitutional rights.

In June, the Court of Criminal Appeals asked Nelson to also make recommendations on three outstanding arguments Lucio made in winning a stay, related to her actual innocence, false testimony presented by the state and new scientific evidence.

Last month, Nelson recommended in her favor on all three applications.

The judge found “clear and convincing evidence” that Mariah’s fatal head injury was caused by a fall down the stairs two days before she died, and that even if Lucio’s “confession” had been true, the actions at he admitted he would not have caused his daughter. death.

“No rational juror could have convicted the plaintiff of murdering her daughter after hearing all the evidence from her original trial along with all the new evidence she presented,” he wrote.

Nelson also agreed that scientific evidence not presented at trial would have undermined the state’s case.

He found that there was compelling evidence that Lucio was a person highly likely to give a false confession during intense cross-examination, and that the injuries on Mariah’s body were likely related to her fall and not to a bite or abuse, as the state claimed.

And the judge found that the state used “false and misleading evidence regarding two central factual issues contested at trial.”

At trial, the state medical examiner testified that it was impossible for Mariah’s injuries and death to have resulted from an accidental fall.

But Nelson agreed that Mariah’s autopsy, eyewitness accounts of her fall and her subsequent deterioration provided credible evidence that she died of head trauma from an accidental fall down the stairs — not abuse.

A Texas Ranger also testified that he could determine Lucio’s guilt based on her demeanor and body language in the interrogation room. The judge found that the scientific consensus was that no one could tell whether a person was telling the truth based on their behavior.

Nelson found that those core pieces of perjury “affected the jury’s verdict” and violated Lucio’s due process rights.

“Melissa Lucio lived every parent’s nightmare when she lost her daughter to a tragic accident,” Vanessa Potkin, Lucio’s attorney and director of special litigation at the Innocence Project, said in a statement. “After 16 years on death row, it’s time for the nightmare to end.”