A Texas death row inmate is ‘actually innocent’ of her toddler’s murder and her conviction should be overturned, judge finds

Melissa Lucio was two days away 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 never committed the crime at all.

Melissa Lucio was two days away 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 never committed 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, said Thursday. 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, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. Lucio is one of seven women on death row in Texas, which includes 174 condemned inmates in all.