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HOUSTON — Efforts to free Melissa Lucio, a Texas girl whose execution was delayed in 2022 amid rising doubts she fatally beat her 2-year-old daughter, have been considerably bolstered after a choose concluded that she is “truly harmless” of capital homicide.
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Senior State District Decide Arturo Nelson concluded that prosecutors introduced false testimony, suppressed proof and that new scientific proof that was not obtainable throughout Lucio’s 2008 trial undermines and contradicts proof introduced by the state. He advisable that Lucio’s conviction and demise sentence be overturned.
“This Courtroom finds (Lucio) has happy her burden and produced clear and convincing proof that she is definitely harmless of the offense of capital homicide,” Nelson wrote in a 62-page ruling he signed in October however was not made public till Thursday.
Lucio has lengthy maintained she is harmless and her daughter Mariah died of a head harm sustained in an unintended fall down a steep staircase two days earlier than her demise.
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Nelson’s advice has been despatched to the Texas Courtroom of Felony Appeals, which is able to make the ultimate choice in Lucio’s case. There was no timetable for a ruling by the appeals court docket. Lucio’s case has garnered assist from celebrities like Kim Kardashian and a bipartisan group of lawmakers.
“That is the very best information we may get going into the vacations,” John and Michelle Lucio, Melissa Lucio’s son and daughter-in-law, stated in an announcement. “We pray our mom might be dwelling quickly.”
Vanessa Potkin, director of particular litigation on the Innocence Challenge and certainly one of Lucio’s attorneys, stated Lucio was “despatched to demise row for against the law that by no means occurred.”
The Cameron County District Legal professional’s Workplace, which prosecuted Lucio, didn’t instantly reply to an e mail in search of remark.
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Lucio, 56, had been set for deadly injection in April 2022 for the 2007 demise of her daughter in Harlingen, a metropolis of about 71,000 in Texas’ southern tip. However the Texas Courtroom of Felony Appeals halted her deadly injection two days earlier than her execution so Lucio’s claims that new proof would exonerate her could possibly be reviewed.
The appeals court docket had requested the trial court docket to assessment 4 claims made by Lucio’s legal professionals: prosecutors used false testimony; beforehand unavailable scientific proof would preclude her conviction; Lucio is definitely harmless; and prosecutors suppressed proof favorable to her.
In April, Nelson had permitted an settlement between prosecutors and Lucio’s attorneys that discovered Lucio’s conviction needs to be overturned amid findings that proof in her homicide trial was suppressed. Prosecutors had beforehand maintained Mariah was the sufferer of abuse and famous her physique was lined in bruises.
The appeals court docket despatched the case again to Nelson in June, asking he additionally make suggestions within the different three claims.
Nelson present in favor of Lucio within the different three claims as nicely, together with faulting prosecutors for presenting medical professional testimony that claimed the woman’s accidents may solely have been brought on by abuse and presenting “scientifically incorrect testimony” from a Texas Ranger who claimed he may inform Lucio was responsible primarily based on her demeanor and physique language when interrogated.
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