#FreeMelissaLucio: Innocent Woman on Death Row in Texas

Texas Board of Pardons & Parole // Governor Greg Abbott

UPDATE: September 24, 2026: The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals issued this order, in which they denied all claims about Melissa's innocence. In 2024, the judge overseeing Melissa's case declared her innocent, and now more than three years after execution was stayed. This is a developing issue and this page will be updated again shortly. Today we are updating our demand to

Urge Texas Governor Greg Abbott to grant an immediate pardon to Melissa Lucio and free her today!

BACKGROUND INFORMATION:
Two days before her April 27, 2022 execution date, Melissa Lucio received a stay from the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, which ordered the 138th Judicial District Court in Brownsville to consider new evidence in the case. No evidentiary hearing was held, because by December, 2022, Cameron County Prosecutor Luis Saenz determined not only that there was no evidence against Melissa, but that his corrupt predecessor had hidden evidence that would have helped acquit her at trial.

Timeline:

  • [...]
  • In July, 2019, a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit overturned a Texas court ruling and found Lucio’s right to a “complete defense” had been violated in her original trial.
  • In February, 2021, a sharply divided court of appeals reversed the 2019 grant of relief by a vote of 10 to 7.
  • October 18, 2021: US Supreme Court declined to hear the case
  • January 13, 2022: Melissa Lucio's execution date is set for April 27, 2022
  • April 25, 2022: Texas Court of Criminal Appeals stays Melissa's execution date and orders the 138th Judicial District Court in Brownsville to hold an evidentiary hearing
  • December, 2022: Cameron County Prosecutor Luis Saenz signed a motion to vacate Melissa's conviction and submitted it to the district court
  • March, 2024: After no action by the court for 16 months, Prosecutor Saenz leaked the motion to the media. Resulting coverage pressured a change of judges presiding over the case. The new judge assigned to the case was Arturo Nelson, the trial judge who originally sentenced Melissa to death. On April 12, 2024, he signed the order and sent it to the TX Court of Criminal Appeals
  • November, 2024: The TX CCA had demanded answers to various questions. By November, 2024 all filings were complete
  • September 24, 2026: The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals issued this orderdenying all claims.
  • September 24, 2024: The Free Melissa Lucio Campaign adjusts its demands to urge Governor Abbott to "immediately pardon Melissa Lucio and free her today!"

Visit FreeMelissaLucio.org for additional information and action opportunities.

BACKGROUND:

Melissa Lucio has spent over 18 years on death row for the alleged murder of her two-year-old daughter, Mariah. In 2008, Lucio became the first Latina woman sentenced to death in Texas.

We urge anyone interested in this case to view "The State of Texas vs. Melissa," the award-winning documentary which sheds light on the controversy of her conviction, revealing a case with no investigation, a coerced confession, an incomplete defense, and a corrupt DA.

The State of Texas vs. Melissa, a 2020 documentary by Sabrina Van Tassel, highlights many of the concerning facts around Lucio’s case, including the following:

  • Lucio’s lawyers have contested the cause of death, presenting expert testimony from a neurosurgeon that Mariah may instead have died from head trauma caused by falling down a flight of stairs - fall that was witnessed by Melissa’s children.
  • Lucio’s original lawyer did not call any of her children as witnesses, including the ones who saw Mariah fall down the stairs. What’s more, he willingly ignored evidence that another child had admitted being abusive to Mariah. Right after the trial, he became a Cameron County prosecutor, and he remains employed there as a prosecutor.
  • Raw footage shows the interrogation, which lasted almost seven hours on the night of Mariah’s death, to be clearly coercive.
  • Dr. John Pinkerman, a psychologist, and Norma Villanueva, a mitigation specialist, hoped to testify that Lucio was susceptible to making a false confession during a coercive investigation. They were both barred by the trial court from testifying as to her innocence at the guilt/innocence phase of her trial.
  • Armando Villalobos, the district attorney who prosecuted Lucio’s case, was convicted of bribery and extortion in 2014 for accepting over $100,000 in exchange for favorable outcomes in criminal trials. He is now serving a 13 year sentence in prison. He was known to bribe judges and lawyers and was suspected of using Melissa’s case to be re-elected.

For more information on Lucio’s case:

Documentary Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9wn4J8lQcNc

https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/news/federal-appeals-court-overturns-mothers-conviction-in-texas-child-murder-case-that-may-have-been-an-accidental-death

https://spectrumlocalnews.com/tx/south-texas-el-paso/news/2020/05/18/death-row-inmate-s-defense-revived-in--the-state-of-texas-vs--melissa-

ADDITIONAL PROCESS INFORMATION

Petitions will be delivered on your behalf to relevant authorities at an appropriate time.

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Death Penalty Action

To: Texas Board of Pardons & Parole // Governor Greg Abbott
From: [Your Name]

It is now clear that there was never any murder and Melissa Lucio was wrongly convicted of a crime that ever happened. The courts have failed her. We are writing to ask that you grant a full pardon to Melissa Lucio and FREE HER IMMEDIATELY.