Melissa Elizabeth Lucio has been on death row since 2008 after being convicted of murdering her 2-year-old daughter
Mariah Alvarez, 2, died from head trauma in 2007. Prosecutors said her mother, Melissa Elizabeth Lucio, had beaten her child, but evidence suppressed at trial suggests the toddler fell down the stairs in a tragic accident
The mother’s execution was stayed in 2022, with five former jurors coming to her defense
Prosecutors and defense lawyers now agree that potentially exonerating evidence — including statements made by Lucio's children — was suppressed at her 2008 trial
A Texas judge reviewing a mother’s death penalty case says evidence was suppressed at her trial that suggests the convicted woman's toddler daughter died in a tragic accident and not by her own hand.
Melissa Elizabeth Lucio has been on death row for 15 years, but the judge who oversaw her trial, as well as prosecutors and her defense lawyers, now all agree: the mother of 12 children does not belong there.
Signing a 33-page court document — obtained by PEOPLE — listing agreed-upon findings between the parties, Senior Judge Arturo Nelson said Lucio's conviction and death sentence should be overturned and ordered the court filings sent to Texas’s Court of Criminal Appeals.
A spokesperson for the Innocence Project, which has taken on Lucio's case, tells PEOPLE there is no timeline for the appeals court to issue its decision.
On Feb. 17, 2007, paramedics arrived at the family’s Brownsville, Texas, home because Lucio's 2-year-old daughter, Mariah Alvarez, was “turning purple and unresponsive,” per the filing.
Prosecutors later claimed Mariah died from head trauma caused by child abuse.
In July 2008 Lucio was convicted of capital murder in her daughter’s death and placed on death row a month later, per court documents andher online death row information.
Related: Kim Kardashian Celebrates Melissa Lucio Being Granted Stay of Execution: 'Best News Ever'
But the legal parties and judge agree that important evidence was suppressed at her trial, including a Child Protective Services report detailing interviews with five of Lucio's children, per the new court filing.
Shortly after Mariah’s death, the girl's brother, Bobby Alvarez, then 7, said he had seen Mariah fall “down some stairs” two days earlier, per that suppressed report quoted in the filing. The boy also said “he has never seen anyone hit Mariah.”
Such evidence was important when considering Mariah’s cause of death, per the new court filing.
“That suppressed evidence informs a medical diagnosis consistent with Applicant’s defense: that Mariah died as the result of accidental trauma,” the filing states.
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This week, Bobby Alvarez, now an adult, released a joint statement with family regarding the judge’s decision.
“Important evidence that our sister Mariah’s death was an accident, not a murder, was never presented to the jury,” the family said, adding they hope “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.”
Lucio was originally slated for execution April 27, 2022, but her case was stayed just days before she was put to death based on a set of claims including suppression of material evidence now at the center of the appeals case.
Prior to her planned execution, five jurors came forward asking to halt Lucio's execution or give her a new trial.
“I am now convinced that the jury got it wrong and I know that there is too much doubt to execute Lucio,” one of the jurors, Johnny Galvan Jr., wrote in an op-ed in the Houston Chronicle. “If I could take back my vote, I would.”
A new date for execution has not been set, the Innocence Project tells PEOPLE.
Lucio, who had worked as a janitor, did not have a prison record prior to her daughter’s death, per her online death row information.
She had a history of being a victim of sexual abuse, going back to age 6, the Innocence Project claims. The organization noted that Lucio's long history of sexual abuse made her more susceptible to what the Innocence Project alleged was police’s “coercive methods” during an intense interrogation, which began within two hours of her daughter’s death.
Five death row inmates have been executed in the U.S. so far this year, one of them in Texas, per the Death Penalty Information Center, which tracks every case.
Lucio is one of seven women in Texas currently on death row, per the Texas Department of Criminal Justice’s online death row inmate roster.
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