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Rights & Justice · Texas Courts
On September 24, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals rejected the trial habeas court’s recommendation that Melissa Lucio receive post-conviction relief. Four judges dissented. The order left her capital murder conviction and death sentence intact, but it did not set a new execution date.
Lucio was convicted and sentenced to death in the 2007 death of her 2-year-old daughter, Mariah Alvarez. Texas scheduled her execution for April 27, 2022. On April 25, the Court of Criminal Appeals stayed the execution and remanded four claims for further development: false testimony, newly available scientific evidence, actual innocence and suppression of favorable evidence under Brady v. Maryland.
After the record returned to Cameron County, the trial habeas court recommended relief on the four remanded claims. The Court of Criminal Appeals retained responsibility for the final disposition and said it would not adopt the lower court’s findings and conclusions.
The court concluded Lucio did not prove by a preponderance of the evidence that the challenged testimony was both false and material. It also concluded that the new scientific evidence did not establish that she would not have been convicted had it been presented at trial.
On actual innocence, the court applied Texas’s clear-and-convincing standard and concluded Lucio had not shown that no reasonable juror would have convicted her in light of the newly presented evidence.
The court denied the Brady claim, concluding Lucio had not established that the evidence was suppressed by the state or sufficiently material to undermine confidence in the verdict.
Claims four and six through nine were dismissed as an abuse of the writ. Those claims included ineffective assistance of counsel, a Sixth Amendment violation, juror misconduct, gender bias and innocence of the death penalty. The dismissal was procedural, not a full merits ruling on each allegation.
Chief Judge David Schenck and Judges David Newell and Lee Finley filed dissents. Judge Scott Walker also dissented without filing an opinion. Judges Burt Richardson and Gina Parker filed concurring opinions. The majority controls, but the competing opinions are part of the appellate record.
Lucio no longer has a trial-court recommendation for relief pending before the Court of Criminal Appeals. Her conviction and death sentence remain intact. The Texas Department of Criminal Justice’s published execution list reviewed for this report does not list Lucio, and Thursday’s order did not establish a new execution date.
Lucio’s attorney, Vanessa Potkin, told The Texas Tribune that the defense intends to seek review by the U.S. Supreme Court. That stated intent is not the same as a filed petition.
Status verified: September 24, 2026.
EDITORIAL NOTICE: This report reflects records and information available at publication. Allegations, charges and disputed claims are not findings of wrongdoing. Material errors will be corrected transparently.
The Texas Public Record
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