Death row inmate, supported by Kim Kardashian, is 'actually innocent' of murder, judge says

A death row inmate convicted of killing her toddler daughter is “actually innocent” of murder and should be freed from custody, the prisoner's trial judge said in documents unearthed on Thursday.

Cameron County District Court Judge Arturo Nelson is siding with the appeal of Melissa Elizabeth Lucio, 56, and said her "conviction and sentence of death should be vacated."

Lucio has "satisfied her burden and produced clear and convincing evidence that she is actually innocent of the offense of capital murder," Nelson wrote in court papers first reported on Thursday by NBC affiliate KPRC in Houston.

The case, which has gained notoriety through reality TV star and aspiring attorney Kim Kardashian, is now before the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals.

Texas death row inmate Melissa Lucio holds one of her sons, John.Family photo via AP file

Lucio was held responsible for her 2-year-old daughter Mariah's 2007 death in Harlingen, a city with about 71,000 residents on the far southern tip of Texas. Lucio has 13 surviving children.

"On February 17, 2007, paramedics were dispatched to a residence where they found an unresponsive two-year-old child who subsequently died," according to the Lucio's death row profile maintained by the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. "Evidence of abuse led to the arrest and conviction of Lucio, the child’s mother."

She had been set to be executed on April 27. 2022, before the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals intervened two days earlier to look at new evidence that Mariah’s fatal injuries were caused by a fall down a steep staircase.

Over the years. Lucio's case has drawn the support of an unlikely, diverse of set of advocates.

"So heartbreaking to read this letter from Melissa Lucio’s children begging for the state not to kill their mother," Kim Kardashian wrote in 2022.

"There are so many unresolved questions surrounding this case and the evidence that was used to convict her. This is one of the many reasons why I am against the death penalty — and why I pray her children’s wish is granted and their mother’s life is spared."

Amanda Knox, the American once accused of murder in Italy, has previously lamented in 2022 that Lucio was on death row "for a crime that never even occurred."

State Rep. Jeff Leach, a Donald Trump-supporting Republican from Plano, has also previously been on Lucio's side, having said that authorities must "do everything that we can to ensure that an innocent Texan is not put to death by the state, or even a potentially innocent Texan is not put to death."

The district attorney of Cameron County, who was not involved in the original prosecution of Lucio, is backing the appeal.

“Melissa Lucio lived every parent’s nightmare when she lost her daughter after a tragic accident," Lucio's lawyer Vanessa Potkin said in a statement released by the Innocence Project, an advocacy group that seeks to exonerate wrongly convicted prisoners.

"It became a nightmare from which she couldn’t wake up when she was sent to death row for a crime that never happened. 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."