Continuing an unparalleled pattern of rulings adverse to
Texas death-row prisoners, a divided U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit has reinstated the conviction and death sentence of a mother convicted of killing her two-year-old daughter in what, the defense has argued, was actually an accidental fall.
In a 10-7 ruling issued a on February 9, 2021, the
en banc court of appeals reversed a 2019 ruling by a unanimous three-judge panel of the same court, which had granted
Melissa Lucio (pictured) a new trial. The panel had ruled that Lucio’s right to present a “complete defense” had been violated at trial when the trial court excluded two expert witnesses from testifying on her behalf.