In a court filing, the judge said the conviction of Melissa Lucio, whose scheduled execution in 2022 was halted, should be overturned. The state’s highest criminal court will now decide.

Melissa Lucio was two days away from being put to death in Texas for the murder of her 2-year-old daughter when an appeals court intervened in 2022. Now, a judge says Lucio never committed the crime at all.

The Texas Supreme Court is considering whether a legislative subpoena of a death row inmate infringed on the executive branch’s power to carry out the execution.

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.

Melissa Lucio may be set free after findings that prosecutors withheld evidence that her 2-year-old died of an accidental fall.

The Cameron County judge also found the state relied on false testimony during her capital murder trial, according to court documents.

Melissa Lucio, a mother of 14 living in Brownsville, Texas, was arrested and charged in 2007 for the murder of her two-year-old daughter Mariah Alvarez who had turned purple and unresponsive at

The unanimous decision frees the state to reset Robert Roberson's execution date but suggests lawmakers may still be able to hear his testimony.

Melissa Lucio was found guilty of murdering her 2-year-old daughter, who died in 2007. A judge now says she's innocent.