Politics,
read clearly.
AUSTIN, Texas: Melissa Lucio remains under a death sentence after the state's highest criminal court rejected her trial judge's finding that she is innocent.
The judge who presided over Melissa Lucio's 2008 trial later found her innocent, and the Cameron County district attorney conceded evidence had been withheld. The Court of Criminal Appeals left her death sentence in place anyway, over four dissents.
Two simplified versions circulate, the innocent mother railroaded and the bruises that speak for themselves. Both skip the habeas rule that makes a trial judge's findings only a recommendation.
The cost falls on Lucio, who stays on death row, on her family, and on Cameron County residents in whose name the sentence would be carried out and who keep funding the case. The order protects the finality of the 2008 verdict and the state's position now that District Attorney Luis Saenz says he will seek to carry it out. Nothing changes on the ground, no execution date is set, and the fight moves to federal court.
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