The State of Texas vs. Melissa

State of Texas vs. Melissa is a 2020 French-American documentary by Sabrina Van Tassel. The documentary follows the case of Melissa Lucio, a Texan woman who was the first woman of Hispanic descent in Texas to be sentenced to death. It was selected for the Tribeca Film Festival in 2020, and won best documentary at the Raindance Film Festival. , Lucio has been on death row for 13 years, having been convicted of the abuse and murder of one of her children. The rights were acquired by Hulu, for streaming in the US.

Background
On February 17, 2007, paramedics were called to a residence, where an unresponsive two-year-old child, who later died, was found. The child's mother, Melissa Lucio, was arrested and convicted of murder due to evidence of abuse. A 2011 appeal against the conviction was denied. However, due to trial court interference in the accused's right to present a defense, the sentence was unanimously overturned in 2019 by a three-judge panel of the Federal Appeals Court. However, the full court in 2021 ruled that the conviction had to be upheld for procedural reasons "despite the difficult issue of the exclusion of testimony that might have cast doubt on the credibility of Lucio's confession", and the death sentence was upheld.

In January 2022, Cameron County officials signed an execution warrant for Lucio, scheduled for April 27, 2022. On April 25, 2022 the Texas Court of Appeals granted a stay in Lucio's case and remanded it back to trial court. The court found merit in four of Lucio's claims for clemency.

Reception
The documentary received overall positive feedback, with score on Rotten Tomatoes.