A Texas court on Thursday upheld the conviction of Melissa Lucio, a 58-year-old woman who has been on death row for nearly two decades for the capital murder of her 2-year-old daughter, Mariah. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals issued a divided decision, with a majority ruling that Lucio's claims of innocence were not strong enough to overturn her conviction. This decision leaves her still facing the death penalty, despite a previous review in 2022 that nearly halted her execution. Lucio was convicted in 2008 after her daughter, Mariah, was found with severe head injuries. Prosecutors argued that the injuries were the result of abuse, while Lucio's defense claimed that Mariah had accidentally fallen down a steep staircase two days before her death. In 2024, the original trial judge issued a 62-page ruling stating that Lucio was "actually innocent" of capital murder, citing new scientific evidence, suppressed information, and what it described as false testimony by prosecutors. This ruling had raised hopes that Lucio might be exonerated. However, the appeals court's majority opinion, written by a panel of five Republican-appointed judges, criticized the trial judge's reliance on Lucio's version of events rather than the prosecution's case. The decision was unsigned, and four judges dissented. Prosecutors had previously admitted to withholding key evidence during Lucio's trial, which contributed to the trial judge's conclusion that the case against Lucio was flawed. Vanessa Potkin, a lawyer with the Innocence Project and one of Lucio's attorneys, said the legal team will now seek relief in federal courts. "We will proceed to federal court and do everything in our power to make sure Melissa ..., an innocent mother who has suffered unbelievably, is not executed for a crime that never occurred," Potkin said. Public support for Lucio has been significant, with figures like Kim Kardashian and Amanda Knox, who was exonerated in a high-profile murder case in Italy, speaking out in her favor. If Lucio is ultimately exonerated, she would become the first woman declared innocent from Texas death row. Currently, 18 men have been exonerated since Texas reinstated the death penalty in 1976. If she is executed, Lucio would be the first Latina put to death by Texas since 1863, and the first woman executed by the state since 2014. Her case has drawn national attention and continues to highlight ongoing debates about the fairness of the death penalty and the reliability of evidence in criminal trials.