The State of Texas vs. Melissa Movie Review

Instantly after watching ‘The State of Texas vs. Melissa,’ you’ll know why it was an Official Selection of the 2020 Tribecca Film Festival. It’s a well made, emotional, enthralling, and often sensitive documentary that takes you through the life of one person while examining whether she ended the life of another: that of her youngest child.

Melissa Lucio has been sitting on Death Row in Texas for ten years. At the beginning of the film, we see an exhausted woman being interrogated quite harshly by who Melissa referred to as ‘Rough, persistent and vulgar men.’ They were threatening and abusive. She hadn’t had a break or water or any food for the entire day. This video, which the jury saw, shows a woman at her wit’s end, heartbroken that she just lost her child, mentally and emotionally fatigued, ready to admit to anything to get this anguish to stop. They wanted her to say she killed her two ½-year-old daughter, Mariah, but she would not. What she did finally do was admit that she was responsible for some of the bruises on her body. It was 3:00 am. Melissa wanted some rest. She needed it to stop. She’d admit to almost anything at this point, but not to killing her daughter, whom she loved. However, the damage was done. What you’ll see is a woman coerced into something of a confession. This is the part of the interview the jury saw, too. A woman is caving in at the end, something she was used to doing all her life. While you watch, try not to fixate on the injuries you’ll hear about or the photos you’ll see because there’s much more information on this case to come.

French American film director and journalist Sabrina Van Tassel has directed over forty-five documentary films over the last fifteen years. Most of her work focuses on political and civil themes; girls sold into sex trafficking, the Holocaust, women forced into marriage, and, as in the case of Melissa, women sitting in prison. 

With Melissa being the first Hispanic woman on Death Row in Texas, Van Tassel needed to get down to the reason why. The motivation she discloses is also the reason you should watch the movie. Van Tassel delves into whether Melissa is guilty or not, whether she’s capable of hurting a child or not. 

Throughout the documentary, you’ll hear from individuals such as her mother, who wants to believe Melissa but wants to trust the courts at the same time. You’ll be told by her siblings the life of a young woman who was well-liked and who believes in family. She gave them nothing but love. They even refer to Melissa as their second mother. Some of her children are interviewed, then and now. Based on these, it’ll be difficult to see that they had been raised by a woman capable of violence toward her children. 

Shockingly, Melissa herself, interviewed via telephone, will inform you that she was sexually abused at the age of seven, something her mother admits to telling her daughter not to discuss, saying, ‘Maybe it was true? I don’t think about that.’ It’s hard to imagine why she’d leave home at the young age of sixteen, wouldn’t you agree?

Habeas lawyer, Margaret Schmucker, has been working on Melissa’s case for almost ten years. She has poured over between two and three thousand pages that indicated Melissa was relatively passive, not aggressive toward her children. Schmucker’s still helping Melissa because she sees no evidence that she ever hurt any of her children. But then again, the Forensic Pathologist who examined the body said it was child abuse—a puzzle, to be sure. Unfortunately for the defendant, later in the film, Schmucker finds something that was not used in her defense. This material is alarming.

Dr. John Pinkerman, a licensed psychologist who had been approached to be part of the defense team’s case, is extremely enlightening. He’s also sympathetic toward this woman who has had nothing but a history of ‘Inadequate men entering her life and being very exploitive. (sic)’ He studied her case thoroughly, saying that she didn’t meet any of the six criteria, ‘Of mothers who kill their children.’ He goes over these, stating that her personality didn’t fit the crime.

I could go on and on about Melissa’s story. I could tell you about how she was offered a deal, about the corruption in the DA’s office, about how some are happy she’s sitting in prison, and about how others know she shouldn’t be. That said, just please watch this documentary and see for yourself. In an election year, the state of Texas put this woman on death row, where she still sits today. At the end of the film, you discover even more information to ascertain whether or not she should be there. Melissa has one appeal left. Watch ‘The State of Texas vs. Melissa’ from the point of view of an informed jury. Is she guilty? You be the judge.

**Steaming on VOD today.