French-American investigative
journalist Sabrina Van Tassel has gone after the prison system in her
documentary films more than a few times over the years, starting with The
Silenced Walls about the French Drancy internment camp followed by Women
on Death Row which introduced the director to Melissa Lucio, the subject of
her latest film The State of Texas vs. Melissa. Following in the footsteps of her prior films
as well as the recently released prison documentary 1275 Days, the film
follows the case of a Texan who became the first Hispanic woman to be sentenced
to death in the state.
After paramedics were
called to a residence on February 17, 2007, an unresponsive two-year old child
was found who died shortly thereafter.
The child’s mother, Melissa Lucio, was arrested and charged with murder
due to evidence of child abuse. Having
been on death row for more than 13 years, the documentary chronicles an ongoing
yet-to-be-overturned battle with the court system to appeal Melissa’s case. As of 2021, after the release of the
documentary the appeal was denied once more and Melissa remains on death row.
A case with a myriad of
loopholes and an apparent instance of trial court interference in Melissa’s
right to an attorney, The State of Texas vs. Melissa is a generally
engrossing if not a little one-sided documentary about one woman pitted against
an apparent miscarriage of justice. Moreover,
the film illustrates how Melissa Lucio may have been played as a pawn to the
district attorney who utilized her case to garner another election win. Most of the film is comprised of in-prison
interviews with Melissa who maintains her innocence and her extended surviving
family members eager to bail their mother out of prison.
More or less a deeper
exploration of the subject of Melissa Lucio glimpsed in the Women on Death
Row documentary, The State of Texas vs. Melissa is well meaning. As a work of documentary filmmaking it is a
fraction of what, say, Errol Morris did with his iconic wrongful conviction
documentary The Thin Blue Line which did manage to exonerate its subject
from incarceration.
That said, whatever
your stance on the case of Melissa Lucio is (many still feel strongly she is
guilty), Sabrina Van Tassel is clearly an experienced journalist with a natural
gift for the documentary form worth seeking out. The State of Texas vs. Melissa is
unlikely to change the minds that have already been made up about Melissa’s
case but it will shed some new light on the inner workings on the case as well
as provide an introduction to the work of Sabrina Van Tassel.
--Andrew Kotwicki
