One of the things that most struck the person responsible for the documentary was that someone could have been sentenced to death with such a weak case: “Plus the difference between the rich and the poor, and how they are treated by the judicial system, which is something that horrified me.”
“I realized firsthand that (…) it is a catastrophe, and that the judicial system is not only broken, but it is designed to put people like Melissa on death row,” he adds.
Van Tassel says she is convinced that another of the reasons that led Lucio to be about to be executed by the state of Texas is the entrenched machismo that exists in society: “I hear many people say that it doesn’t matter if it had been a accident, because he did not protect his daughter. And I wonder, what about the father? Did he protect his daughter?
Virginia is the first southern US state to abolish the death penalty.
Police immediately suspected that Melissa had abused Mariah, and questioned her for six hours, the 47-year-old filmmaker and mother of three argues. “But her boyfriend at the time, Mariah’s father, was questioned for 18 minutes, and he was jailed for four years for omission (relief).”
Having activated the defense campaign, Van Tassel has become a close friend of Lucio, and in fact was on the list of people closest to her who were going to witness Melissa’s execution, if it had taken place.
Now he is considering filming a second part of the documentary, perhaps focusing on how a death sentence does not only affect the condemned, but also destroys an entire family for decades.
“That’s something I’d like to explore, and show people that when you sentence someone to death you’re sentenced to a whole family and you’re destroying them for at least a couple of generations,” he says.
But the filmmaker is very clear about the scene with which she would like to conclude this new installment: “She leaving (from jail), and the two of us having a glass of wine somewhere. I would really like that.”