Her Whole Truth: Justice for Melissa
Who is Melissa Lucio?
“I guess I did it,” were the words that Melissa Lucio uttered after an hours long interrogation by law enforcement that were deemed as a confession to the murder of her child (Asgarian, 2020). Those five words that constituted the confession have led to her position on death row in the state of Texas for the past thirteen years. Melissa Lucio has spent enough time on death row.
Born into poverty, Melissa Lucio has experienced many disadvantages in her lifetime. Sexually abused as a child, homeless and an addict as an adult, Lucio is a product of an unjust and cruel society. She is also a mother to fourteen children, a woman who loves to dance, and to garden.
Going into trial, Melissa was already at a disadvantage. Her interrogation ended at 3:15 AM, after hours of questioning where she was not even given a cup of water (Asgarian, 2020). She was given a public defender who was later hired by the district attorney. Her defense attorney also did not bring character witnesses and testimonies on the stand on her behalf. The prosecutor, in an attempt at reelection, used her as a scapegoat and was later charged with corruption. As such, Melissa did not have a fair trial and her due process was violated.
Partner Expectations
Our partner in this endeavor was Her Whole Truth in tangent with the Cornell Death Penalty Worldwide Clinic (CDPWC). In order to prepare for partner conversations regarding Melissa’s case, we set forth to inform ourselves on the details of Melissa Elizabeth Lucio v The State of Texas (2011).
Initially, we began by developing a better understanding of Melissa’s case after watching the Hulu documentary The State of Texas v Melissa which was released in 2020. We also read legal briefs and listened to podcasts about the case. From these materials, general themes arose regarding unfairness. For instance, none of Melissa’s thirteen other children ever confirmed that she murdered or hurt Mariah, none of her friends or family were called to speak at trial, and interrogators essentially coerced her into giving a confession. Furthermore, her own attorney went to work for the prosecutor’s office, and her prosecutor is now in prison. Our team and our partner, Adrienne, see this string of ‘unfairness’ as an emotionally resonant theme to communicate to our primary stakeholders. Additionally, we noticed an opportunity to highlight Melissa’s personal qualities: a quiet and thoughtful child who loved to dance and listen to music, and a woman so intent on doing right by her children that after consuming illicit substances, she refused to come out of the bathroom until she sobered up, as she didn’t want her children to witness her in that state. Other ideas became clear as well: Melissa’s status as innocent, Melissa’s status as a victim of domestic violence, the cruelty of the overall death penalty system, and Melissa as the perfect prey for the legal system given her intersectional identity.
Next, we recognized that we needed to prioritize certain themes based on our stakeholders to avoid confusion and overloading of information. To do this, we established that Melissa could only be “free” if either (1) the Supreme Court accepts a writ of certiorari and agrees to grant her a retrial, and then decides she should be free or (2) the Texas governor grants her clemency. Because there is not a lot of capacity for us to influence the Supreme Court’s interest in reviewing her case, we decided to address the latter (the Supreme Court also eventually denied to hear her case when they reviewed it in October). Support from the Texas people is critical for the second option as governments heavily consider public sentiment when making clemency decisions. With the Texas public as our primary stakeholders, we would have had to address a population where 51% of people support the death penalty (Ramsey, 2012), and a majority are not familiar with the legal issues of Melissa’s case. These two issues are major constraints which informed our design decision.
The Design Process: Applying Design Theory Using the IDEO Process Guide
Before we set about designing, we brainstormed and applied the steps detailed in IDEO’s Process Guide.
1. Empathize: In the effort to empathize, we went to our partner with questions regarding the story they wanted to convey of Melissa, one that did not sensationalize or depict violence. Our partner also specifically focused on Melissa, rather than placing too much emphasis on the death penalty. Instead of focusing on the unconstitutionality and cruelty of the death penalty in the state of Texas–a state where many people support the death penalty–this shift’s objective was to focus on the person of Melissa herself. As an alternative to convincing people about the punishment in general, it may be easier to convince people about the injustice of the death penalty in regards to a specific case. In watching her documentary, we heard from Melissa herself, and learned details about who she is as a person. In this process, we learned crucial information that would later shape our deliverables.
2. Define: In this stage, we worked on providing clarity and direction on our intentions for this project. We needed to consolidate the information we gathered, and decide which aspects we should focus on. Essentially, this was the sense-making aspect of our process. In doing so, we set out upon a brainstorming session. We listed our stakeholders: Melissa, Her Whole Truth, and the people of Texas. We developed an understanding of who we were designing for–both Melissa, a victim of an unjust system, Her Whole Truth, and the Texas people. We had a set of needs we needed to address as well. These needs included raising awareness of Melissa’s case with the intention of hopefully getting her off death row.
3. Ideate: In this stage, we focused on the generation of ideas, and initially we had a mass brainstorming session. This was a truly egalitarian process, where each member of the team felt free to speak up and voice any idea, no matter how big or small. We each spoke of different ideas and listed them all out on a whiteboard, thus fueling us into creating innovative ideas. For the sake of idea building, we placated our rational side during this stage. That is, we emphasized generating ideas while putting aside the validity and feasibility of each thought. In order to purely focus on creativity, the examination of each concept would come later. In the end, we came up with a list of roughly fifty ideas ranging from performance art pieces to integrative art displays to TikTok campaigns to simple graphic design. Clearly, some ideas were more practical than others, yet they were still necessary to the overall creative process.
4. Prototype: During this stage, we narrowed down the ideas that we wanted to focus on, and created easy and quick prototypes that we would use as building blocks for later-stage prototypes and deliverables. We did this by first creating many prototype versions: a flipbook, initial graphics, comics, toolkits, and more.
Regardless of whether they were perfect, we moved forward–we created. Eventually, and with direction from our partner, we narrowed down our prototypes to graphic design materials and the Cornell Cinema screening of Melissa’s documentary. With this new direction in mind, we focused on our final prototypes which eventually became our deliverables. This included a visual Toolkit, graphics for the screening which would be then turned into quarter cards and posters, and partnering with organizations on campus to raise turnout and share costs for the screening.
Furthermore, while it was critical that we developed a complete and complex understanding of both our stakeholders and design challenge, we began by implementing the Conceptual Aesthetic Technical (CAT) CAT framework to think abstractly about our design. Conceptually, there were many themes to hone in on, such as themes of corruption, domestic abuse, victimhood and motherhood. However, we primarily focused on the objective goal of getting Melissa Lucio off of death row. Aesthetically, we wanted a serious simple color palette that avoids pastel colors, as we believed that could reduce the severity of the issue. Our partner advised against using too dark of a color scheme because it may come across as harsh or Halloween themed, but we still wanted to make sure to showcase this project using a serious tone. We used imagery that relates to prison, freedom, and domestic violence to illustrate the circumstances surrounding Melissa’s case.
5. Test: Here, we gathered feedback from our partner in regards to our deliverables and the project’s effectiveness. During our call, our partners informed us of the turnout for the screening, which was a success. They reached their goal for the number of audience members that attended the screening, and thought that the screening was able to raise awareness on both the case and the death penalty throughout the general Cornell University population. They communicated approval of our visual toolkit and graphics, although they asked us to avoid imagery and wording of mother since the case relates to allegations of a child’s murder. We were also able to connect with organizations on campus to co-host the screening, alleviating some costs for the Cornell Death Penalty Clinic. Thus, we consider our deliverables to be a success.
Challenges, Changing Situations, and Changing Expectations
While we began our process with a clear goal, due to the changing nature of the trail we had to alter our vision. After the screening at Cornell Cinema, we then intended on reaching out to organizations, colleges, and universities in Texas to establish a partnership. These partnerships would allow us to circulate material within Texas to raise public awareness of Melissa’s case, thus eventually gaining enough momentum to catch the Texas governor’s attention and compel him to grant Melissa clemency. However, internal politics presented a hurdle. While the Supreme Court refused to hear Melissa’s case, in the midst of these events the Texas governor had yet to set an execution date for Melissa. Thus, in order to not remind him of the absence of an execution date, our partner decided to hold off on circulating material in Texas. While the Supreme Court refused to hear Melissa’s case, in the midst of these events the Texas governor had yet to set an execution date for Melissa. Thus, in order to avoid reminding him of the absence of an execution date, our partner decided to hold off on circulating material in Texas. Thus, we had to shift our goal from creating public awareness in Texas and getting the governor’s attention, to creating a database of resources for Melissa’s team and Her Whole Truth to utilize once the opportunity came–likely after the end of the semester.
Going Forward: Final Deliverables
Keeping the new circumstances in mind, our team created a set of final deliverables that can be used by Her Whole Truth to help bolster Melissa’s innocence, including a website and visual toolkit.
We created a website for Melissa that includes information on her childhood, her case, the death penalty, and Her Whole Truth. This website consists of clusters of black dots on a white background, with each cluster representing a group with similar information. One can hover over a dot, which changes in color. When clicked, it leads to another page with detailed information about Melissa, the death penalty, or Her Whole Truth. The dots are arranged in an order that’s meant to be clicked on in a left to right fashion, although they are user friendly in a way that they can be read in any order and still make sense to the reader. Keeping in mind our CAT framework, which established guidelines for zero sensationalization and depictions of violence, the website focuses on who Melissa is as a person, her nature and her personality. The website contains many photos of Melissa that humanize her and showcase her as a warm and caring person. Furthermore, the website is minimalistic in nature, thus reflecting our previous work. While it is artistic and creative, it maintains a level of maturity and seriousness to reflect the nature of the case and its urgency.
Next, we have finalized our visual toolkit to put a standardized set of colors, fonts, and graphic design inspiration at the disposal of Melissa’s team. This toolkit can be used for future social media campaigns, her website, quarter cards, posters, t-shirts, tote bags, stickers and more. Our intention in creating this toolkit was to provide Her Whole Truth with an easily accessible database of visual aid, and to keep Melissa’s social media campaign looking uniform in aesthetic and design moving forward.
Final Presentation
On the final day of class, all teams presented their work to the other teams and partners, sharing their design process, key deliverables, and reflections on the semester-long collaboration:
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Bibliography
Asgarian, Roxanna. “Did Melissa Lucio, the First Hispanic Woman on Death Row in Texas, Kill Her Daughter? An Uneven New Documentary Raises More Questions than Answers.” Texas Monthly, 6 Nov. 2020, https://www.texasmonthly.com/arts-entertainment/did-melissa-lucio-the-first-hispanic-woman-on-death-row-in-texas-kill-her-daughter-an-uneven-new-documentary-raises-more-questions-than-answers/.
Ramsey, Ross. “UT/TT Poll: Texans Stand behind Death Penalty.” The Texas Tribune, The Texas Tribune, 24 May 2012, https://www.texastribune.org/2012/05/24/uttt-poll-life-and-death/.