John,
One year ago, Rosa Jimenez celebrated a milestone that marked a profound turn in her life. Freed from wrongful conviction in 2021 after close to two decades of incarceration, she found herself navigating a world vastly changed from when she had last been free. While online dating had existed before she was wrongly convicted, the emergence of dating apps was an entirely novel experience.
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It was through Facebook’s dating app that Ms. Jimenez encountered Mary Jane Flores, who would later become her wife. Their connection was immediate and enduring.“We started talking,” Ms. Jimenez recalled. “And we never stopped.”
On the couple’s first wedding anniversary, take some time to read Rosa’s story on how she found love after spending more than 17 years wrongfully incarcerated.
Caption: Rosa Jimenez and her partner in downtown Austin, Texas, on March 4, 2021.
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Caption: Rosa Jimenez and her partner in downtown Austin, Texas, on March 4, 2021.
Rosa was locked up in a Texas prison for a crime that never occurred. She was convicted of murder following the tragic, accidental death of a child she was babysitting in 2003, and sentenced to 99 years in prison.
She thought she would spend the rest of her life behind bars, but with the help of the Innocence Project, a judge recommended her conviction be overturned in 2021 and she was free. Once she was released, Rosa quickly learned just how much had changed over the last nearly 18 years — especially when it came to dating.
The most challenging part of finding love after being released was learning how to trust again — not just in a partner or a friend, but in a society that hadn’t believed she was innocent. After she was released in 2021, and her relationship with Mary Jane was becoming more serious, Rosa was reluctant to take the next step given that she had not yet been fully exonerated.
“What if I marry Mary Jane and then she has to go see me just through glass in prison?” Rosa said. “I didn’t want to put her through a situation where she had to see somebody that she loves go through all this pain again.”
Thankfully, Rosa and Mary Jane never had to cross that bridge, because in 2023, Rosa received the news that she had been waiting two decades for: She was finally exonerated and officially declared innocent by the courts.
In the summer of 2023, the couple exchanged vows in a courtroom. A setting where Rosa’s freedom was once taken away, now marked a new beginning.
Learn more about Rosa’s journey from wrongful conviction to freedom, and share the couple’s beautiful love story with your friends and family.
Thank you for your support,
— The Innocence Project Team
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The Innocence Project works to free the innocent, prevent wrongful convictions, and create fair, compassionate, and equitable systems of justice for everyone. Founded in 1992 by Barry C. Scheck and Peter J. Neufeld at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law at Yeshiva University, the organization is now an independent nonprofit. Our work is guided by science and grounded in anti-racism.
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