Rosa Jimenez has spent her last 17 birthdays behind bars, wishing to go home. Last year, on her 37th birthday, a judge overturned her murder conviction and ordered that she either be given a new trial or released within four months.
But today, Rosa is spending her 38th birthday still in prison as Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton pursues an appeal of the judge’s decision.
In 2003, while Rosa was preparing lunch for her 1-year-old daughter and Bryan Gutierrez, a toddler she regularly babysat, the boy began choking on paper towels. She rushed to his aid, but when that didn’t work, she brought him to her neighbor for help. The child was taken to the hospital where he was resuscitated, but months later he died from complications.
Rosa Jimenez, before her wrongful conviction, holding her daughter Brenda. (Image: Courtesy of Rosa Jimenez)
Rosa was seven months pregnant with her second child when she was arrested and accused of abusing the toddler, whom she’d loved like her own. After he died, she was charged with murder.
She was convicted based on flawed medical testimony and since her conviction, pediatric airway experts from leading U.S. hospitals have concluded that it would have been “nearly impossible” for Rosa to have forced the child to swallow the paper towels and that no evidence suggests his death was anything other than an accident. Four judges have also said that she is likely innocent.
Even though there’s so much evidence to point to Rosa’s innocence, the State of Texas is still fighting to keep her in prison.
Despite this injustice she’s experienced, Rosa said she still has hope that this will be her last birthday behind bars.
The Innocence Project exonerates the wrongly convicted through DNA testing and reforms the criminal justice system to prevent future injustice. www.innocenceproject.org
