Los Angeles United States.- The Mexican Rosa Jiménez, sentenced in Texas to spend 99 years in prison for the death of a baby in her care, She was exonerated Monday after the Travis County District Attorney’s Office dismissed the charges, her attorneys said Monday.
Jiménez was convicted of the death of 21-month-old Bryan Gutiérrez, who was in her care in Austin, Texas, in 2003.
The boy choked on paper towels, suffered a severe brain injury from lack of oxygen, and passed away three months later.
Jimenez, then 20 and pregnant and caring for her one-year-old daughter, told authorities she tried to get the boy to throw out the paper, but police didn’t believe her.
At the trial in 2005, the Prosecutor’s Office said that there was no way that the baby could have choked on the towels alone, but rather that the Mexican woman put the paper towels in her mouth.
The Innocence Project, which represents Jiménez, was able to reopen the case after years of requests for the Travis District Attorney’s Office to review the case.
At a hearing in 2021, several pediatric respiratory experts concluded that the baby’s death was an accident and that witnesses in the 2005 trial reached an “incorrect” conclusion.
The woman was released that year after a judge found her innocent.
Last May, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals vacated the 2005 conviction and ruled that the prosecution had used false and misleading testimony to obtain his conviction.
This Monday the Travis Prosecutor’s Office has definitively closed the case by filing a motion to dismiss the charges against Jiménez.
