When Rosa Jimenez sat down in court in 2005 for her trial in Austin, Texas, she believed she would be returning home to her one-year-old daughter as soon as she was found innocent. Instead, Jimenez was convicted of murder after the 2003 death of a 21-month-old child who choked on a wad of paper towels while in her care, which the state’s pathologist claimed could not have been an accident. Jimenez was sentenced to 99 years in prison for a crime that numerous experts have said never occurred and was the result of a tragic accident. Twenty years since her conviction, Jimenez has now been exonerated and the charges against her have been dismissed.

The alleged crime occurred in January of 2003, when Jimenez was caring for her one-year-old daughter Brenda and the 21-month-old toddler. The toddler started choking and when Jimenez was unable to remove the blockage, she called 911 and rushed to a neighbor’s house for help. The toddler was resuscitated by paramedics, but suffered significant brain damage and died three months later. Jimenez was then interrogated by police for more than five hours. Though Jimenez, who spoke Spanish, could not understand the questions being asked, she maintained her innocence and explained that the choking had been an accident. She was charged and arrested later that same night, as the police alleged that she had purposefully choked and abused the child.

“From the very beginning, as soon as I walked into that police station, they didn’t believe me,” Jimenez tells Refinery Somos. “They were immediately just looking for a confession, even though I explained [what happened] over and over again. I think that’s one way the system failed me; I didn’t even have a chance.”

“From the very beginning, as soon as I walked into that police station, they didn’t believe me.”

Jimenez regularly cared for children in her community, had no criminal record, and there was no evidence of abuse in the child’s death, but she was arrested, convicted, and sentenced to 99 years in jail. At the time of her incarceration, Jimenez was pregnant with her second child and gave birth in prison, while in shackles. Her son was taken away from her as a newborn, and because of her incarceration, Jimenez was not able to care for her children, who are now adults.

Though Jimenez was released from prison in 2021 after Judge Karen Sage of the 299th Criminal District Court in Austin, Texas, found that she committed no crime, the charges against her were only officially dismissed in August 2023. According to the judge’s latest ruling, the testimonies in the original trial were either false or misleading. More recent testimonies, including that of pediatric ENT specialists, suggest that the 21-month-old might have accidentally caused his own death. With the official dismissal of the charges, Jimenez no longer runs the risk of going back into incarceration for that case.

Jimenez says the official exoneration is a relief but that she mourns the time she lost with her kids while in prison. For Vanessa Potkin at the Innocence Project, who represented Jimenez in court, the victory is bittersweet.

“What she’s endured and what was taken from her — the loss is immeasurable.”

“It’s an incredible victory to have Rosa finally, officially exonerated and for her innocence to be recognized,” Potkin tells Somos. “But it’s also devastating how much was lost and taken from Rosa. Though she is now in a position to reunite with her children and build a new relationship with them, she enters their lives as adults and she can never get that time back. What she’s endured and what was taken from her — the loss is immeasurable.”

Potkin emphasized that Jimenez’s status as a non-English speaking Latina migrant was used against her multiple times throughout the interrogation and trial processes, something that is common in the U.S. justice system. “From the start, we saw how they used her status as a mother and also how much race pervaded the investigation and the trial. The prosecutor made pretty explicit disparaging remarks during the prosecution and played on racial tropes to obtain her conviction.”

According to the Innocence Project, Jimenez’s story isn’t uncommon: 40% of women exonerees are wrongly convicted of harming children or other loved ones in their care, and 71% of women exonerees are convicted of crimes that never took place. Additionally, women of color are often painted in bad faith by authorities because of racial stereotypes and racism.

“When the parents or caregiver is a person of color, there’s often a rush to judgment and a classification of abuse.”

“Race plays a significant role in terms of the law enforcement reaction and the reaction of medical professionals when a child is injured or dies,” Potkin says. “When the parents or caregiver is a person of color, there’s often a rush to judgment and a classification of abuse. Studies have shown that when children have passed away and the cause of death is unknown, it was more often characterized as murder based on the race of the caregiver.”

For Jimenez, it was the lack of knowledge about the system and the absence of proper Spanish-speaking interpreters — which are not constitutionally guaranteed during a law enforcement interrogation — that made her vulnerable to wrongful incarceration. “It was really hard to be in that interrogation room and try to understand what they were saying,” Jimenez says. “I do believe that migrants have a particular lack of knowledge. I mean, I didn’t know you don’t have to answer questions during an interrogation.”

In 2015, a decade into her wrongful incarceration, Jimenez was diagnosed with a kidney disease. Months after she was released from prison in 2021, she began dialisis and now needs a life-saving kidney transplant. Potkin says this disease is a direct result of Jimenez’s incarceration, as she was forced to work in the fields, which resulted in a hip injury that forced Jimenez to take large amounts of ibuprofen, a medication that can damage the kidneys.

“My daughter just had a baby, my granddaughter. I wasn’t there for my daughter growing up, I didn’t have that chance. So I want to be able to be there for my grandchild.”

“This medical condition is a direct consequence of her conviction,” Potkin says. “Our hope is that we will find a living match for a kidney transplant so that she can live the life that she truly deserves. Now she has her freedom, she also has this condition which is not allowing her to live her life to the fullest.”

Jimenez is currently in New York where she is being evaluated for a kidney transplant at New York Presbyterian-Weill Cornell Medical Center, one of the nation’s leading transplant centers. When speaking with Somos, Jimenez expressed that she hoped to be back in Texas again to be with her family. Her daughter Brenda just had a baby daughter, and Jimenez wants to be there for her.

“I would love to go back to Texas, [where] my daughter is now living,” she says. “My daughter just had a baby, my granddaughter. I wasn’t there for my daughter growing up, I didn’t have that chance. So I want to be able to be there for my grandchild.”