Rosa Jimenez, a Texas babysitter who had been sentenced to 99 years in jail after being convicted of homicide within the 2003 loss of life of a toddler, was exonerated on Monday after years of appeals wherein she maintained her innocence and testimony in opposition to her was referred to as into query.

On Monday, a Travis County District Court decide granted a movement by the district lawyer to drop homicide costs in opposition to Ms. Jimenez, 40, who had spent 18 years behind bars earlier than her launch in January 2021.

In an interview on Tuesday evening, Ms. Jimenez stated she was completely satisfied and able to transfer on along with her life.

“I’m still trying to reconnect with my kids,” Ms. Jimenez stated. “It’s not easy. They’re already grown.” She famous that hours after the costs had been dismissed, she grew to become a grandmother.

In 2005, Ms. Jimenez was convicted within the loss of life of 21-month-old Bryan Gutierrez, who died after choking on a wad of 5 paper towels whereas in Ms. Jimenez’s care at her dwelling in Austin. To convict her, prosecutors relied on specialists who testified that it was unimaginable that the loss of life had been an accident.

But that testimony could be referred to as into query years later.

Ms. Jimenez was launched from jail in 2021 on an order from Judge Karen Sage of Travis County District Court, who concluded that she was “likely innocent” and had been be subjected to a trial that included “false and misleading testimony” and was “infected with constitutional error.”

Ms. Jimenez’s launch got here after a panel of specialists in pediatric airways testified that Bryan’s loss of life most probably had been an accident. The prosecution’s professional, who initially testified that it was unimaginable for the loss of life to have been an accident, additionally submitted an affidavit stating that her opinion had modified.

In May, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals agreed with Judge Sage’s conclusion and despatched the case again to Travis County District Court for a brand new trial.

But there could be no new trial.

José Garza, the Travis County district lawyer, filed a movement to dismiss the costs in opposition to Ms. Jimenez.

“It is clear that false medical testimony was used to obtain her conviction,” Mr. Garza said in a statement after Judge Sage granted the movement. “Dismissing Ms. Jimenez’s case is the right thing to do.”

The case drew widespread consideration amongst Mexican immigrants residing within the United States after it was featured in a 2007 Spanish-language documentary referred to as “My Life Inside.”

Numerous appeals to overturn the case through the years proved unfruitful, together with a petition to the United States Supreme Court in 2012 that was supported by the previous president of Mexico, Enrique Peña Nieto, who was president-elect on the time.

Ms. Jimenez was an adolescent when she got here to the United States from Mexico in 1999. She had a 1-year-old daughter in 2003 when she was arrested. She gave delivery to her son whereas in custody.

Though she was free for the previous two and a half years, Ms. Jimenez stated, the “stressful” thought that she may probably should face one other trial lingered.

Monday’s ruling modified that.

“You know you can move with your life without worrying that you are going back to that place,” Ms. Jimenez stated. “That place that robbed me from everything that I love, everything that I care about.”

Vanessa Potkin, Ms Jimenez’s lawyer, who works on the Innocence Project, a nonprofit group that advocates for the overturning of wrongful convictions, stated that being exonerated “makes a big difference for wrongfully convicted people when they’re trying to build their lives.”

Still, Ms. Jimenez, who suffers from superior kidney illness and has been receiving dialysis remedy for practically two years, faces one other problem — discovering a kidney donor.

“She’s at end-stage,” Ms. Potkin stated, “so this really is a lifesaving transplant at this point.”