According to the D.A.’s office, that testimony followed a hearing earlier this year in which a witness who was a child at the time the baby was burned, and who was also being supervised by Mejia, told the court that she had turned on the hot water which scalded the infant and that Mejia was not present when the injury occurred."
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GIST: "Over a span of six months in 2003, two young, undocumented women living in Austin were accused of murder.
Prosecutors charged Rosa Jimenez with murdering a toddler in her care in January after he choked on a wad of paper towels. Carmen Mejia was accused of murdering an infant she was babysitting in July by scalding him in a bathtub.
There were no eyewitnesses to either alleged murder, but both women were convicted in 2005 on testimony from medical experts and sentenced to life in prison. Jimenez was freed and exonerated last year after the Travis County District Attorney’s Office agreed with experts hired by the Innocence Project that the scientific testimony offered against her at trial was incorrect – that it was, in criminal justice parlance, junk science. Now the Innocence Project is working on Mejia’s case, and the same process is underway.
At a hearing in Travis County district court on Dec. 16, prosecutors from the D.A.’s office presented affidavits from two of the experts who testified against Mejia in 2005, a burn specialist and the emergency-room doctor who treated the scalded child, stating they could no longer say his injuries were caused intentionally. The prosecutors also presented testimony from the medical examiner who performed the child’s autopsy, stating she now believes the infant’s death was accidental. Experts hired by the Innocence Project also testified.
According to the D.A.’s office, that testimony followed a hearing earlier this year in which a witness who was a child at the time the baby was burned, and who was also being supervised by Mejia, told the court that she had turned on the hot water which scalded the infant and that Mejia was not present when the injury occurred.
The Innocence Project’s Vanessa Potkin was instrumental in getting Rosa Jimenez exonerated, and she is now convinced that Mejia is innocent as well. “These women were presumed and adjudicated guilty based on less-than-complete, incorrect evidence,” Potkin told the Chronicle. “The fact that these two innocent women were prosecuted in the same jurisdiction within months of each other demonstrates the problem and prevalence of wrongful conviction in cases where children die as the result of accident or illness. Thankfully we now have the opportunity for the truth to come to light and this terrible injustice to be corrected.”
Visiting Judge David Wahlberg is expected to make a recommendation on Mejia’s case at its next hearing on Jan. 23. It will then be sent to the Texas Criminal Court of Appeals, which can deny a new trial, grant a new trial, find Mejia actually innocent, or return the case to Wahlberg for further fact-finding. Mejia will remain in custody pending the decision, the D.A.’s office said."
https://www.austinchronicle.com/daily/news/2024-12-26/is-another-woman-convicted-of-murder-in-travis-county-actually-innocent/
SEE BREAKDOWN OF SOME OF THE ON-GOING INTERNATIONAL CASES (OUTSIDE OF THE CONTINENTAL USA) THAT I AM FOLLOWING ON THIS BLOG, AT THE LINK BELOW: HL:
https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/120008354894645705/4704913685758792985
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FINAL WORD: (Applicable to all of our wrongful conviction cases): "Whenever there is a wrongful conviction, it exposes errors in our criminal legal system, and we hope that this case — and lessons from it — can prevent future injustices."
Lawyer Radha Natarajan:
Executive Director: New England Innocence Project;
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FINAL, FINAL WORD: "Since its inception, the Innocence Project has pushed the criminal legal system to confront and correct the laws and policies that cause and contribute to wrongful convictions. They never shied away from the hard cases — the ones involving eyewitness identifications, confessions, and bite marks. Instead, in the course of presenting scientific evidence of innocence, they've exposed the unreliability of evidence that was, for centuries, deemed untouchable." So true!
Christina Swarns: Executive Director: The Innocence Project;
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SEE BREAKDOWN OF SOME OF THE ON-GOING INTERNATIONAL CASES (OUTSIDE OF THE CONTINENTAL USA) THAT I AM FOLLOWING ON THIS BLOG, AT THE LINK BELOW: HL:
https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/120008354894645705/4704913685758792985
———————————————————————————————
FINAL WORD: (Applicable to all of our wrongful conviction cases): "Whenever there is a wrongful conviction, it exposes errors in our criminal legal system, and we hope that this case — and lessons from it — can prevent future injustices."
Lawyer Radha Natarajan:
Executive Director: New England Innocence Project;
—————————————————————————————————
FINAL, FINAL WORD: "Since its inception, the Innocence Project has pushed the criminal legal system to confront and correct the laws and policies that cause and contribute to wrongful convictions. They never shied away from the hard cases — the ones involving eyewitness identifications, confessions, and bite marks. Instead, in the course of presenting scientific evidence of innocence, they've exposed the unreliability of evidence that was, for centuries, deemed untouchable." So true!
Christina Swarns: Executive Director: The Innocence Project;
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