Blog 5: The case of Rosa Jimenez

Ethan Bronner of the New York Times wrote this article detailing the story of an illegal Mexican immigrant by the name of Rosa Jimenez. Jimenez has served 10 years of her 99-year sentence in the Mountain View prison unit in central Texas for a crime that she pleads not guilty of. She stands accused of killing a toddler under her care by forcing paper towels down the child’s throat resulting in him choking and dying. She has spent her years in prison reading the bible and praying while foster parents are bringing up her kids. The mother of the child whom Jimenez is accused of murdering is also an illegal Mexican immigrant named Victoria Gutierrez. Rosa Jimenez is seen by a number of people as a symbol of the inequality present in the American justice system. Many groups have sent donations to her aide to request that she be retried. The money will allow her to be given a second chance with better lawyers and experts unlike the ones she was given by the court system at her first trial. Although Gutierrez claims to be one hundred percent sure that Jimenez committed the crime no one is sure what exactly happened. One thing that is for sure however is that Jimenez was not given a fair trial. There is definitely a substantial amount of grave injustice in the American court system. The court system does not make any attempts to give equal opportunities and trials to minority groups. It can be said that if you are entering the court system and you are not a Caucasian male you can pretty much expect to be found guilty. Statistics show that minorities have been given lawyers with less experience and more jail time. The New York civil liberties union has a chart of the percentage of the United States prison population by race. It shows that although African Americans make up 12% of the population 44% are in jail. Of the 13% of Latinos in the population 18% are in jail. This is no coincidence and this shows how unfair the legal system has become. How can one trust the legal system and respect it when they know that as a minority their rights are not protected by it. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/27/us/in-texas-conviction-an-immigrant-rallying-cry.html?pagewanted=all