A Texas mother who was exonerated after spending 22 years in prison over the 2003 death of a 10-month-old boy who was burned from scalding bathwater walked free early Wednesday.
The Innocence Project said that Carmen Mejia, 54, left Travis County Correctional Complex just after midnight.
"I never lost faith and hope — I never lost it in 22 years," she said.
Travis County District Court Judge P. David Wahlberg exonerated Mejia on Monday after the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals overturned her convictions for felony murder, injury to a child and injury to a child by omission.
At her exoneration hearing, Mejia cried as she thanked God.
“Throughout these 20 years, I kept my faith and my hope that God was going to do justice,” she said in court via a translator. “I want to thank everybody who’s with me in this moment and to my judge.”
In its Jan. 22 decision, the court ruled that “newly discovered evidence establishes that she is actually innocent of all three counts.”
“There’s nothing that I can say at this point that will bring back those 23 years,” the judge told Mejia. “Signing this piece of paper won’t bring it back. There is no amount of money that will ever compensate you for losing the best years of your life. I wish I had that power. What I can do is say to you that there is a reason to hope and believe that your future will be better every day from now on, and I pray that it is so.”
Mejia was not released at the conclusion of the exoneration hearing because of an immigration hold stemming from her conviction. The Innocence Project said Mejia — who is from Honduras and came to the U.S. in 1995 — was granted temporary protected status before her arrest and obtained lawful work authorization.
A spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security said that ICE detained Mejia in 2009 following her murder conviction and she was placed in removal proceedings.
"In light of her conviction being overturned, she will be released from local custody, and ICE will lift the detainer. Due to her exoneration, she is legally allowed to remain in the U.S. until her Temporary Protected status expires," the statement said.
Mejia was at home on July 28, 2003, with her four children and a 10-month-old she was babysitting, the Innocence Project said in a news release. While she nursed her youngest child, her eldest daughter started a bath for the 10-month-old, the release states. The Innocence Project said the water heater in Mejia's rented home lacked safety features, and the water in the tub reached 147.8 degrees.
The baby suffered third-degree burns within seconds of being exposed to the water, according to the news release. He died at the hospital.
Mejia was convicted in 2005 and sentenced to life in prison.
In post-conviction hearings in 2024, Mejia's daughter testified that the baby was in the bathtub when she turned the faucet on. She said her mother was not in the bathroom at the time, the Travis County District Attorney’s Office said in a news release.
An expert also testified that homes built before the 1980s, like Mejia's rental, did not have the recommended plumbing safety features designed to prevent scald injuries, the Innocence Project said. Another expert testified that the temperature in the tub could have caused burn injuries within a matter of seconds.
Vanessa Potkin, Mejia's Innocence Project attorney, said that “while we are overjoyed that the courts finally recognize that Ms. Mejia is innocent, this grave injustice should have never happened in the first place.”
“Ms. Mejia is a woman of immeasurable strength, who has relied on her deep faith to withstand a traumatic period of her life that most people wouldn’t be able to survive,” Potkin said in a statement. “Her case is far from isolated.”
