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📚 Pink Crime by Valena Beety

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When your identity is the crime, innocence is no defense 🌈 Pink Crime- out August 4, 2026 with @thenewpress.

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In January 2003, Rosa Jimenez, a young Mexican immigrant in Austin, was babysitting 21-month-old Bryan Gutierrez. Both Bryan and Rosa’s own one-year-old daughter had colds, and she’d used paper towels to wipe Bryan’s nose.
She was in the kitchen cooking when Bryan came toward her, red-faced, with his hand on his throat. She tried to clear his mouth and hit his back. When that didn’t work, she ran to a neighbor, crying and begging for help.
Paramedics pulled a wad of paper towels from his airway. Bryan suffered a severe brain injury and died three months later.
Doctors looked at the size of the wad and decided a toddler couldn’t possibly have swallowed it himself. They said someone had to have forced it down his throat. Rosa was the only adult there.
Police questioned Rosa for hours, in Spanish, while child protective services held her toddler daughter. Under repeated pressure, she said she couldn’t remember exactly what her hands did in the panic. Prosecutors used that against her. They also called a mark on her hand a bite mark. Her lawyers later said the state knew it was an old burn scar. Finally, detective also secretly recorded a “friendly” conversation outside the interview room.
In 2005, she was convicted and sentenced to 99 years. She gave birth to her son while in custody. She has also said that guards judged and mistreated her, particularly when she came out as a lesbian.
A documentary about her trial sparked outrage in Mexico, and the Mexican government found Rosa a lawyer. Over the years, the judge who presided over her trial wrote that he believed there was a substantial likelihood she wasn’t guilty. Federal judges agreed she’d had an inadequate defense.
#pinkcrimebook #wrongfulconviction #criminaljusticereform #fyp by @valenabeetyauthor

“This is the weaponization of our criminal legal system to surveil, control, and punish people…politicians and prosecutors are using criminal laws to enforce certain behavior and to control people who deviate from that expected behavior...I wanted to create a book that met this moment in time.” @valenabeetyauthor joined us earlier this month to discuss her new book Pink Crime: Fighting Against the Criminalization of Motherhood, Pregnancy, and Queer Identity with Wilson Center Executive Director Yvette Garcia Missri. Check out our recap and learn more about the book at Duke.is/valenabeety. by @valenabeetyauthor

Brittany Watts- Her Story
In September 2023, Brittany Watts, of Warren, Ohio, was 21 weeks pregnant when her water broke. Her doctor told her the fetus was no longer viable. She went to the hospital, expecting to be induced. Instead, she waited. For hours. Doctors were concerned, but the hospital’s ethics committee was reviewing Brittany’s care — they were worried about how Ohio’s anti-abortion law might apply, even though her own doctor had warned that delaying treatment put Brittany at real risk of hemorrhage, infection, even death.
Frustrated and in pain, Brittany finally left the hospital and went home, then came back the next day, waited again, and left again – never receiving care. Altogether, she says she spent 18 hours over two days at that hospital without ever being treated.
Then, at home, alone in her bathroom, she miscarried.
Later, she went to a hair appointment already scheduled. Her hairdresser noticed something was wrong and got Brittany to the hospital. There, a nurse comforted her — and then called the police.
Officers searched Brittany’s home. They eventually found the fetal remains in the pipes of her toilet.
Weeks later, police arrested Brittany at home for abuse of a corpse — a felony charge.
But then, in January 2024, a grand jury decided not to indict Brittany. The county prosecutor said that Brittany hadn’t broken the law.
A year later, Brittany filed a federal lawsuit — against the hospital, several of its staff, the Warren Police Department, and the detective who investigated her. Her attorneys argue the hospital denied her the care she needed, and that hospital staff and police worked together to build a false case against her, including interrogating her while she was still hooked up to IVs in a hospital bed.
Brittany says her goal is making sure no one else goes through what she did. #pinkcrimebook #wrongfulconviction #criminaljusticereform by @valenabeetyauthor

The @harvardjlg is turning 50! Come celebrate with their Fall Mini Conference @harvardlaw - I’ll be there on Monday, November 9 with Daniel Medwed @northeasternlaw and Anna Lvovsky.

But wait for it - @caroclaireburke of blockbuster book @yesteryearbookchat @unitedtalent will be there on November 12! If you’re in town, stop by for the lunchtime talks about #gender, #tradwives, #wrongfulconvictions and how not to go back in time to 1976 (or 1876). @thenewpress @iumaurerlaw @innocencenetwork @innocenceproject by @valenabeetyauthor

A woman in labor was told to stop pushing because the prison nurse didn’t have time to finish the paperwork.
That happened in a Mississippi prison. And it’s not the only story. Here’s stories from incarcerated women who gave birth in #prison. #pinkcrimebook #fyp #pregnancy @thenewpress @pregnancyjust @ifwhenhow by @valenabeetyauthor

Join us Friday, November 6, when the @indianalawjournal @iumaurerlaw hosts their symposium Evolving Frontiers in Criminal Law: Pregnancy, Family and Identity. Free CLE and hear from @pregnancyjust @ifwhenhow @iumedschool and more. by @valenabeetyauthor

The hospital ethics board refused to allow the doctors to treat Brittany and induce her, because of the abortion ban. That put Brittany’s life at risk and she had a miscarriage at home. Hopefully, with Ohio’s changed law allowing abortion healthcare up to 23 weeks, hospitals will not be refusing patients this care any more.
But what happened next was when Brittany returned to the hospital after the miscarriage, a nurse called the police to falsely report that Brittany had committed a crime. They knew she hadn’t harmed her fetus, but called the police regardless, and police interrogated Ms. Watts.
Brittany Watts wasn’t prosecuted for abortion, she was prosecuted for felony abuse of a corpse.
That is exactly the charge that other prosecutors are bringing, today, when someone has a miscarriage. That is what has not changed because of Ohio’s laws, and won’t change until people start pushing back on prosecutors bringing these charges.
Thankfully the grand jury decided not to indict Brittany, but we know other women face these same charges.#pinkcrimebook #wrongfulconviction #criminaljusticereform by @valenabeetyauthor

📚 "Chapter 7: Fighting Pink Crime" gives readers answers on how to fight the criminalization of #motherhood, #pregnancy, and #queer identity in their own communities.

Pink Crime is out now from @TheNewPress! If you haven't already, order your copy through the link in my bio. ⛓️‍💥

#pinkcrimebook #criminaljusticereform by @valenabeetyauthor

Prosecutors said no to DNA testing. Every. Single. Time. 🧬🚫

Former federal prosecutor Valena Beety asked prosecutors to agree to DNA tests on wrongful conviction cases, and they refused every time. If you're confident you got the right person, why fight the test? In one case, that refusal meant the real perpetrator stayed free and kept hurting people.

The full episode of Unsolicited Perspectives is out now on YouTube and wherever you get your podcasts. Link in bio. 🎙️

#WrongfulConviction #InnocenceProject #ValenaBeety #PinkCrime #UnsolicitedPerspectives by @valenabeetyauthor

In April 2016, in Washington state, Tom Ianniciello was shot once in the head while he slept. His wife, Julie, had left the house with their daughters to pick up her stepdaughter from work. When they came home, they found him.
In Tom and Julie’s marriage, Tom had struggled with alcohol and had been abusive toward Julie. She ended up having an affair, and Tom had recently found out.
When the family got home, the house looked disturbed. The back sliding door was open. The kitchen drawer where Tom kept his things was open, with his belongings spread across the counter. The cat was outside.
Julie got the girls out of the house immediately, took them to a neighbor’s, and called 911.
Police didn’t set up a perimeter.
Julie talked to detectives and even agreed to take a polygraph. Police also questioned Julie’s lover several times and accused him of being involved.
No murder weapon was ever found, and a search of Julie’s car turned up nothing. Cell phone records ruled out her lover as a suspect, and the shell casings and unfired rounds didn’t have Julie’s DNA or fingerprints on them.
But police still investigated Julie, focusing in on her. She hired a lawyer, who told the police that Julie would not be talking to them anymore, and asked the police to stop contacting Julie.#pinkcrimebook #wrongfulconviction #criminaljusticereform #fyp by @valenabeetyauthor

Only about 100 prosecutor offices have Conviction Integrity Units to reinvestigate if the office wrongly convicted someone - and only half of those units have ever exonerated anyone. Thank you @maggiefreleng for an amazing convo, @bookwomanaustin bookstore for amazing support, and @blackmamas_atx @everybodytx @rapoportcenter and everyone else for the amazing community that showed up for our book talk this week! #pinkcrimebook #Austin #fyp #prosecutors #wrongfulconvictions @thenewpress by @valenabeetyauthor

Everything is bigger in Texas! Join me, @maggiefreleng , @everybodytx and @blackmamas_atx at @bookwomanaustin tonight to talk about all things #pinkcrimebook at the oldest #feminist bookstore in #Austin. #solidarity #followyourarrow @innocencetexas @rapoportcenter @thenewpress by @valenabeetyauthor