CHILLICOTHE, Mo. (AP) — A woman whose murder conviction was overturned 43 years in prison She was released Friday after Missouri’s attorney general fought for more than a month to keep her behind bars.
Sandra Hemme, 63, was released from the Chillicothe prison on Friday, hours after a judge warned her she would sue the attorney general’s office for contempt if she continued to fight her release. She reunited with her family at a nearby park and hugged her sister, daughter and granddaughter.
“You were just a baby when your mom sent me this picture,” she said. “You looked just like your mom when you were little, and you still look just like her now.”
Her granddaughter laughed. “People say that all the time.”
A judge initially overturned the conviction on June 14, saying Hemm’s defense team had established “clear and convincing evidence” of his “actual innocence.” But Republican Attorney General Andrew Bailey argued in court for Hemm’s release.
“It was too easy to convict an innocent person. It was much harder to get her released than it should have been, to the point where court orders were ignored,” her lawyer, Sean O’Brien, said. “It shouldn’t be this hard to get an innocent person released.”
Judge Ryan Hoseman warned during a court hearing Friday that if Hemme was not released by a specified time, he would demand that Bailey appear in person on Tuesday morning and would hold the attorney general’s office in contempt.
Hosemann also criticized Bailey’s office for calling the prison warden and telling prison officials not to release Hemme, even though an appeals court panel had cleared the way for Hemme to be released. “I would advise you not to do that,” Hosemann said, adding, “It’s wrong to call someone and tell them to ignore a court order.”
The Missouri Department of Corrections confirmed that Hemme, who has served 43 years, will be released just before 6 p.m. CDT on Friday.
“She will be joining her father very soon,” said O’Brien, whose father was hospitalized with kidney failure and recently moved to a palliative care facility. “This is something that’s been a long time coming.”
He previously said the delay had caused “irreparable harm and mental anguish” to the family.
The difficulties will continue in the future.
“She’s going to need help,” he said, noting that she won’t be eligible for Social Security because she’s been incarcerated for so long.
Last month, a circuit court judge, an appeals court and the Missouri Supreme Court all agreed that Hemmi should be released, but she remains in custody, baffling her lawyers and legal experts.
“I’ve never seen anything like that,” said Michael Wolff, a former Missouri Supreme Court justice and professor and dean emeritus at St. Louis University School of Law. “Once the court rules, you have to follow the court’s decision.”
The only thing blocking his release is the Attorney General, who is asking the court to force Hemi to serve a few more years for a decades-old prison assault, and the warden of the Chillicothe Correctional Center, who has refused to release Hemi because of Bailey’s actions.
Horsman set the sentence for June 14. “The totality of the evidence supports a verdict of actual innocence.” The state appeals court ruled Hemme should be released while the case continues to be heard, the court ruled July 8. The Missouri Supreme Court on Thursday refused to overturn a lower court ruling that allowed Hemme to be released on bail and placed in the care of his sister and brother-in-law.
Bailey, a Republican who is his opponent in the Aug. 6 primary, filed a second request late Thursday, asking the circuit court to reconsider.
Hemme was serving a life sentence at Chillicothe Correctional Center for the stabbing death of librarian Patricia Jeschke in St. Joseph, Missouri, in 1980.
Lawyers for the Innocence Project say she is the longest-wrongfully imprisoned woman known to exist in the United States.
Hemme’s immediate freedom was complicated by sentences she had received for crimes committed while in prison: she had been sentenced to 10 years in 1996 for attacking a prison officer with a razor blade, and two years in 1984 for “attempting to commit violence”. Bailey had argued that Hemme posed a risk to herself and others’ safety and should begin serving her sentence immediately.
Her lawyer countered that keeping her in custody any longer would result in “draconian consequences.”
Some legal experts agreed.
Peter Joy, a law professor at Washington University School of Law in St. Louis, called the move to keep Hemi behind bars “a shock to the conscience of any decent person” and said the evidence strongly suggests she did not commit a crime.
Bailey’s office did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment Friday.
Bailey, who will be appointed attorney general after Eric Schmitt is elected to the U.S. Senate in 2022, has a history of opposing overturning convictions, even when local prosecutors have cited evidence of actual innocence.
Horseman, After thorough considerationThe Supreme Court concluded in June that Hemme was heavily sedated and in a “vulnerable mental state” when investigators repeatedly questioned her in a psychiatric hospital after the murder. Her lawyers said her final confession “consisted of many monosyllabic responses to leading questions.” There was no other evidence linking her to the crime beyond the confession, her prosecutors said.
Meanwhile, the St. Joseph Police Department ignored evidence pointing to fellow officer Michael Holman, who died in 2015, and prosecutors were not informed of the results of an FBI investigation that could have exonerated Hemi, so it was never disclosed before her trial, the judge ruled.
According to evidence presented to Horseman, Holman’s pickup truck was seen outside Jeschke’s apartment, Holman attempted to use her credit card and her earrings were found at his home.
In his report, Hosemann called Hemme “the victim of clear injustice.”
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Salter reported from O’Fallon, Missouri.
