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Sandra Hemme, an American woman who spent 43 years in prison for a murder she did not commit, was finally released on Saturday despite the Missouri attorney general‘s attempts to keep her imprisoned.
Hemme was serving a life sentence at the Chillicothe Correctional Center for the 1980 stabbing death of library worker Patricia Jeschke in St Joseph, Missouri.
The 64-year-old reunited with her family at a nearby park, where she hugged her sister, daughter, and granddaughter.
“You were just a baby when your mom sent me a picture of you,” she said. “You looked just like your mamma when you were little and you still look like her.”
Judge Ryan Horsman had originally ruled on June 14 that Hemme’s attorneys had provided clear evidence of her innocence, overturning her conviction. However, Republican attorney general Andrew Bailey fought against her release.
Horsman threatened to hold Bailey’s office in contempt if Hemme was not released within hours and scolded the attorney general’s office for instructing prison officials to disregard the court order.
Hemme’s attorney, Sean O’Brien, expressed his frustration with the difficulty of freeing an innocent person, even in the face of court orders. “It shouldn’t be this hard to free an innocent person,” he said. He also noted that Hemme would need assistance, as she would not be eligible for social security due to her lengthy imprisonment.
Despite the agreement of multiple courts that Hemme should be released, Bailey continued to file motions seeking to force her to serve additional years for decades-old prison assault cases. Legal experts found this effort shocking, given the strong evidence suggesting Hemme’s innocence.
Judge Horsman‘s extensive review concluded that Hemme was heavily sedated and in a vulnerable mental state when investigators repeatedly questioned her in a psychiatric hospital after the killing.
The St Joseph Police department had ignored evidence pointing to a fellow officer, Michael Holman, who died in 2015, and the prosecution was not informed of FBI results that could have cleared Hemme.
Judge Horsman called Hemme “the victim of a manifest injustice.”
Hemme was serving a life sentence at the Chillicothe Correctional Center for the 1980 stabbing death of library worker Patricia Jeschke in St Joseph, Missouri.
The 64-year-old reunited with her family at a nearby park, where she hugged her sister, daughter, and granddaughter.
“You were just a baby when your mom sent me a picture of you,” she said. “You looked just like your mamma when you were little and you still look like her.”
Judge Ryan Horsman had originally ruled on June 14 that Hemme’s attorneys had provided clear evidence of her innocence, overturning her conviction. However, Republican attorney general Andrew Bailey fought against her release.
Horsman threatened to hold Bailey’s office in contempt if Hemme was not released within hours and scolded the attorney general’s office for instructing prison officials to disregard the court order.
Hemme’s attorney, Sean O’Brien, expressed his frustration with the difficulty of freeing an innocent person, even in the face of court orders. “It shouldn’t be this hard to free an innocent person,” he said. He also noted that Hemme would need assistance, as she would not be eligible for social security due to her lengthy imprisonment.
Despite the agreement of multiple courts that Hemme should be released, Bailey continued to file motions seeking to force her to serve additional years for decades-old prison assault cases. Legal experts found this effort shocking, given the strong evidence suggesting Hemme’s innocence.
Judge Horsman‘s extensive review concluded that Hemme was heavily sedated and in a vulnerable mental state when investigators repeatedly questioned her in a psychiatric hospital after the killing.
The St Joseph Police department had ignored evidence pointing to a fellow officer, Michael Holman, who died in 2015, and the prosecution was not informed of FBI results that could have cleared Hemme.
Judge Horsman called Hemme “the victim of a manifest injustice.”
