CHILLICOTHE, Mo. — A woman who served 43 years to life in prison for murder before her conviction was overturned was released Friday, despite efforts last month by the Missouri attorney general to keep her behind bars.
Sandra Hemme, 64, left the jail in Chillicothe hours after a judge threatened to hold the attorney general’s office in contempt if she continued to oppose 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.”
According to lawyers for the Innocence Project, Hemm was the longest-wrongfully imprisoned woman known to exist in the United States. A judge initially overturned her conviction on June 14, saying Hemm’s lawyers had established “clear and convincing evidence” of her “actual innocence.” But Republican Attorney General Andrew Bailey opposed her release in court.
“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 Hosemann said at a court hearing Friday that if Hemme was not released within the next few hours, Bailey himself would have to appear in court Tuesday morning. The judge also threatened to hold the attorney general’s office in contempt.
Hosemann also criticized Bailey’s office for calling the warden to tell prison officials not to release Hemme after issuing a bail order for Hemme. “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.”
Hem did not speak to reporters after his release. O’Brien said Hem would soon be joining his father, who had been hospitalized with kidney failure and recently moved to a palliative care unit. “This is a long time coming,” O’Brien said of Hem’s release.
Mr O’Brien previously said delays in the process had caused “irreparable harm and emotional distress” 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 has petitioned the court to force Hemme to serve a few more years for a decades-old prison assault. The warden of the Chillicothe Correctional Center initially refused to release Hemme, citing Bailey’s actions.
“The totality of the evidence supports a finding of innocence,” Judge Hosemann ruled June 14. The state Court of Appeals ruled July 8 that Hemme should be released while the case continued. The next day, July 9, Judge Hosemann ruled that Hemme should be released to return home to his sister. The Missouri Supreme Court on Thursday refused to vacate a lower court’s decision 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.
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.
After an extensive investigation, Hoseman concluded in June that Hemm was heavily sedated and in a “changeable mental state” when investigators repeatedly questioned him in a psychiatric hospital after the murders. Hemm’s lawyers described his final confession as “largely monosyllabic responses to leading questions.” Prosecutors have said they have no other evidence linking Hemm to the crimes beyond the confession.
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.
