A woman whose conviction was overturned after serving 43 years to life for murder was released Friday, despite efforts last month by the Missouri attorney general to keep her behind bars.
Sandra Hemme, 64, left the Chillicothe jail 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, Ms. Hemm was the longest-wrongfully imprisoned woman known to exist in the United States.
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 is all too easy to convict an innocent person and getting her released has been much more difficult than expected, with court orders being ignored,” her lawyer, Sean O’Brien, said.
“It shouldn’t be this hard to free an innocent person.”
Judge Ryan Hoseman said during a court hearing Friday that if Hemme is not released within the next few hours, Bailey himself will have to appear in court Tuesday morning.
He threatened to hold the Attorney General’s office in contempt.
He also reprimanded Bailey’s office for calling the warden and telling prison officials not to release Heme after Bailey ordered bail.
“I would encourage you to never do that,” Hosemann said, adding, “It’s wrong to call someone and tell them to ignore a court order.”
Hemme declined to comment to reporters after his release.
O’Brien said she was going straight to be with her father, who had been hospitalized with kidney failure and had recently been moved to a palliative care unit. “It’s been a long time coming,” O’Brien said of her release from hospital.
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 her release is the attorney general, who has filed a lawsuit seeking to force her to serve several more years in prison for a decades-old prison assault.
The warden at the Chillicothe Correctional Center initially refused to release Hemi because of Bailey’s actions.
“The totality of the evidence supports a verdict of not guilty,” Judge Hosemann ruled June 14. The state Court of Appeals ruled July 8 that Hemm should be released while the case continues to be heard.
The next day, July 9, Judge Hosemann ruled that Hemm should be released and allowed to return home with his sister. The Missouri Supreme Court on Thursday refused to vacate a lower court decision that allowed Hemm to be released on bail and live with 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 his sentence for crimes he committed behind bars.
In 1996 she was sentenced to 10 years for attacking a prison officer with a razor blade, and in 1984 she received a two-year sentence for “attempting to commit violence”.
Bailey argued that Hemme posed a threat to his own safety and the safety of others and should begin serving his sentence now.
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, Horseman concluded in June that Hemme was heavily sedated and in a “labile mental state” when investigators repeatedly questioned him at a psychiatric hospital after the murders.
Her defense team described her final confession as a “word-for-word response to leading questions.” Other than the confession, her prosecutors said there was no evidence linking her to the crime.
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.”
