CHILLICOTHE, Mo. (AP) 鈥� A woman whose murder conviction was overturned after she served was released Friday, despite attempts in the last month by Missouri鈥檚 attorney general to keep her behind bars.
Sandra Hemme, 64, left a prison in Chillicothe, hours after a judge threatened to hold the attorney general鈥檚 office in contempt if they continued to fight against her release. She reunited with her family at a nearby park, where she hugged her sister, daughter and granddaughter.
鈥淵ou were just a baby when your mom sent me a picture of you,鈥� she said. 鈥淵ou looked just like your mamma when you were little and you still look like her.鈥�
Her granddaughter laughed. 鈥淚 get that a lot.鈥�
Hemme had been the longest-held wrongly incarcerated woman known in the U.S., according to her legal team at the Innocence Project. The judge originally ruled on June 14 that Hemme鈥檚 attorneys had established 鈥渃lear and convincing evidence鈥� of 鈥渁ctual innocence鈥� and he overturned her conviction. But Republican Attorney General Andrew Bailey fought her release in the courts.
鈥淚t was too easy to convict an innocent person and way harder than it should have been to get her out, even to the point of court orders being ignored,鈥� her attorney Sean O鈥橞rien said. 鈥淚t shouldn鈥檛 be this hard to free an innocent person.鈥�
During a court hearing Friday, Judge Ryan Horsman said that if Hemme wasn鈥檛 released within hours, Bailey himself would have to appear in court Tuesday morning. He threatened to hold the attorney general's office in contempt.
He also scolded Bailey鈥檚 office for calling the warden and telling prison officials not to release Hemme after he ordered her to be freed in her own recognizance. 鈥淚 would suggest you never do that,鈥� Horsman said, adding: 鈥淭o call someone and tell them to disregard a court order is wrong.鈥�
Hemme declined to address reporters after she was released. O'Brien said she was going straight to the side of her father, who was hospitalized with kidney failure and recently moved to palliative care. 鈥漈his has been a long time coming," he said of her release.
O'Brien said previously that delays had caused their family 鈥渋rreparable harm and emotional distress.鈥�
There are still struggles ahead.
鈥淪he鈥檚 going to need help,鈥� he said, noting she won鈥檛 be eligible for social security because she has been incarcerated for so long.
Over the last month, a circuit judge, an appellate court and the Missouri Supreme Court all agreed Hemme should be released, but she was still held behind bars, leaving her lawyers and legal experts puzzled.
鈥淚鈥檝e never seen it,鈥� said Michael Wolff, a former Missouri Supreme Court judge and professor and dean emeritus of Saint Louis University Law School. 鈥淥nce the courts have spoken, the courts should be obeyed.鈥�
The lone holdup to freedom came from the attorney general, who filed court motions seeking to force her to serve additional years for decades-old prison assault cases. The warden at the Chillicothe Correctional Center initially declined to let Hemme go, based on Bailey's actions.
that 鈥渢he totality of the evidence supports a finding of actual innocence.鈥� A on July 8 that Hemme should be set free while it continued to review the case. The next day, July 9, Horsman ruled Hemme should be released to go home with her sister. The Missouri Supreme Court on Thursday declined to undo the lower court rulings that allowed her to be released on her own recognizance and placed with her sister and brother-in-law.
Bailey, a Republican facing opposition in the Aug. 6 primary election, responded with another request late Thursday, asking the Circuit Court to reconsider.
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.
Hemme's immediate freedom was complicated by sentences she received for crimes committed while behind bars. She received a 10-year sentence in 1996 for attacking a prison worker with a razor blade, and a two-year sentence in 1984 for 鈥渙ffering to commit violence.鈥� Bailey had argued that Hemme represents a safety risk to herself and others and that she should start serving those sentences now.
Her attorneys countered that keeping her incarcerated any longer would be a 鈥渄raconian outcome.鈥�
Some legal experts agreed.
Peter Joy, a law professor at the Washington University School of Law in St. Louis, said the effort to keep Hemme in prison was 鈥渁 shock to the conscience of any decent human being,鈥� since evidence strongly suggests she didn鈥檛 commit the crime.
Bailey's office did not immediately respond to messages seeking comment Friday.
Bailey, who was appointed attorney general after Eric Schmitt was elected to the U.S. Senate in 2022, has a history of opposing overturning convictions, even when local prosecutors cite evidence of actual innocence.
Horsman, , concluded in June that Hemme was heavily sedated and in a 鈥渕alleable mental state鈥� when investigators repeatedly questioned her in a psychiatric hospital after the killing. Her attorneys described her ultimate confession as 鈥渙ften monosyllabic responses to leading questions.鈥� Other than the confession, no evidence linked her to the crime, her trial prosecutor said.
The St. Joseph Police Department, meanwhile, ignored evidence pointing to Michael Holman 鈥� a fellow officer, who died in 2015 鈥� and the prosecution wasn鈥檛 told about FBI results that could have cleared Hemme, so it was never disclosed before her trials, the judge found.
Evidence presented to Horsman showed that Holman鈥檚 pickup truck was seen outside Jeschke鈥檚 apartment, that he tried to use her credit card, and that her earrings were found in his home.
Horsman, in his report, called Hemme 鈥渢he victim of a manifest injustice.鈥�
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Salter reported from O'Fallon, Missouri.
Heather Hollingsworth And Jim Salter, The Associated Press
