Additional Coverage:
The Missouri Supreme Court has facilitated the release of Sandra Hemme, a Missouri woman who has been imprisoned for 43 years after her murder conviction was overturned. Despite this, she remained in custody as of Thursday night. Lawyers representing Hemme accuse the office of Republican Attorney General Andrew Bailey of ignoring the court’s decision and instructing the Department of Corrections to keep her detained, according to CBS affiliate KCTV.
Last month, a circuit court judge declared Hemme “actually innocent,” and an appeals court upheld this decision, ordering her release during ongoing case reviews. However, her release is being delayed by additional sentences totaling 12 years for offenses committed during her incarceration, adding to her initial life sentence for the murder of Patricia Jeschke, a library worker.
Attorney General Bailey continued efforts to keep Hemme imprisoned, despite her legal team’s argument that further incarceration would be excessively harsh. Hemme was expected to be released into the care of her sister and brother-in-law in Higginsville, Missouri, after the Missouri Supreme Court upheld decisions for her release on her own recognizance.
The timing of Hemme’s release remains unclear. Sean O’Brien, one of her lawyers, has requested an emergency status conference to expedite her release. The Department of Corrections has been urged to quickly comply with her release, as expressed in a statement from Hemming’s lawyers to The Associated Press, noting her family’s readiness to reunite.
Now 64, Hemme has been identified by the Innocence Project as the longest-incarcerated woman wrongfully held in the U.S. Circuit Court Judge Ryan Horsman emphasized her actual innocence, noting her compromised mental state during police interrogations at a psychiatric hospital which led to unreliable confessions under heavy sedation.
Moreover, it was revealed that the police overlooked evidence implicating another suspect, Michael Holman, a deceased police officer, and did not disclose crucial FBI results that could have exonerated Hemme during her trials. Judge Horsman criticized the handling of Hemme’s case, labeling her a victim of “manifest injustice.”