The woman who has been unjustly imprisoned the longest in the United States was released on Friday (19). She served 43 years of a life sentence, despite attempts by the Missouri attorney general to keep her incarcerated.
Sandra Hemme, 64, left a prison in Chillicothe, Missouri. Upon leaving jail, she was reunited with her family, a sister, daughter and granddaughter.
“You were just a baby when your mom sent me a picture of you,” she told her granddaughter. “You looked exactly like your mother when you were little and you still look like her.”
Initially, on June 14, the judge ruled that Hemme’s lawyers had presented “clear and convincing evidence” of his “actual innocence,” resulting in the overturning of his conviction. However, Attorney General Andrew Bailey challenged his release in the courts.
“It was very easy to convict an innocent person and much harder than it should be to free them, to the point where court orders were ignored,” said Sandra’s lawyer, Sean O’Brien. “It shouldn’t be so hard to free an innocent person.”
What crime did she “commit”?
Hemme was arrested for the 1980 stabbing murder of library worker Patricia Jeschke in St. Joseph, Missouri.
Hemme’s immediate release was complicated by other sentences she had received for crimes committed during her time in prison. In 1984, she was sentenced to two years for “offering to commit violence,” and in 1996, she received a 10-year sentence for assaulting a prison official with a razor blade.
According to the attorney general, Hemme poses a security risk to herself and others and that she should start serving sentences for the crimes committed now.
After her release, Sandra did not speak to journalists. Her lawyer mentioned that she would go directly to the hospital, where her father is hospitalized with kidney failure, for palliative care. He commented that this release took longer than expected.
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