A woman whose murder conviction was overturned after she served 43 years of a life sentence was released Friday, despite attempts in the last month by Missouri’s 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’s 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.
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’s attorneys had established “clear and convincing evidence” of “actual innocence” and he overturned her conviction. But Republican Attorney General Andrew Bailey fought her release in the courts.
“It 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,” her attorney Sean O’Brien said. “It shouldn’t be this hard to free an innocent person.”
Props to the judge tho, 'cause threatening Bailey with contempt charges could have landed him in jail (for a bit anyways).
“See my big gavel here? If you don’t release her immediately this gavel will crash into your thick, stupid skull … with force.”
Honestly, there should still be an inquest or something where the guy is brought in and must explain wtf he was thinking or trying to accomplish by fighting her release. And if he doesn’t have a satisfying answer, remove him from the position.
And no, I wouldn’t consider “trying to save the state taxpayers from a lawsuit for the false imprisonment” a satisfying answer.
In fact, if he can’t defend a position such that it’s reasonable to believe she was actually guilty, there should be criminal charges against him and anyone who worked with him to stop or stall the release. And I’d say this should be the case for any prosecution where it becomes just about winning a case rather than demonstrating the truth in court.