The Missouri Supreme Court cleared the way Thursday for a woman whose murder conviction was overturned to be freed after 43 years in prison. A circuit court judge ruled last month that Sandra Hemme's attorneys showed evidence of her "actual innocence," and an appeals court ruled she should be freed while her case is reviewed. But Hemme's immediate freedom has been complicated by lengthy sentences she received for crimes she committed while behind bars, the AP reports—a total of 12 years, which were piled on top of the life sentence she received for her murder conviction. She's been the longest-held wrongly incarcerated woman known in the US, according to her legal team at the Innocence Project.
Attorney General Andrew Bailey, a Republican, took his fight to keep her locked up to the state's highest court, where her attorneys argued that keeping her incarcerated any longer would be a "draconian outcome." Her release appears imminent, however, now that the state Supreme Court has refused to undo the lower court rulings allowing her to be released on her own recognizance and placed in the custody of her sister and brother-in-law in the Missouri town of Higginsville. No details have been released on when Hemme will be freed.
Hemme, now 64, had been serving a life sentence at a prison northeast of Kansas City after she was twice convicted of murder in the death of library worker Patricia Jeschke. "This Court finds that the totality of the evidence supports a finding of actual innocence," Circuit Judge Ryan Horsman concluded. The judge noted that Hemme was heavily sedated and in a "malleable mental state" when investigators repeatedly questioned her in a psychiatric hospital. Her attorneys described her ultimate confession as "often monosyllabic responses to leading questions." Other than this confession, no evidence linked her to the crime, her trial prosecutor said.
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