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.”
this is so suspicious. it needs more deep digging and she should be given money out of the pockets of those that kept her in.
“She’s going to need help,” he said, noting she won’t be eligible for social security because she has been incarcerated for so long.
FFS she’s owed a hell of a lot more than social security! 😠 The court should also order the state to pay her a huge damages payment that will afford a comfortable income for the rest of her life.
I’m against the massive payouts over changed convictions. It makes it less likely states will play ball with not fighting overturned convictions (except this missouri d-bag) and its oftentimes not the states fault they were wrongly convicted. Give her like $150k, and then like $50k a year from then on.
Not to mention, damages paid by governments don’t just come out of thin air. Contemporary taxpayers shoulder the burden, in some way, for the misdeeds of previous generations. An unfortunate reality. At the same time, I wholeheartedly agree that this woman deserves some form of additional restitution. It just becomes very tricky who actually bears that cost.
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Not at all. I agree that’s what tax funds are for and ought to be spent when necessary. I’m just making a more nuanced point that it’s unfortunate that government officials and the justice system not doing a proper job has led to two adverse outcomes.
There is no money what can redeem that shit. It doesn’t matter how much money she get paid for that.
…but to be clear, she deserves a fuckton of money anyway.
Money isn’t justice, the judge and the jury who prosecuted her should be imprisoned at least for 43 years for that.
It’s not justice, but she definitely deserves it to make her life easier. Wtf is wrong with you
I’m not saying she shouldn’t be paid, what I’m saying it’s giving someone money for that isn’t justice, that’s it. You can’t fix everything just paying money.
