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.
Was she arrested by a state trooper? Was she accused by a state prosecutor? Was she sent to prison by a state judge? Why is it not the states fault?
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.
This is such a braindead argument. All the money the government spends is taxpayer money. Do you think that the government should never have to pay for any damages it does?
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.
Bailey, who was appointed attorney general after Eric Schmitt was elected to the U.S. Senate in 2022, has a history of opposing overturning convictions, even when local prosecutors cite evidence of actual innocence.
This guy literally wants innocent people to be in prison.
And I bet he’ll win the election.
Under current law, only someone shown to be innocent by means of a DNA test is eligible for compensation after being released. The law allows $36,500 a year for the same number of years the person was wrongly incarcerated.
The vetoed bill would have increased the payment to $65,000 a year and expanded it to include people freed by the conviction review process created in a 2021 law.
The conviction review process:
In order for elected prosecutors to have a pathway to correct wrongful convictions, it was up to the state legislature to pass a law
If this innocent person was eligible for payments in Missouri, which she is not, and if the bill was passed to increase payments, then she may have received a maximum of $2.8m. However, it’d be paid as an annuity of $65k per year. If she dies her family would get nothing more. And, the payments are in lieu of a civil suit.
She’ll have to sue if she wants justice. I hope she does. I’ve been to prison. I think she deserves to be comfortable for the rest of her life.
What did make you enter a prison voluntarily?
Why do you believe it was voluntary?
I didn’t. It was a stab in the dark. 50/50 chance.
In the US most of them want out by time the weather gets warm. They spend time in county jails for smaller crimes of misdemeanors. Very few individuals choose state prison for greater crimes of felonies.
How’s it setup in Canada? Same thing different words?
Nope.
Local PD jails are only holding cells for overnight/weekend stays to handle court appearances or until bail can be set. Almost every prisoner then ends up in a provincial correction jail (if bail is not met or offered) until their court case is completed. Sentences of less that 2 years (aka deuce less) are served in the same correction centres, more than 2 years is in a federal penitentiary.
Canada has local facilities and provincial correction facilities performing the tasks of our county jails.
The US also has federal penetentiaries for the worst crimes with the longest sentences. But, it’d be rare for a relatively short two year sentence to be served in one.
The US system seems more distributed. Each state and county can, to a great extent, decide the conditions under which prisoners live. This is one reason it’s very difficult to reform our prison system.
All prisoners suffer. Could you please tell me more about how the system is constructed and the nature of suffering in Canada? Are conditions more consistent? Is there access to actual support in rehabilitation?
Our institutions still have ongoing issues with solitary confinement, lack of mental health supports and lack of training/retraining opportunities.
Conditions tend to be better than what American jails sound like (a guess, as I can only go on what I read about them).
I’m unsure what you mean about how the system is constructed, ie: judicial, penal, etc
