Sandra Hemme, 64, was released from a prison in Chillicothe on Friday after serving 43 years of a life sentence, following the overturning of her murder conviction. This release occurred despite Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey’s attempts over the past month to keep her incarcerated.
Hemme walked free hours after a judge threatened to hold the attorney general’s office in contempt if they continued opposing her release. She was reunited with her family at a nearby park, sharing a heartfelt moment with her sister, daughter, and granddaughter.
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“You were just a baby when your mom sent me a picture of you,” Hemme said to her granddaughter. “You looked just like your mamma when you were little and you still look like her.”
Her granddaughter laughed, replying, “I get that a lot.”
According to the Innocence Project, Hemme was the longest-held wrongly incarcerated woman in the U.S. A judge ruled on June 14 that Hemme’s attorneys had provided “clear and convincing evidence” of her “actual innocence” and overturned her conviction. However, 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,” said her attorney Sean O’Brien. “It shouldn’t be this hard to free an innocent person.”
During a court hearing on Friday, Judge Ryan Horsman declared that if Hemme wasn’t released within hours, Bailey himself would have to appear in court Tuesday morning. He warned the attorney general’s office against continuing to fight the release, stating: “To call someone and tell them to disregard a court order is wrong.”
Hemme declined to speak to reporters after her release. O’Brien mentioned that she was heading straight to her father, who was hospitalized with kidney failure and recently moved to palliative care. “This has been a long time coming,” O’Brien said of her release, noting the emotional toll the delays had taken on Hemme’s family.
Hemme faces challenges ahead, including ineligibility for social security due to her long incarceration. Over the past month, various courts, including a circuit judge, an appellate court, and the Missouri Supreme Court, agreed that Hemme should be released. Despite these rulings, she remained in prison until Friday.
Michael Wolff, a former Missouri Supreme Court judge, commented, “Once the courts have spoken, the courts should be obeyed.”
Bailey had filed court motions to extend Hemme’s imprisonment due to decades-old prison assault cases. Hemme received a 10-year sentence in 1996 for attacking a prison worker and a two-year sentence in 1984 for “offering to commit violence.” Bailey argued that Hemme posed a safety risk and should serve these sentences. Her attorneys countered that keeping her incarcerated any longer would be a “draconian outcome.”
Legal experts criticized Bailey’s efforts, with Peter Joy of the Washington University School of Law calling it “a shock to the conscience of any decent human being,” given the evidence of Hemme’s innocence.
Bailey’s office did not respond to requests for comment. Appointed attorney general after Eric Schmitt’s election to the U.S. Senate in 2022, Bailey has a history of opposing the overturning of convictions, even when evidence of actual innocence is presented.
