Missouri woman who served 43 years in prison is free after her 1980 murder

CHILLICOTHE, Mo. (AP) — A woman whose murder conviction was overturned after she served 43 years in prison was released Friday, after Missouri’s attorney general fought for more than a month to keep her behind bars.

Sandra Hemme, 63, left prison Friday 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.

“You were just a baby when your mom sent me a picture of you,” she said. “You looked just like your mamma when you were little and you still look like her.”

Her granddaughter laughed. “I get that a lot.”

The judge originally ruled on June 14 that Hemme’s attorneys had established “clear and convincing evidence” of “actual innocence” and overturned the 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.”

During a court hearing Friday, Judge Ryan Horsman said that if Hemme wasn’t released by a designated time, he wanted Bailey himself to appear in court Tuesday morning, and he threatened to hold the attorney general’s office in contempt.

He also scolded Bailey’s office for calling the warden and telling prison officials not to release Hemme after an appeals court panel said she could be released. “I would suggest you never do that,” Horsman said, adding: “To call someone and tell them to disregard a court order is wrong.”

The Missouri Corrections Department then confirmed Hemme, whose been in prison for 43 years, would be released before 6 p.m. CDT Friday.

“She is going right to her father,” O’Brien said. Her father was hospitalized with kidney failure and recently moved to palliative care. ”This has been a long time coming.”

He said previously that delays had caused their family “irreparable harm and emotional distress.”

There are still struggles ahead.

“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.

Over the last month, a circuit judge, an appellate court and the Missouri Supreme Court all agreed Hemme should be released, but she was still held behind bars, leaving her lawyers and legal experts puzzled.

“I’ve never seen it,” said Michael Wolff, a former Missouri Supreme Court judge and professor and dean emeritus of Saint Louis University Law School. “Once the courts have spoken, the courts should be obeyed.”

The lone holdup to freedom came from the attorney general, who has filed court actions seeking to force her to serve additional years for decades-old prison assault cases. The warden at the Chillicothe Correctional Center has declined to let Hemme go, based on Bailey’s actions.

Horsman ruled on June 14 that “the totality of the evidence…