Appeals court orders release of woman whose murder conviction was reversed after 43 years in prison

KANSAS CITY, Missouri — An appeals court has ordered the release of a Missouri woman convicted of murder after serving 43 years in prison, but the state’s attorney general is trying to keep her behind bars while the case is reviewed.

Monday’s ruling by a panel of appeals court judges comes after a judge ruled that Sandra Hemme’s attorneys had established “clear and convincing evidence” of “actual innocence.” Judge Ryan Horsman said June 14 that she should be released within 30 days unless prosecutors decide to retry her case.

The appeals court granted Republican Attorney General Andrew Bailey’s request to review Horsman’s decision, but ordered Horsman to set her bail conditions and release her in the meantime.

The attorney general’s office, which almost always objects to wrongful conviction claims, then asked the court to reconsider, saying the court had not given them enough time to argue for her release. Bailey’s office also argued that Hemme had been sentenced to 12 years in prison for assault decades ago, and that she would now be serving that sentence. Her lawyers responded Tuesday that keeping her in prison any longer would be a “draconian outcome.”

Hemme, now 64, is serving a life sentence in a prison northeast of Kansas City after being convicted twice of murdering library worker Patricia Jeschke. She is now the longest-held woman wrongfully imprisoned in the U.S., according to her legal team at the Innocence Project.

After an extensive assessment, Horsman discovered that Hemme was heavily sedated and in a “malleable mental state” when detectives repeatedly questioned her at a psychiatric hospital. Police ignored evidence that pointed to a discredited fellow officer who died in 2015, and the prosecution was not told of FBI findings that could have exonerated her, so they were never released before her trial.

The prosecutor admitted at her second trial, 40 years later, that there was nothing linking her to the crime other than her confession, which followed several contradictory statements, the judge noted.

Her lawyers described her eventual confession in court proceedings as “often monosyllabic answers to leading questions.”

“She is the victim of a clear injustice,” Horsman concluded in his 118-page ruling. “This court finds that the totality of the evidence supports a finding of actual innocence.”

But Bailey then looked for a delay in Hemme’s release to allow an appeal by the court, saying she poses a safety risk to herself or others, citing a 1990s attack on a prison worker and statements she made decades ago about enjoying violence, and arguing that the evidence she presented was not “newly discovered” so “Hemme did not meet the actual innocence standard as a matter of law.”

The Buchanan County Prosecutor’s Office, which is handling the case, did not respond to requests for comment.

Hemme was arrested weeks after the death of Jeschke, a 31-year-old library clerk who lived in St. Joseph, Missouri. After Jeschke failed to show up for work on November 13, 1980, her worried mother climbed through an apartment window and discovered her daughter’s naked body on the floor, covered in blood, her hands tied behind her back and a telephone cord and a pair of pantyhose wrapped around her throat. A knife was under her head.

These and other details were released to the media by St. Joseph Police Chief Robert Hayes after the crime prompted a large-scale investigation.

Meanwhile, the department took only a cursory look at Michael Holman, a now-discredited St. Joseph police officer who was being investigated for insurance fraud and burglary, and ended the investigation after evidence cast doubt on his alibi. Holman’s plea agreement included a promise not to prosecute him for other “criminal matters currently under investigation.” He died in 2015, according to the judge’s findings.

Hemme wasn’t on anyone’s radar until she showed up at the home of a nurse who once treated her, knife in hand and refusing to leave, more than two weeks after the murder. Police took her back to St. Joseph’s Hospital, the latest in a series of hospitalizations that began when she began hearing voices at age 12 and was heavily sedated.

It turned out that Hemme had been released from the hospital and hitchhiked out of town hours before Jeschke was last seen alive. She showed up that evening at her parents’ house, more than 100 miles (160 kilometers) to the east.

Police questioned the first driver who gave her alibi, but this was not shared with the jury, the judge ruled.

Investigators began questioning her while the psychiatric hospital treated her with antipsychotic drugs that caused involuntary muscle spasms. She complained that her eyes were rolling back in her head. Detectives said Hemme appeared “mentally confused” and unable to fully understand their questions, her attorneys argued.

Hemme eventually pleaded guilty to murder to avoid the death penalty, and after her plea was rejected on appeal, she was convicted again in 1985 after a one-day trial. The prosecutor told Horsman that police had never shared any exculpatory evidence, including FBI tests that ruled out any connection between Hemme and crime scene evidence.

Police also failed to share any key evidence that would link them to their colleague, although his pickup truck was seen outside the victim’s apartment, he tried to use her credit card, and her earrings were found in his home.

When Holman could not be ruled out as the source of a palm print found on a TV antenna cable found next to the victim’s body, the FBI requested clearer prints. However, the police did not pursue the matter further. An FBI report also found that a hair found on the victim’s bedsheet “had microscopic characteristics similar to Holman’s scalp hair samples and could not be ruled out as the source.”

The judge ruled that jurors never heard these details because police never shared them with prosecutors.

“This court finds that the evidence demonstrates that Ms. Hemme’s statements to police are so unreliable and the evidence implicating Michael Holman as the perpetrator of the crime is so objective and probative that no reasonable juror would find Ms. Hemme guilty,” Horsman concluded.

The judge also noted that police had shown Hemme crime scene photos and other details that a prosecutor later falsely told jurors only the killer would know. Chief Hayes — who died in 2010 after serving a sentence for involuntary manslaughter — was also unusually involved, the judge noted, sitting in on the victim’s father as he described buying his daughter a pair of gold horseshoe earrings.

The fact that the earrings were found in Holman’s house is another fact the jury never heard.