A Missouri appeals court ruled Tuesday that a lower court was right to do so fall over the murder conviction of a woman who spent 43 years behind bars for a murder her lawyers say was committed by a discredited police officer.
Sandra Hemme was released in July while the decision to overturn her conviction was reviewed – at the insistence of Attorney General Andrew Bailey, who argued she should remain jailed.
Judge Cynthia Martin wrote in the scathing 71-page ruling that some of Bailey’s office’s arguments “bordered on the absurd” and gave prosecutors 10 days to refile the charges.
“It is time for this miscarriage of justice to end,” Hemme’s attorneys said in a statement after the Missouri Court of Appeals Western District’s ruling.
According to her legal team at the Innocence Project, Hemme was the longest held wrongfully incarcerated woman in the US.
A spokeswoman for Bailey did not immediately respond to an email from The Associated Press seeking comment.
Hemme was being treated with heavy doses of antipsychotic drugs when she was first questioned about the 1980 murder of 31-year-old library worker Patricia Jeschke in St. Joseph. One of Hemme’s attorneys, Sean O’Brien, likened the drugs to a “chemical straitjacket” at an October hearing and said they raised questions about her eventual confession.
“It makes her compliant,” he said. “It makes her subject to sensitivity.”
O’Brien also outlined suppressed evidence pointing to Michael Holman – a former police officer, who died in 2015. Evidence showed that Holman’s pickup was seen outside Jeschke’s apartment, he attempted to use her credit card and her earrings were found at his residence.
According to the appeals court ruling, the file “strongly” suggests that police concealed their investigation into Holman.
The same conclusion was reached in June when Livingston County Judge Ryan Horsman overturned her conviction. He found that Hemme’s attorney had provided “clear and convincing evidence” of “actual innocence.”
But Bailey asked the appeals court to review that decision, arguing that Horsman had overstepped his authority and that Hemme had failed to provide sufficient evidence for some of her claims.
What followed was a month-long battle over whether she should be released while that review took place. A circuit judge, an appeals court and the Missouri Supreme Court all agreed that Hemme should be released, but she was still behind bars as Bailey. argued that she still had time to deal with decades-old prison abuse cases.
Hemme was only released after Horsman threatened to hold the attorney general’s office in contempt.
During the last hearing in October, Andrew Clarke, assistant attorney general, faced difficult questioning.
One of the court’s judges expressed particular concern about what happened when Holman, the discredited police officer, could not be ruled out as the source of a palm print detected on a TV antenna cable placed next to the victim’s body found.
The FBI asked for clearer prints, but the police did not comply. Jurors never heard about that, or any other evidence, because police never informed prosecutors.
“The court,” Clarke said in response to questions about the significance of suppressed evidence, “must consider what its value is at a future trial, what it would look like. And if it undermines confidence in the previous verdict.”
Clarke claimed that some of the evidence involved may not have met the bar for being presented in court – a claim the judges questioned.
Bailey has one history of the fight against overturned convictions. In July, a St. Louis circuit judge overturned Christopher Dunn’s murder conviction and ordered his immediate release. One of the key pieces of evidence used to convict him of first-degree murder was the testimony of two boys who later recanted, saying they had been coerced by police and prosecutors.
Bailey appealed to try to keep Dunn locked up before his eventual release.