An Innocent woman has spent 43 years in prison, but it turns out that it was for an offence she did not commit.
Her conviction was only overturned on Friday after she served 43 years of a life sentence.
Sandra Hemme, 64, left a prison in Chillicothe, Missouri, the United States, with record of being the longest-held wrongly incarcerated woman in the U.S., according to her legal team.
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This was amidst reports the Attorney General still wanted to keep her but was thwarted by a judge’s threat to hold the attorney general’s office in contempt,
For Hemme the judge originally ruled on June 14 that her 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.
“Sandy” Hemme has spent more than 43 years in prison for a 1980 murder in St. Joseph, Missouri. The Innocence Project says she falsely confessed and evidence points to a corrupt cop.
“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”, said one report on the matter.
Judge Ryan Horsman had during a hearing Friday, said if Hemme wasn’t released within hours, Bailey himself would have to appear in court Tuesday.
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He also scolded Bailey’s office for calling the warden and telling prison officials not to release Hemme after he ordered her to be freed in her own recognisance.
“I would suggest you never do that,” Horsman said, adding: “To call someone and tell them to disregard a court order is wrong.”
It was with such interventions that the innocent woman was eventually released, but before then, she had spent 43 Years In Prison.
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