Exoneree Sandra Hemme’s Case Reflects Broader Pattern of Opposition to Innocence Claims from Missouri Attorney General’s Office

Sandra Hemme walked free from a Missouri prison in July 2024 after 43 years behind bars for a mur­der she did not com­mit; how­ev­er, her release only came after a judge threat­ened state Attorney General Andrew Bailey with con­tempt of court for try­ing to keep Ms. Hemme incar­cer­at­ed despite over­whelm­ing evi­dence of her inno­cence. Now 65 years old, Ms. Hemme has filed a law­suit against the city of St. Joseph, Missouri and eight police offi­cers involved in her case for mali­cious pros­e­cu­tion, alleg­ing that offi­cers fab­ri­cat­ed evi­dence and coerced her con­fes­sion while she was heav­i­ly med­icat­ed in a psy­chi­atric hos­pi­tal. The law­suit states “[t]here was nev­er any objec­tive evi­dence tying [Ms. Hemme] to the crime,” and points to a for­mer police offi­cer, Michael Holman, as the indi­vid­ual respon­si­ble for mur­der­ing Patricia Jeschke in November 1980.

“To pro­tect Holman, the Defendants con­cealed evi­dence of his guilt and chose not to fol­low the evi­dence lead­ing to Holman,” who died in 2015, accord­ing to the suit. The fil­ing also claims that police ​“sup­pressed and destroyed evi­dence,” includ­ing fin­ger­print evi­dence that exclud­ed Ms. Hemme from the crime scene and notes that Ms. Hemme ​“was not even in St. Joseph when the mur­der occurred.” The fil­ing also indi­cates that Officer Holman was in pos­ses­sion of the victim’s ear­rings, and he attempt­ed use her stolen credit card.

Following the crime, police inter­ro­gat­ed Ms. Hemme while she was under the influ­ence of a ​“pow­er­ful antipsy­chot­ic” and in a state hos­pi­tal. Ms. Hemme’s name end­ed up on the police’s radar because of a sep­a­rate instance, and she told Detective Steven Fueston that she thought the vic­tim had giv­en her a ride home from the hos­pi­tal after a pre­vi­ous vis­it. Detective Fueston tes­ti­fied that he ceased inter­ro­gat­ing Ms. Hemme the first time he chat­ted with her because ​“she didn’t seem total­ly coher­ent.” He would go on to speak with her on five addi­tion­al occa­sions, and she pro­vid­ed a dif­fer­ent sto­ry each time. Following the last dis­cus­sion, Detective Fueston stopped pur­su­ing addi­tion­al infor­ma­tion from Ms. Hemme. Only after an eighth inter­ro­ga­tion, by a sep­a­rate offi­cer, did Ms. Hemme con­fess. She plead­ed guilty and was sen­tenced to life with­out the pos­si­bil­i­ty of parole in April 1981; how­ev­er, Ms. Hemme even­tu­al­ly moved to with­draw this guilty plea and in a 1985 retri­al, she was resen­tenced to life in prison with­out the pos­si­bil­i­ty of parole for at least 50 years.

In 2023, coun­sel for Ms. Hemme filed a 100+ page peti­tion doc­u­ment­ing all of the evi­dence that points to her inno­cence. Counsel obtained files from the St. Joseph Police Department that had not been pre­vi­ous­ly giv­en to Ms. Hemme’s tri­al coun­sel, which point­ed to Officer Holman as the pri­ma­ry sus­pect and shows no phys­i­cal evi­dence con­nect­ing her to the crime. The peti­tion also includ­ed an eval­u­a­tion from a psy­chi­a­trist who found Ms. Hemme to be at high risk for false con­fes­sions because of her seri­ous men­tal ill­ness and the med­ica­tion she was tak­ing affect­ed her cog­ni­tive think­ing. In June 2024, Judge Ryan Horsman over­turned Ms. Hemme’s con­vic­tion, not­ing she was ​“the vic­tim of a man­i­fest injus­tice,” and evi­dence direct­ly con­nect­ed Officer Holman to the crime. Even after Judge Horsman’s rul­ing of ​“actu­al inno­cence,” AG Bailey’s office fought her release and only agreed to allow her to walk free after threats of con­tempt from Judge Horsman.

The oppo­si­tion from AG Bailey’s office to Ms. Hemme’s inno­cence claim is not unique. In the case of Marcellus Williams, AG Bailey active­ly pur­sued an exe­cu­tion date despite DNA evi­dence that raised seri­ous con­cerns over his guilt. In July 2024, AG Bailey asked the state Supreme Court to block an evi­den­tiary hear­ing that could have estab­lished Mr. Williams’ inno­cence. The hear­ing would have allowed for the courts to con­sid­er new DNA evi­dence that revealed a male DNA pro­file incon­sis­tent with that of Mr. Williams. The state even­tu­al­ly revealed it had mis­han­dled evi­dence and the Missouri Supreme Court, at the behest of AG Bailey, ruled Mr. Williams could not enter an Alford plea in exchange for a sen­tence of life with­out parole. Ignoring pleas from more than 1.5 mil­lion peo­ple on social media, Governor Mike Parson, who has nev­er grant­ed clemen­cy, denied Mr. Williams’ clemen­cy peti­tion, and the U.S. Supreme Court refused to inter­vene. Mr. Williams was exe­cut­ed on September 24, 2024.

The Missouri Attorney General’s office has con­sis­tent­ly opposed inno­cence claims for decades, fight­ing exon­er­a­tions even when local pros­e­cu­tors sup­port over­turn­ing wrong­ful con­vic­tions. In July 2024, just after Ms. Hemme’s release, Christopher Dunn, who served 34 years behind bars was released from prison after local pros­e­cu­tors denied retry­ing him for a mur­der he did not com­mit. Mr. Dunn’s con­vic­tion had been over­turned a week ear­li­er, how­ev­er, the South Central Correctional Center, where Mr. Dunn was held, refused to coop­er­ate with his release at the urg­ing of AG Bailey. The Missouri Supreme Court ulti­mate­ly ruled that AG Bailey does not have the author­i­ty to keep a pris­on­er incar­cer­at­ed, but for Mr. Dunn to be released, charges had to be for­mal­ly dropped. The charges against Mr. Dunn were dropped on July 30, 2024, and he was freed from prison. The AG’s office also con­test­ed the exon­er­a­tions of Lamar Johnson in 2023 and Kevin Strickland in 2021, both of whom were ulti­mate­ly freed despite the AG’s opposition.

The AG’s office has pre­vi­ous­ly stat­ed that inno­cence is not enough to pre­vent an exe­cu­tion. In a 2003 oral argu­ment at the state Supreme Court, Justice Laura Denvir Stith asked then-Assistant Attorney General Frank Jung if he was sug­gest­ing that ​“even if [the court] find[s] Mr. Amrine is actu­al­ly inno­cent, he should be exe­cut­ed?” AG Jung told Justice Stith “[t]hat is cor­rect, your hon­or.” The court ruled in favor of Mr. Amrine, who was lat­er exon­er­at­ed after 17 years on death row.