Harold Levy: Publisher; The Charles Smith Blog:
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PASSAGE OF THE DAY: "Now 63, Hemme remains at the Chillicothe Correctional Center as Innocence Project attorneys seek to free her. Her lawyers and others, including a former interim police chief, say more evidence suggests that a disgraced police officer committed the murder. Provided by the Innocence Project In an affidavit, Larry Harman — who represented Hemme in the 1980s and went on to become Clay County’s prosecutor, and then a judge — said his concerns in Hemme’s case reflect criticisms of the police investigation into Reynolds. “I believe she may have incriminated herself in part because she ‘adopted’ as ‘true’ certain information conveyed in questions asked of her, information publicly available through the news media, or statements made and questions by law enforcement officers,” he wrote. Reynolds, like Hemme, spent time in the St. Joseph State Hospital. “Like in the case of Ms. Hemme, St. Joseph police obtained a confession from Reynolds after interrogating him repeatedly, resulting in a statement that also did not align with the known facts of the crime in question,” Hemme’s lawyers wrote in their petition."
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STORY: "In the 1970's, a man falsely confessed to murder in St. Joseph. It now sounds familiar", by Reporter Luke Nozicka, published by The Kansas City Star, on March 8, 2023. Luke Nozicka is an investigative reporter who focuses on criminal justice in Missouri and Kansas. In 2021, his reporting was credited with helping to free Kevin Strickland, a Kansas City man who spent more than 40 years in prison for a triple murder he did not commit. Nozicka is now reporting on Kansas City, Kansas, police. Before joining The Star, he covered courts for The Des Moines Register.)
GIST: "Lawyers who argue that Sandra Hemme falsely confessed to the murder for which she has spent four decades in prison say she was not the first mentally ill person targeted by St. Joseph police to “wrongly solve a crime.”
In a petition seeking to exonerate Hemme, the New York-based Innocence Project said the only evidence tying her to the 1980 killing of Patricia Jeschke were her wildly inaccurate statements extracted from detectives.
At the time, she was a psychiatric patient.
As Hemme’s case worked its way through the courts, St. Joseph law enforcement was roiled in another controversy: the wrongful conviction of Melvin Lee Reynolds.
Reynolds falsely confessed to murdering a 4-year-old boy in 1978 following hours of police interrogation.
After spending four years in prison, he was exonerated and freed in 1983, when a self-proclaimed serial killer, Charles Hatcher, pleaded guilty to the murder.
As recounted in “Innocent Blood,” a book about the case by a St. Louis Post-Dispatch reporter at the time, Reynolds could not see an end to an hours-long lie detector test. “Did you kill the boy?” a lieutenant asked him. “No,” Reynolds replied. “But I’ll say so if you want me to.”
As detailed in the book, detectives brought Reynolds back for questioning over the span of months. They hypnotized him; they gave him “truth serum.” After a “total of nearly 40 hours” of interrogation, Reynolds gave the lawmen what they were hounding him for.
Some of the officers who extracted Reynolds’ false confession worked on the investigation that landed Hemme in prison, according to court records.
Hemme, then 25, was found guilty at a 1985 trial of murdering Jeschke.
She previously pleaded guilty, but her plea was thrown out on appeal.
No physical evidence or witnesses tied her to the murder. Her contradictory statements were the only evidence against her.
Now 63, Hemme remains at the Chillicothe Correctional Center as Innocence Project attorneys seek to free her.
Her lawyers and others, including a former interim police chief, say more evidence suggests that a disgraced police officer committed the murder.
Sandra Hemme, center, can be seen during a family visit in prison in 2022. Provided by the Innocence Project In an affidavit, Larry Harman — who represented Hemme in the 1980s and went on to become Clay County’s prosecutor, and then a judge — said his concerns in Hemme’s case reflect criticisms of the police investigation into Reynolds.
“I believe she may have incriminated herself in part because she ‘adopted’ as ‘true’ certain information conveyed in questions asked of her, information publicly available through the news media, or statements made and questions by law enforcement officers,” he wrote.
Reynolds, like Hemme, spent time in the St. Joseph State Hospital. “Like in the case of Ms. Hemme, St. Joseph police obtained a confession from Reynolds after interrogating him repeatedly, resulting in a statement that also did not align with the known facts of the crime in question,” Hemme’s lawyers wrote in their petition."
The entire story can be read at:
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PUBLISHER'S NOTE: I am monitoring this case/issue/resource. Keep your eye on the Charles Smith Blog for reports on developments. The Toronto Star, my previous employer for more than twenty incredible years, has put considerable effort into exposing the harm caused by Dr. Charles Smith and his protectors - and into pushing for reform of Ontario's forensic pediatric pathology system. The Star has a "topic" section which focuses on recent stories related to Dr. Charles Smith. It can be found at: http://www.thestar.com/topic/charlessmith. Information on "The Charles Smith Blog Award"- and its nomination process - can be found at: http://smithforensic.blogspot.com/2011/05/charles-smith-blog-award-nominations.html Please send any comments or information on other cases and issues of interest to the readers of this blog to: hlevy15@gmail.com. Harold Levy: Publisher: The Charles Smith Blog;
SEE BREAKDOWN OF SOME OF THE ON-GOING INTERNATIONAL CASES (OUTSIDE OF THE CONTINENTAL USA) THAT I AM FOLLOWING ON THIS BLOG, AT THE LINK BELOW: HL:
https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/120008354894645705/4704913685758792985
FINAL WORD: (Applicable to all of our wrongful conviction cases): "Whenever there is a wrongful conviction, it exposes errors in our criminal legal system, and we hope that this case — and lessons from it — can prevent future injustices."
Lawyer Radha Natarajan:
Executive Director: New England Innocence Project;
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FINAL, FINAL WORD: "Since its inception, the Innocence Project has pushed the criminal legal system to confront and correct the laws and policies that cause and contribute to wrongful convictions. They never shied away from the hard cases — the ones involving eyewitness identifications, confessions, and bite marks. Instead, in the course of presenting scientific evidence of innocence, they've exposed the unreliability of evidence that was, for centuries, deemed untouchable." So true!
Christina Swarns: Executive Director: The Innocence Project;
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YET ANOTHER FINAL WORD:
David Hammond, one of Broadwater’s attorneys who sought his exoneration, told the Syracuse Post-Standard, “Sprinkle some junk science onto a faulty identification, and it’s the perfect recipe for a wrongful conviction.”
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