Sandra Hemme: Missouri: Freed from a Missouri prison in July 2024 after 43 years behind bars for a mur­der she did not com­mit, she 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.

QUOTE OF THE DAY: "The  (Missouri) 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."

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PASSAGE OF THE DAY: "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."

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STORY: "Exoneree Sandra Hemme’s Case Reflects Broader Pattern of Opposition to Innocence Claims from Missouri Attorney General’s Office," by Hayley Nedard, published by The Death Penalty Information Ceter, one August 1, 2025.

GIST: "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."

The entire story can be read at: 

https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/exoneree-sandra-hemmes-case-reflects-broader-pattern-of-opposition-to-innocence-claims-from-missouri-attorney-generals-office

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

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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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