Imprisoned For 43 Years, Women In The US Are Free Because Their Sentences Are Canceled

PHOTO ILLUSTRATION UNSPLASH/Denis Oliveira

JAKARTA - A woman in Missouri, United States, was released after being jailed for 43 years.

Sandra Himme, 64, left prison in Chillicothe, hours after the judge threatened to insult the prosecutor's office if they continued to fight her release.

Hemme reunites with his family in the nearest garden. He hugged his sister, daughter and grandson.

"You were still a baby when your mother took a photo," he said as quoted by ABC News, Saturday, July 20.

"You looked like your mother when you were little and you still look like him," he added.

Hemme is the longest woman to be jailed 'falsely' in the US, according to her legal team on the Innocence Project.

The judge initially decided that on June 14, Hemme's lawyer had provided clear and convincing evidence of his actually innocence.

But Republican Prosecutor Andrew Bailey opposes his release in court.

"It's too easy to punish innocent people and much more difficult than it should be to get them out, even until court orders are ignored," said his lawyer Sean O'Brien.

"It shouldn't be difficult to free innocent people," he continued.

In a court hearing on Friday, July 19, Judge Ryan Horsman said if Hemme was not released within a few hours, prosecutor Bailey himself had to appear in court on Tuesday morning next week.

He also scolded Bailey's office for calling the guards and telling prison officials not to let go of Hemme after he ordered him to be released on his own admission.

"I suggest you don't do that," Horsman said. "Reponding someone and telling them to ignore court orders is a wrong act," he said.

Hemme declined to speak to reporters after he was released. O'Brien said he would immediately accompany his father, who was hospitalized for kidney failure and recently transferred to palliative care. "This has happened for a long time," he said of his release.

Over the past month, regional judges, appellate courts, and Missouri's Supreme Court have agreed Hemme should be released, but he is still being held behind bars, leaving lawyers confused.

"I've never seen it," said Michael Wolff, former Supreme Court judge Missouri and professor and dean of emeritus at the Faculty of Law, Saint Louis University.

"After the court speaks, the court must be obeyed," he said.

The only obstacle to freedom comes from the attorney general, who filed a motion to the court to force him to serve an additional sentence for a prison attack that has been going on for decades. The PRISON at Chillicothe Penitentiary initially refused to release Hemme, based on Bailey's actions.

Horsman decided on June 14 that all evidence supports his findings of innocence.

The state appeals court ruled on July 8 that Hemme should be released, while the court continues to review the case.

The next day, July 9, Horsman decided Hemme should be released to return home with his sister-in-law. Missouri's Supreme Court on Thursday refused to drop a lower court ruling allowing her to be released on her own admission and placed with her sister-in-law and sister-in-law.

Hemme served a sentence at the Chillicothe Penitentiary for the death of library worker Patricia Jeschke's stabbing in 1980 in St. Joseph, Missouri.

Hemme's freedom was immediately complicated by the punishment he received for the crimes he committed while behind bars.

He received a 10-year sentence in 1996 for assaulting a prison worker in a silet, and a two-year sentence in 1984 for offering to commit violence.

Bailey thinks Hemme poses a safety risk to himself and others and he should start serving the sentence now.

His lawyers denied that holding him any longer would be a cruel result.