Posted on 06/16/2024 7:24:44 AM PDT by Diana in Wisconsin
A judge has overturned the conviction of a Missouri woman who was a psychiatric patient when she incriminated herself in a 1980 killing that her attorneys argue was actually committed by a now-discredited police officer.
Judge Ryan Horsman ruled late Friday that Sandra Hemme, who has spent 43 years behind bars, had established evidence of actual innocence and must be freed within 30 days unless prosecutors retry her. He said her trial counsel was ineffective and prosecutors failed to disclose evidence that would have helped her.
Her attorneys say this is the longest time a women has been been incarcerated for a wrongful conviction. They filed a motion seeking her immediate release.
“We are grateful to the Court for acknowledging the grave injustice Ms. Hemme has endured for more than four decades,” her attorneys said in a statement, promising to keep up their efforts to dismiss the charges and reunite Hemme with her family.
A spokesperson for Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey didn't immediately respond to a text or email message seeking comment Saturday.
Hemme was shackled in leather wrist restraints and so heavily sedated that she “could not hold her head up straight” or “articulate anything beyond monosyllabic responses" when she was first questioned about the death of 31-year-old library worker Patricia Jeschke, according to her lawyers with the New York-based Innocence Project.
They alleged in a petition seeking her exoneration that authorities ignored Hemme's “wildly contradictory” statements and suppressed evidence implicating Michael Holman, a then-police officer who tried to use the slain woman's credit card.
The judge wrote that “no evidence whatsoever outside of Ms. Hemme’s unreliable statements connects her to the crime.”
“In contrast,” he added, “this Court finds that the evidence directly ties Holman to this crime and murder scene.”
(Excerpt) Read more at channel3000.com ...
“Judge Horsman ruled that…she must be freed within 30 days unless prosecutors retry her.”
He sounds weak. Why the HELL hold her one day more? She should have been freed on the spot.
He’s putting the onus on the prosecutor’s office to justify the verdict. They can’t, and now they are in the full glare of that disinfectant, sunshine.
You realize that’s exactly how our system is supposed to work. That’s the trade off we accept to ensure that we do not condemn the innocent.
Morally and ethically it is better that the guilty go free than any innocent person be convicted.
We leave vengeance to God while we strive for justice.
He died in 2015.
“You realize that’s exactly how our system is supposed to work. That’s the trade off we accept to ensure that we do not condemn the innocent.”
If Leftist judges would RESPECT that principle, I’d be on your side.
That’s an interesting strategy. Too bad the woman has to suffer because of it, though.
Do you think it will work?
As fraudulent as Trump’s trials.
The solution is to replace those judges, not to accept unjustly punishing the innocent as the price of safety from criminals.
The founders rightly recognized that it is easier to defend yourself from a freed criminal than it is to defend against an unjust government.
Do you think it will work?
I rather doubt it, the police department will run it through Internal Affairs and clear the cop of any wrong doing...
Nice theory. In this country, at this time, if you dare to defend yourself from a murderous attack, you are very apt to be arrested, charge and probably convicted by that unjust government.
Worst of both worlds, no defense from the criminal, no defense from the government. They seem to be on the same side...
Find a grave has this individual:
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/144519894/michael-wayne-holman
Someone posted the sentiment:
This is the clown who k*lled Patricia Jeschke in 1980 and had a woman spent 40 years in prison for a crime she didn’t commit. You also quit your job a week after her body was found and tried to use her credit to buy a camera. SICK SON_OFAB!TCH!!!!!!
Left by Anonymous on 16 Jun 2024
“The solution is to replace those judges, not to accept unjustly punishing the innocent as the price of safety from criminals.”
Agree, but until that happens, my family members don’t have to live in increased danger.
...and also don’t forget, we wrote laws FORCING judges to hand down reasonable sentences to common criminals. It was done because of these same judges. We didn’t fix the judges, since that is next to impossible in much of the country, we just ended their freedom to choose not to punish ‘their kind’.
So what was the state sedating her with? Then why would they allow her to be tried while sedated?
The officer and prosecutor should both be charged, jailed, convicted, lose their pensions or whatever. There needs to be a way to bring justice in situations like this.
The people who allowed this injustice should be required to support this woman for the rest of her life. Extremely comfortably to make up for what they put her through. Either that, or they should go to jail for the same length of time.
Keep in mind that for every one of these false prosecutions resulting in people being wrongly executed (not the case here, but...), there are likely 100 cases of Leftist judges putting murders back on the streets, just to have them kill more even more people, many as innocent as this woman appears to be.
guilty and found guilty
guilty and found not guilty
innocent and found guilty
innocent and found not guilty.
They system is not perfect. two of those situations are just, the other two are not.
There are errors in the system. we tend to go heavy on the on letting the guilty go free to avoid the error of finding an innocent guilty?
She deserves to live the rest of her life in peace and quiet The government owes her at least 1,000,000 for each of those years she was falsely incarcerated. As to the officer who actually committed the crime and let an innocent replace him. He is now serving his sentence and it will last an eternity.
Your family is living in increased danger from government. No safety has been gained.
Maybe where you live. This is not a problem where I live.
People need to make better choices when voting for judges and prosecutors.
Or vote with your feet.
“Your family is living in increased danger from government. No safety has been gained.”
It doesn’t work that way, since there will ALWAYS be danger from the government, just as there will ALWAYS be danger from Leftist judges. But when the danger is 100 times higher from the Leftist judges, then some balance needs to be restored.
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