Only when Judge Ryan Horsman threatened to sentence the prosecution for contempt of court might 64-year-old Hemme leave the prison in Chillicothe in the US state of Missouri.
By then, over a month had passed since the judge ruled in a ruling that Hemme’s lawyers had presented clear evidence that she was innocent of the murder of Patricia Jeschke in 1980.
Nevertheless, the state’s attorney general – Republican Andrew Bailey, who is being challenged in the fight to be re-elected to the job – bristled once morest release. On Friday, Judge Horsmann said that unless Sandra Hemme was released by a given deadline, Bailey herself would have to appear in court next week, and the attorney general’s office would be found guilty of contempt of court.
Hemme served a life sentence and, according to her lawyers, is the woman who has been in prison the longest in the United States following being found not guilty. The fight for release was complicated by the fact that she has been convicted twice while in prison. In 1996 she received a ten-year sentence for attacking a prison guard with a razor blade, and in 1984 she was sentenced to two years in prison for offering to commit violence.
Bailey believed the 64-year-old woman was a danger to herself and others and she had to start serving the two additional sentences now.
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2024-07-22 06:20:00
