Missouri woman who served 43 years in prison freed after murder conviction overturned
A judge ruled last month Sandra Hemme must be freed or retried for the 1980 murder within 30 days, but the Missouri Attorney General fought to keep her imprisoned.
A woman whose murder conviction was overturned after she served 43 years in prison was released Friday, after Missouri’s attorney general fought for more than a month to keep her behind bars.
Sandra Hemme, 63, left prison Friday in Chillicothe, hours after a judge threatened to hold the attorney general’s office in contempt if they continued to fight against her release. She reunited with her family at a nearby park, where she hugged her daughter and granddaughter. Her sister, Joyce Ann Kays, was all grins.
The judge originally ruled on June 14 that Hemme’s attorneys had established “clear and convincing evidence” of “actual innocence” and overturned the conviction. But Republican Attorney General Andrew Bailey fought her release in the courts.
She spent her entire adult life in prison. How do you even come back from that.
She should be bankrolled by the state for the grievous harm it did to her, but she'll probably get nothing.
Hear me out.
Companies sell life insurance. Actuaries determine how much a policy costs. They can also determine what is most likely to have been a person's lifetime earnings based on a variety of metrics about that person.
An actuary should be able to look at who Sandra Hemme was at 20 years old, and make a determination of what her lifetime earnings would have been if she had not gone to prison. The State should pay her that amount.
Then multiply that figure by 10 or more. The state should be punished for that mistake and not want to make similar mistakes again.
Oh sure. "That amount" would be the compensatory part. The punitive part would be an entirely other thing.
She also needs to be compensated for lost time and events, relationships etc that never happened because of the state. There's more to compensation than just the money they could have earned.
And take every penny out of the AG and police budgets. If that goes over budgets, then start taking it from pensions.
People that hold the power of life, death, and freedom over others should pay the full cost of their fuck ups
What about the enjoyment she would've had with her daughter and family? How do do pay that back?
They can't give it back. That's why it needs to be money.
You don't. Where are you going to work? What can you put on your CV? What work experience do you have? On top of that your ability to learn is a far cry of what you had in your 20s. If you have no family who'll take care of you, your future is utterly fucked. You're destined to live in poverty until the end of your life.
On the other hand you might have a pretty good lawsuit against the state. Some states (all?) have laws defining maximum damages, so it might not be an amazing payout.
It won't fix the lost 40 years of her life tho
I didn't think you really could. From now on, everything will be a new experience. All things and persons she knew, have changed.
All things and persons she knows, are still in prison.
You have the very positive fact, that you were proven innocent and that you are out of prison.
But, she shouldn't have been there in the first place.
Btw, is she getting a fair amount of money for this or will this be like: Shit happens, sorry ma'am?
The PAC that got this AG elected must have a loose definition of 'crooked'.
From their site:
Of course it's "christian"...
This is why there should be no death penalty.