With no fanfare, Sandra Hemme, the Missouri woman who spent 43 years in prison for a murder she did not commit, is finally free of the legal system.
Livingston County Circuit Court Judge Ryan Horsman, who found Hemme innocent last summer, signed the final order on Tuesday that granted her freedom. The order from Horsman was a little more than a page long.
“Sandra Hemme is hereby permanently and unconditionally discharged from custody,” the judge wrote.
It means, for the first time since she was 21, Hemme is totally free.
In 1985, Hemme was convicted of murder for the 1980 killing of Patricia Jeschke, in St. Joseph, Missouri.
Horsman declared Hemme innocent on June 14, 2024, after her attorneys proved the prosecution withheld evidence and she received poor legal representation. Her attorneys also provided evidence the murder had actually been committed by a disgraced and now-dead St. Joseph police officer.
Over the following five months, Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey fought to overturn Horsman’s decision and return Hemme to prison.
That battle finally ended in October when the Missouri Court of Appeals upheld the innocence ruling.
And last week, Buchanan County Prosecutor Michelle Davidson let a deadline to recharge Hemme pass without action.
Hemme now lives with her sister in mid-Missouri, where she went after being released from prison on bond pending the outcome of the state’s appeal of her exoneration.
Hemme spent more time in prison than any other wrongly-convicted woman in U.S. history.
