Missouri
Sandra Hemme spent 43 years wrongfully imprisoned. Missouri would pay little if she is freed
After serving 43 years in prison for a murder case hinged on things she said as a psychiatric patient, Sandra Hemme could be cleared of the killing and freed in less than three weeks, by July 14.
For that, Missouri state law promises $100 a day for each day of her life lost to prison on a wrongful conviction. For Hemme, who was first convicted in 1981 for the 1980 killing, that’s roughly $1.6 million.
Some critics say that’s too little for 43 years. If her case had been in federal court, she would be in line for about a third more. In Kansas, nearly twice as much. In Texas, the money would have been more than doubled.
Livingston County Circuit Judge Ryan Horsman ruled in mid-June that the state must free Hemme unless prosecutors retried her in the next 30 days. Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey said shortly after the ruling that his appeals division would look into whether to challenge the judge’s decision.
The judge ruled that prosecutors presented no forensic evidence or motive linking Hemme to the killing of library worker Patricia Jeschke in St. Joseph, Missouri, in November 1980.
Rather, the case relied on what she said in a psychiatric ward in a St. Joseph hospital. At the time, she said conflicting and impossible things. At one point, she claimed to see a man commit the killing, but he was in another city at the time. At other times, she said she knew about the murder because of extrasensory perception. Two weeks into talks with detectives, she said she thought she stabbed Jeschke with a hunting knife, but she wasn’t sure.
Hemme’s lawyers accuse a now-discredited police officer of her murder. In a rare departure from its policy a year ago, the attorney general’s office didn’t object to a hearing to explore a wrongful-conviction claim.
If she’s cleared, Hemme’s case would mark the longest known wrongful conviction of a woman in U.S. history.
Her compensation for those years in jail will not be a record.
Caps on wrongful-conviction compensation vary widely across the country. In federal cases, the limit is $50,000 for every year someone’s wrongly held in prison plus $100,000 for every year on death row.
In Washington, D.C., the cap is $200,000 a year. Connecticut pays as much as $131,506. Nevada has a sliding scale that pays $100,000 a year on cases of 20 years or more.
Kansas pays $65,000 for each year. In more than a dozen other states, the rate runs from $50,000 to $80,000. Of states that set limits or promise compensation, Missouri’s $36,500 a year is low.
The National Registry of Exonerations counts 54 people convicted of crimes in Missouri who have been exonerated since 1989. Only nine of them got payouts from the state. Missouri is the only state that gives wrongly imprisoned inmates compensation if they were proved not guilty by DNA analysis.
Gov. Mike Parson vetoed a bill in 2023 that could have provided inmates proven not guilty with a larger compensation up to $179 a day, allowed prosecutors to seek judicial review of past cases and created a state special unit to help prosecutors with investigating cases.
This story was originally published by The Beacon, a fellow member of the KC Media Collective.
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Several agencies, including the Pettis County Fire Department, are monitoring a fire Monday afternoon at the Central Missouri Landfill.
The Sedalia-Pettis County Emergency Management Agency posted on social media around 4:15 p.m. that some roads have been reopened in the area of the landfill.
The Sedalia Fire Department posted it was also monitoring the landfill and working with the National Weather Service to keep track of any wind gusts.
—
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — An 18-year-old is dead and three other teenagers are injured after a crash Friday night in Johnson County, Missouri.
According to the Missouri State Highway Patrol, Turner George, 18, was driving a 2004 Dodge truck when he lost control while accelerating through a curve on Southwest 271st Road north of Southwest 1200th Road.
Missouri news: Headlines from St. Louis, Jefferson City and across the Show-Me State
George drove off the roadway and hit a ditch, causing his car to flip and crash into a fence, MSHP said. The crash happened at about 9 p.m.
MSHP said George was pronounced dead at the scene. He was not wearing a seatbelt.
A 17-year-old, 18-year-old and 19-year-old were also in the truck at the time of the crash. They all refused treatment and had minor injuries. The 17-year-old was the only one wearing a seatbelt.
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A proposed minimum wage ballot measure and paid sick leave for all Missouri workers is on the November ballot. Missouri’s four candidates for governor gave their take on whether Proposition A should pass, which would increase the minimum wage to $15 per hour by 2026.
Republican Mike Kehoe, a former businessman, said that the government should not be setting wages – the economy should.
“When we change minimum wage standards, we actually affect those that we’re trying to help the most,” Kehoe said at a recent Missouri Press Association-hosted candidate forum. “Minimum wages will cause prices to rise on the most basic of products. It also leaves a void for the youngest of people who want to start at an entry level job. You take those jobs away from them.”
In doing so, Kehoe said a “false economy” is created where kids can’t get a job and the price for essential products goes up for people who need it the most.
Democrat Crystal Quade supports the ballot proposal. At the forum, she said that this is another example of the “status quo” not listening to the needs of citizens.
“We’ve heard on this stage that minimum wage jobs are entry level jobs and they’re just for kids,” she said. “The reality is we have so many parents and so many people who are working minimum wage jobs, multiple minimum wage jobs to get by because they can’t actually find good quality high paying jobs in the state of Missouri.”
To the other portion of the proposal, Quade said that she wants to “elevate” the earned sick leave part.
“As a working parent myself, I understand what it means when my kid gets sick, and I have to call in and wonder what that means for my job and my security,” said Quade. “And I have, and prior to becoming a legislator, I’ve had good jobs, but not everybody has that affordability where their employer is flexible with them.”
Kehoe did not say whether he opposes mandatory sick leave. Libertarian Bill Slantz and Green Party candidate Paul Lehmann also did not comment on the paid sick leave portion of the proposal.
Lehmann supports raising the minimum wage while Slantz does not.
Copyright © 2024 · Missourinet
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