Sandra Hemme spent more than four decades in prison for a murder she didn’t commit.
She’s now seeking compensation for her wrongful imprisonment.
On Thursday, Hemme, 64, filed a federal lawsuit against the St. Joseph, Missouri, Police Department and surviving members of the department who played a role in her wrongful conviction.
“Because of Defendants’ egregious constitutional violations, Plaintiff was convicted and spent more of her life imprisoned for something she did not do,” Hemme’s attorney, Michael Manners, wrote in the filing. “This lawsuit seeks compensation for this profound miscarriage of justice.”
Hemme was released from the Chillicothe Correctional Center on Friday, July 19, 2024, 43 years after she was sentenced for the 1980 murder of librarian Patricia Jeschke.
She had been the longest-held wrongly incarcerated woman known in the U.S., according to her legal team at the Innocence Project.
Hemme's immediate freedom had been complicated by sentences she received for crimes committed while behind bars.
She received a 10-year sentence in 1996 for attacking a prison worker with a razor blade, and a two-year sentence in 1984 for “offering to commit violence.”
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