Eyes on The Prize

In June of 1985, Sandra Hemme was wrongfully convicted of the 1980 murder of Patricia Jeschke in St. Joseph, Missouri, based entirely on false confessions she gave while heavily medicated and in severe pain at a state psychiatric hospital. No witnesses or physical evidence connected her to the murder, the crime scene, or Ms. Jeschke. As charges were prepared against Ms. Hemme, the St. Joseph Police Department discovered evidence implicating one of their own, disgraced officer Michael Holman, as the likely killer. Evidence of Mr. Holman’s guilt – as well as evidence of the many other crimes Mr. Holman committed in the months leading up to and after Ms. Jeschke’s murder – was withheld from the defense and concealed during her 1985 trial. 

While serving a life sentence, Ms. Hemme contacted the Innocence Project, which accepted her case and sought DNA testing on her behalf. We tragically learned that virtually all of the physical evidence had been destroyed, but our work did not end there. Instead, we conducted an extensive investigation that unearthed evidence of Ms. Hemme’s innocence and exposed grave violations of her constitutional rights. Armed with this information, we joined forces with University of Missouri–Kansas City Law Professor Sean O’Brien, and filed a state petition for a writ of habeas corpus in February of 2023. The petition argued that the State withheld critical, exculpatory evidence, Ms. Hemme received ineffective assistance of counsel at trial, and she was actually innocent of Ms. Jeschke’s murder.

Following an evidentiary hearing in January of 2024, a Livingston County Circuit Court judge vacated Ms. Hemme’s conviction and ordered a new trial. In his decision, he wrote, “The only evidence linking Ms. Hemme to the crime was that of her own inconsistent, disproven statements, statements that were taken while she was in psychiatric crisis and physical pain.” Unfortunately, the Missouri Attorney General’s Office sought to block Ms. Hemme’s release from prison as it pursued an appeal. But the Missouri Court of Appeals and Missouri Supreme Court rejected the State’s arguments for her continued imprisonment, and Ms. Hemme was released in July of 2024.

In October of 2024, the Missouri Court of Appeals affirmed the circuit court judge’s decision to vacate Ms. Hemme’s conviction and gave the State 10 days in which to file a written election to retry her. After the State allowed that deadline to pass, the circuit court judge issued an order that permanently and unconditionally vacated Ms. Hemme’s conviction and sentence, and closed the case. She spent 43 years in prison, more than any other known wrongfully convicted woman in American history.  

Since her release, Ms. Hemme has reconnected with her family, and, with the support of our social work team, she is living independently for the first time. She frequently attends the Innocence Project’s weekly online support group to connect with other freed and exonerated clients, and visits a senior center weekly to play bingo.

In January of 2025, Scott Minton was exonerated after serving three decades in prison for a rape, kidnapping, and robbery he did not commit in Cleveland, Tennessee. Even though 18 alibi witnesses and time-stamped receipts placed Mr. Minton elsewhere at the time of the crime, he was convicted based on an eyewitness misidentification and, like Ms. Hemme, a false confession. No physical evidence ever connected him to the crime.

In 2023, the Innocence Project and Tennessee Innocence Project filed a motion for post-conviction relief that included expert reports on eyewitness misidentification and false confessions. At a post-conviction hearing, experts offered testimony on advances in eyewitness misidentification and false confession research that undermined both the survivor’s identification of Mr. Minton and Mr. Minton’s confession.

In December of 2024, a Hamilton County Criminal Court judge acknowledged that this new research constituted new scientific evidence and vacated Mr. Minton’s conviction. One month later, the District Attorney’s Office for the Tenth Judicial District in Tennessee dismissed all charges against him. 

In the months after his release, Mr. Minton, with support from our social work team, moved into his own apartment and began addressing the health issues that were left untreated during his time in prison. He now finds joy in watching the sun rise and set.