News

23259 readers

3379 users here now

Welcome to the News community!

Rules:

1. Be civil

Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.

2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.

Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. We have an actively updated blocklist, which you can see here: https://lemmy.world/post/2246130 if you feel like any website is missing, contact the mods. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.

3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.

Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.

4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.

Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.

5. Only recent news is allowed.

Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.

6. All posts must be news articles.

No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.

7. No duplicate posts.

If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.

8. Misinformation is prohibited.

Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.

9. No link shorteners.

The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.

10. Don't copy entire article in your post body

For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.

founded 1 year ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

430

Missouri woman who served 43 years in prison is free after her murder conviction was overturned (apnews.com)

submitted 3 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

39 comments fedilink hide all child comments

A woman whose murder conviction was overturned after she served 43 years of a life sentence was released Friday, despite attempts in the last month by Missouri’s attorney general to keep her behind bars.

Sandra Hemme, 64, left a prison 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 sister, daughter and granddaughter.

Hemme had been the longest-held wrongly incarcerated woman known in the U.S., according to her legal team at the Innocence Project. The judge originally ruled on June 14 that Hemme’s attorneys had established “clear and convincing evidence” of “actual innocence” and he overturned her conviction. But Republican Attorney General Andrew Bailey fought her release in the courts.

“It was too easy to convict an innocent person and way harder than it should have been to get her out, even to the point of court orders being ignored,” her attorney Sean O’Brien said. “It shouldn’t be this hard to free an innocent person.”

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] [email protected] 8 points 3 months ago (1 children)

isn't even trying to keep an innocent behind bars already a type of kidnapping attempt and every second of delay that it caused an actual act of kidnapping?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 months ago (1 children)

During a court hearing Friday, Judge Ryan Horsman said that if Hemme wasn’t released within hours, Bailey himself would have to appear in court Tuesday morning. He threatened to hold the attorney general’s office in contempt.

Props to the judge tho, 'cause threatening Bailey with contempt charges could have landed him in jail (for a bit anyways).

"See my big gavel here? If you don't release her immediately this gavel will crash into your thick, stupid skull ... with force."

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 months ago

Honestly, there should still be an inquest or something where the guy is brought in and must explain wtf he was thinking or trying to accomplish by fighting her release. And if he doesn't have a satisfying answer, remove him from the position.

And no, I wouldn't consider "trying to save the state taxpayers from a lawsuit for the false imprisonment" a satisfying answer.

In fact, if he can't defend a position such that it's reasonable to believe she was actually guilty, there should be criminal charges against him and anyone who worked with him to stop or stall the release. And I'd say this should be the case for any prosecution where it becomes just about winning a case rather than demonstrating the truth in court.