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Missouri Supreme Court clears way for release of woman imprisoned for library worker’s 1980 murder

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The Missouri Supreme Court has cleared the way for the release of a Missouri woman whose murder conviction was overturned after she served 43 years in prison, but she still remained in custody as of Thursday evening.

Sandra Hemme’s lawyers say Republian Attorney General Andrew Bailey’s Office’s is disregarding the ruling and is directing the Department of Corrections not to release Hemme, CBS affiliate KCTV reported.

A circuit court judge ruled last month that Hemme’s attorneys showed evidence of her “actual innocence,” and an appeals court ruled she should be freed while her case is reviewed.

But Hemme’s immediate freedom has been complicated by lengthy sentences she received for crimes she committed while behind bars – a total of 12 years, which were piled on top of the life sentence she received for her murder conviction.

US-NEWS-MO-JAILED-WOMAN-INNOCENT-KC
Sandra “Sandy” Hemme has spent more than 43 years in prison for a 1980 murder in St. Joseph, Missouri. The Innocence Project says she falsely confessed and evidence points to a corrupt cop. 

Neil Nakahodo/The Kansas City Star/Tribune News Service via Getty Images


Bailey took his fight to keep her locked up to the state’s highest court, but her attorneys argued that keeping her incarcerated any longer would be a “draconian outcome.”

Her release appeared imminent after the Missouri Supreme Court refused to undo lower court rulings that allowed her to be released on her own recognizance and placed in the custody of her sister and brother-in-law in the Missouri town of Higginsville.

No details have been released on when Hemme will be freed. One of her attorneys, Sean O’Brien, filed a motion Thursday asking that a judge “hold an emergency status conference at the earliest possible time” and order Hemme’s release.

Hemme’s lawyers, in an emailed statement to The Associated Press, said her family “is eager and ready to reunite with her, and the Department of Corrections should respect and promptly” release her.

Hemme, now 64, had been serving a life sentence at a prison northeast of Kansas City after she was twice convicted of murder in the death of library worker Patricia Jeschke.

She’s been the longest-held wrongly incarcerated woman known in the U.S., according to her legal team at the Innocence Project.

“This Court finds that the totality of the evidence supports a finding of actual innocence,” Circuit Court Judge Ryan Horsman concluded after an extensive review.

Horsman noted that Hemme was heavily sedated and in a “malleable mental state” when investigators repeatedly questioned her in a psychiatric hospital. Her attorneys described her ultimate confession as “often monosyllabic responses to leading questions.” Other than this confession, no evidence linked her to the crime, her trial prosecutor said.

“Police exploited her mental illness and coerced her into making false statements while she was sedated and being treated with antipsychotic medication,” the Innocence Project said. “The only evidence that ever connected Ms. Hemme to the crime was her own unreliable and false confessions: statements taken from her while she was being treated at the state psychiatric hospital and forcibly given medication literally designed to overpower her will.”

The St. Joseph Police Department, meanwhile, ignored evidence pointing to Michael Holman – a fellow officer, who died in 2015 – and the prosecution wasn’t told about FBI results that could have cleared her, so it was never disclosed before her trials, the judge found.

“This Court finds that the evidence shows that Ms. Hemme’s statements to police are so unreliable and that the evidence pointing to Michael Holman as the perpetrator of the crime so objective and probative that no reasonable juror would find Ms. Hemme guilty,” Horsman concluded in his 118-page ruling. “She is the victim of a manifest injustice.”



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“Gladiator II” actors on preparing for the highly anticipated sequel, movie’s legacy

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It’s been almost 25 years since the movie “Gladiator” took the world by storm. 

“I saw it in the movie theater when it came out,” said actor Pedro Pascal, who plays the Roman general Marcus Acacius in “Gladiators II.” “I saw it twice.”

In “Gladiator II,” the highly anticipated sequel that comes out on Friday, Rome is led by two emperor brothers. Caracala is played by Joseph Quinn, who was just 6 years old when the original “Gladiator” came out.

“I think there was a legacy from the first film that demanded reverence and respect,” Quinn told “CBS Mornings.”

To prepare for the film and understand his environment better, Quinn spent two weeks wandering around Rome.

“I think it’s just something so humbling about Rome, and inspiring, and the fact that this civilization that was so ahead of its time collapsed, it’s kind of a little haunting,” he said.

For the actors who had fighting roles in the movie, they said training was grueling as not all of it was performed by stunt actors.

Caracala’s co-emperor in the movie is his brother Geta, played by Fred Hechinger, who said he always wanted to work for director Ridley Scott, who also directed the original movie.

“I remember finding out that the same person made all of these different movies that I love. ‘Thelma & Louise’ and ‘Alien’ were made by the same person, and it kind of expanded my sense of what a director can be,” Hechinger said.

Unlike others, Scott will shoot certain sequences from start to finish without cutting. On some movie sets, actors have to react to things off camera that aren’t really happening, but not with Scott.

“The action was all there and it’s all off camera. Normally, under any other circumstance, you would be looking at a tennis ball or two pieces of tape as a cross for your eyeline and imagining what’s happening, but no, Ridley will place that in front of you and have it play,” said Pascal. “It’s like nothing I’ve ever experienced before. And it’s likely not something I’ll ever experience again.”

“Gladiator II” opens in theaters Nov. 22.



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Trump assassination task force issues subpoenas for ATF testimony

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Task force blames Secret Service for failures in Pennsylvania Trump assassination attempt


Task force blames Secret Service for failures in Pennsylvania Trump assassination attempt

03:25

WASHINGTON, D.C. (KDKA) — The House task force investigating the July 13 assassination attempt on President-elect Donald Trump issued subpoenas on Monday to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives for testimony from two ATF employees regarding the response to the Butler, Pennsylvania, shooting.

The subpoenas follow letters from the task force’s chairman, Rep. Mike Kelly, Republican of Pennsylvania, and Ranking Member Jason Crow, Democrat of Colorado, seeking documents and testimony on Oct. 3 and Nov. 6. 

A shooter opened fire at Trump’s July 13th rally in Butler, wounding Trump when a bullet grazed his ear. A rally-goer was killed and two others were wounded before Secret Service snipers shot and killed the gunman, later identified as a 20-year-old Pennsylvania man. Since then, Trump won the presidential election and will be headed to the White House in January. 

In a release from Kelly’s office, the task force said the ATF had not produced any requested documents or made any personnel available for interviews with the task force, and the ATF made its first set of documents available less than an hour after served the subpoenas for depositions.

One of the two subpoenas for depositions was issued to an agent who participated in the agency’s response to the shooting in Butler, the release said. The other is for testimony from a supervisory agent, according to the media release.

Excerpts from Kelly’s letters to the two ATF employees stated that the task force “specifically outlined seventeen requests for document production, even going so far as to note which were the priority items. In addition, the Task Force identified three categories of requests for transcribed interviews with relevant ATF agents.”

The bipartisan House task force said last month that the incident was “preventable,” detailing in a report that there were communication and planning shortcomings.



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Calls grow for public release of Gaetz report from House Ethics Committee

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Calls grow for public release of Gaetz report from House Ethics Committee – CBS News


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Some lawmakers in Congress are pushing for the House Ethics Committee to release their report on misconduct allegations against Matt Gaetz, President-elect Donald Trump’s choice for attorney general. CBS News congressional correspondent Scott MacFarlane has more.

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