Two Mississippi sisters who have spent 16 years in prison over an $11 armed robbery will be released with an unusual stipulation — one must donate a kidney to the other.
Gov. Haley Barbour, who suspended their sentences, said Wednesday that Gladys Scott, 36, must donate a kidney to her sister, Jamie, 38.
Each of the “Scott Sisters” got two life sentences after they were convicted by a jury of robbing two people near the town of Forest.
Although they would be eligible for parole in 2014, the Department of Corrections “believes the sisters no longer pose a threat to society” and their incarceration is no longer necessary for rehabilitation, Barbour said in a statement.
And Jamie Scott’s kidney dialysis treatment creates a substantial cost to the state, said Barbour.
Mississippi Corrections Commissioner Christopher B. Epps, who agreed with the decision to suspend the sentences, said Jamie Scott’s three-times-a-week dialysis costs the state about $190,000 a year.
The announcement pleased the NAACP and other civil rights advocates who have pressed for the sisters’ release in rallies and at other forums.
NAACP President Benjamin Jealous sent a tweet Wednesday night: “Spoke to Governor Barbour today, The Scott Sisters will be freed!!!!”
“We were pleasantly surprised,” said the Scotts’ attorney, Chokwe Lumumba, who said Gladys previously offered to make the kidney donation.
Lumumba contends the sisters were not involved in the robbery and that there were discrepancies in testimony. The convictions and sentences were upheld in 1996 by the Mississippi Court of Appeals.
In 1993, Gladys and Jamie Scott were arrested and charged with leading two men into an ambush in Scott County, according to CNN affiliate WLBT. Court records show the men were robbed by three teenagers who hit them with a shotgun and took their wallets.
According to The Clarion-Ledger, in Jackson, Mississippi, the sisters had pleaded not guilty as accessories but were convicted of armed robbery, while the three accomplices received lesser sentences and since have been released
“Regardless of what you think of the convictions, they have served more time than they should have served,” Lumumba said
