MS - Sisters reunite with family after 16 years behind bars

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http://www.cnn.com/2010/CRIME/12/30/mississippi.sisters.prison.release/index.html?hpt=C2

Is this really legal? Can a state require a prisoner to give a kidney as a condition of release? Is this Mississippi justice?

Check out the reason these sisters got a life sentence - luring a man so he could be robbed. The robbers got $11.00 and also got a lighter sentence.

Also, read the reaction of the NAACP. Are they for real? Release a prisoner with the stipulation they give a kidney to save the state money, and the NAACP rejoices? What's next from our government? Can a prisoner sell his/her organs to get out?

"We need more days like this in Mississippi," NAACP President Benjamin Jealous said at a news conference Thursday at the State Capitol building in Jackson. "We need more days like this in our country."
 
Really strange that the women had no priors, and the people that actually committed the robbery got less time. I read somewhere they got 10 months?
 
Here's an earlier article about the sisters.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/16/opinion/16herbert.html?ref=haleybarbour
The sisters were accused of luring two men to a spot outside the rural town of Forest, Miss., in 1993, where the men were robbed by three teenagers, one of whom had a shotgun. The Scott sisters knew the teens. The evidence of the sisters’ involvement has always been ambiguous, at best. The teenagers pleaded guilty to the crime, served two years in prison and were released. All were obliged by the authorities, as part of their plea deals, to implicate the sisters.

No explanation has ever emerged as to why Jamie and Gladys Scott were treated so severely.
Click to expand...

As both articles note, Gladys offered to donate a kidney to her sister. Why the governor chose to make it a requirement...weird. Such a messed-up case all around.
 
I think he is overstepping his authority personally.
He could have made a comment about hoping she follows thru with her promise to donate or something along that line, but if they are no longer a threat just pardon or parole them and step out of it. That is the role of the state with prisoners.

What are they going to do if she dies in surgery and it was a requirement of her release? What are they going to do when someone else wants to trade a kidney to get out of prison for a "petty" crime?

I don't understand inserting himself into that part of the story. The parole board had recommended her release. He could have just stamped it off.
 
It sounds like she wants to donate, otherwise I would really be objecting to this.
Considering there have been cases of organ donors dying, no one should be pushed into donating organs, IMO.
 
I think it's great that she wants to donate, but making it a condition of her release is IMO over-stepping boundaries.
 
Its to prevent the state having to foot the bill for her daily dialysis.Thats why it was made a condiition upon her release.
 
This case is hinky and odd anyway. They were peripherally involved in a theft that I read amounted to something like $11. The actual robbers served almost NO time and have long since been released, and yet these women, whose role in the crime was marginal at best, have been in jail, what 16 years? Totally ridiculous
 
This was discussed on a national newscast tonight. There was some comment that the governor was doing it this way for political reasons, his own political career.
 
Sisters reunite with family after 16 years behind bars

...Gladys and Jamie Scott, were released from a Mississippi prison Friday after 16 years behind bars. Gov. Haley Barbour suspended their armed robbery sentences on one condition -- that one sister donate a kidney to the other.

Jamie Scott, 38, is gravely ill and needs a kidney transplant, said attorney Chokwe Lumumba.
......................
The sisters were convicted of armed robbery and sentenced to life in prison for their role in a 1993 ambush in Scott County, Mississippi. Authorities accused the sisters of leading two men to a group of three teenagers, who hit them with a shotgun and took their wallets. The robbers netted between $11 and $200, according to CNN affiliate WLBT.
Scott sisters celebrate freedom Sisters freed, sentences suspended

Both sisters have maintained their innocence. After their release Friday, they told reporters they planned to continue fighting.

More here:

http://www.cnn.com/2011/CRIME/01/08/florida.sisters.released/index.html?hpt=C1
​

BBM

In the comments section, someone noted that the actual men who attacked the teens got 8 years. These women were sentenced to life and spent 16 years....

Seems a bit extreme to me - even if they are guilty.
 
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