A Grassroots Victory: Mississippi Sisters Will Soon Be Set Free

You did it.

Jamie and Gladys Scott, sisters who had spent 16 years in Mississippi prisons for a robbery where no one was hurt, will be set free any moment now. And it took the voices of people from across Mississippi and around the world -- including more than 10,000 Change.org members who signed a petition posted by the Action Committee for Women in Prison -- to make it happen. The Scott sisters were severely oversentenced and they were suffering in prison (Jamie undergoes daily dialysis and needs a kidney transplant -- Gladys plans to donate her kidney, more on this below). They weren't eligible for parole until 2014. But Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour heard the groundswell and took (clumsy) action, suspending the women's sentences last night.

The Scott sisters were convicted in 1994 of allegedly playing a secondary role in an armed robbery of two men. The women claim innocence, but even if they committed the crime the sentence was too severe. They allegedly led two men into an ambush by other armed men, who stole $11 from the victims. No one was hurt.  The armed men aren't in prison. But the Scott sisters got double-life sentences for being (alleged) accomplices.

Their case, which Nadra Kareem covered in October on the Human Rights blog, has drawn international attention. The NAACP organized people across the country on behalf of the Scott sisters, and director Benjamin Jealous had just landed in Mississippi to meet with Barbour when the governor announced he would suspend the women's sentences.

"This vindication is because of you," Jealous wrote to NAACP supporters today. "You raised your voice. You kept the faith. When we couldn't visit the Scott sisters, you wrote messages of support to let them know we remembered them. When we wouldn't be heard by the political and judicial powers that be, you spoke louder. And because of your perseverance, the Scott sisters’ nightmare is finally over."

One strange and unsettling aspect of this wonderful news are the details of the potential kidney transplant. Perhaps with his eye on a potential presidential run in 2012, Barbour made Gladys' donation of a kidney to her sister a condition of the suspended sentence. He basically came out and said that he's freeing Jamie' because her treatment is costing Mississippi too much money. Ed Morrissey at Hot Air points out that Barbour is essentially tranferring the cost of the transplant to the federal government (under Medicare). Joe Carter at First Things called it "one of the creepiest statements ever issued by a state governor."

This clumsy, crass handling of the women's sentences and Jamie's health will backfire for Barbour. It's wonderful that the women will be freed, but Barbour certainly won't be remembered by the criminal justice reform community as a caring man who understands the waste and injustice of a broken system. And the racists and tough-on-crime types in his state won't forgive a suspended sentence because he saved a few bucks on a kidney transplant.

It's good to see justice done and I'm overjoyed that the Scotts will ring in 2011 in the free world. It's inspiring to see the voices of grasssroots criminal justice reformers have an impact. It's too bad, however, that Barbour cheapened justice with his ugly political games.

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Image: Mississippi Dept. of Corrections