FREEDOM for the Scott Sisters!! Now please send your prayers to them for health and well-being

image of poster is from here

Along with the release from prison of Sara Kruzan, I remain hopeful that more women wrongfully imprisoned by the very CRIMINAL injustice system in the U.S. will also be released in 2011. What we need is more public/activist attention put on wrongful arrests, convictions, and sentences for women of color in the U.S. When rich white men steal millions, or run multi-million-dollar companies into the ground, due to complete corruption, they are let go with million-dollar golden parachutes and then are rehired to drive another company into the ground. Compare that to what happened to the Scott Sisters and tell me we don't live in a country that isn't white male supremacist. If you try to, I'm calling you a liar or a complete fool.

Congratulations and Mazel Tov to Gladys and Jamie Scott. Blessings to both of you to the depths of your souls. I hope the kidney transplant proves life-saving and life-enhancing. And that both of you heal well and quickly.

All that follows is a cross-post from ColorLines, *here*.

Scott Sisters Finally Set Free

Sisters Gladys(R) and Jaime Scott. Courtesy of the Mississippi Department of Corrections. Photo: HO/AFP/Getty Images/Newscom

by Jamilah King

Monday, January 3 2011, 11:29 AM EST

Gladys and Jamie Scott are free. The two sisters have spent nearly seventeen years in a Mississippi prison after being convicted as teenagers of an $11 robbery back in 1994. Last week, the state’s governor, Haley Barbour, finally [suspended the life sentences of] the two sisters, offering a long awaited victory in the highly publicized case.

“We all worked together to make justice work in this state,” said National NAACP President Benjamin Jealous. “I’m here to thank the people and the governor of Mississippi. When you are right, you are right. Gov. Barbour, you were right today.”

Despite receiving praise from some national media, Barbour’s actions are drawing skepticism from some close watchers who say the move was made more out of crass political calculation than compassion. The governor’s decision to pardon the two sisters came less than two weeks after he reportedly had made comments that, in effect, sang the praises of his hometown’s white supremacist group. Barbour had previously denied at least two requests to pardon the sisters.

Barbour’s suspension of the Scott sisters’ life sentences* also came with an order for Gladys Scott to donate a kidney to her sister Jamie, which she had already volunteered to do on her own when her sister was first diagnosed with kidney failure. And so far the state of Mississippi refuses to pay for the transplant, even though doctors have found that the state prison system’s deplorable living conditions and medical care are at least partly to blame for Jamie Scott’s condition.

Still, the pardon is a major civil rights victory, and one that’s largely due to unrelenting organizing over the past year.

“I’m just so blessed and happy. After 16 years, me and my sister can go home to our family who need us,” Gladys Scott told reporters after the decision.

• A previous version of this story incorrectly stated that the Scott sisters had been pardoned. Gov. Barbour has instead suspended each woman’s life sentence.

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• abcd4006 18 hours ago

  The fact that the Govenor had earlier denied at least two requests to pardon the sisters makes me sick.Something is terrribly wrong with a criminal justice system that can send these then two teenage sisters to prison for life for such a minor crime.It would seem that it is not a coincidence that both of these sisters were black.I'm wondering if this same sentence would have been handed down if they were white? Barbour’s decision to pardon the two sisters came less than two weeks after he reportedly had made comments that, in effect, sang the praises of his hometown’s white supremacist group.What is the world coming to?