cheered and mobilized Friday in a growing
effort to try to compel intransigent Gov.
Haley Barbour to grant the women
pardons.
Jamie and Gladys Scott spent 15 years
behind bars before Barbour allowed their
Jan. 7 release on the condition Gladys
donate a kidney to her ailing sister. They
had been sentenced to two life terms each
for their involvement in an armed robbery
that supporters say netted just $11. The
sisters maintain their innocence in the
1993 crime committed in Forest.
They remain on parole, prompting their
defenders to rally and urge spectators to
sign an online petition asking for full
pardons.
Saying the Scotts’ prison terms were too
harsh for the crime, civil rights groups
across the country had successfully
agitated for the sisters’ release – but
amnesty apparently isn’t forthcoming.
“Another petition for a pardon will be
denied,” Barbour spokeswoman Laura Hipp
said Friday.
Gladys Scott, 38, said the pardon is
important because she wants to have full r
ights, including the ability to vote. The
sisters now live in Florida with their mother.
But on Thursday, Barbour also had said a
pardon was unlikely, telling The Associated
Press, “I wouldn’t hold my breath.”
That remark didn’t sit well with many of the
activists, civil rights leaders and students
who gathered at events staged Friday at
the Capitol and Jackson State University.
Joyce Ann Brown, 64, of Dallas, who was
freed several years ago in Texas after
being wrongfully convicted of murder,
delivered one of the harshest judgments of
Barbour during a Q&A session with the
Scott sisters at Jackson State University.
“If he says, ‘hold your breath,’ his a–
needs to be out of office,” said Brown, a
long-time activist for prisoners’ rights.
Asked afterward if she thought a pardon
was likely, Gladys Scott said, “I’m praying,
Source: Clarion Ledger
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