Tiffany B. Brown

a mish-mosh of stuff

On “justice” and the Scott Sisters

The prison terms were suspended — not commuted — on the condition that Gladys donate a kidney to Jamie, who is seriously ill with diabetes and high blood pressure and receives dialysis at least three times a week. Gladys had long expressed a desire to donate a kidney to her sister, but to make that a condition of her release was unnecessary, mean-spirited, inhumane and potentially coercive. It was a low thing to do.

From Bob Herbert’s New York Times column, For Two Sisters, the End of an Ordeal (log in required).

This.

It’s bad enough that they were sentenced to consecutive life sentences for their role in an armed robbery that yielded $11 (though the amount may have been as much as $200). I mean, since when do two first-time offenders get consecutive life sentences — not concurrent — for an armed robbery in which no one was hurt, and such a small amount of money was stolen? Since when do two first-time offenders get consecutive life sentences based on the testimony of their teenage accomplices — ones who were essentially threatened with rape and then received far lighter sentences in exchange for their testimony?

In Mississippi, armed robbery carries a sentence of three years to life in prison without parole. There was a lot of sentencing room available. And yet two first-time offenders get two consecutive life sentences based on the coerced testimony of teens.

Now one of the others convicted of this crime retracted his testimony in an affidavit. The sisters’ defense attorney was disbarred for conduct in an unrelated case. Even the prosecutor in the case thinks keeping them in prison is some B.S.

You would think this was a no-brainer for commuting a sentence. Again: first time offenders. Shaky testimony. Potentially incompetent defense. Harsher than necessary sentence. A governor who is rumored to be a 2010 GOP presidential candidate. A pardon might be too much — I mean never underestimate M-I-crooked-letter-crooked letter-I’s willingness and ability to f*ck over some Negroes — but a reduction in the sentence seems reasonable, fair, and just, right?

Apparently not to Governor Haley Barbour (R).

Barbour instead chose to suspend the sentence — that is, release the sisters from prison, but let their conviction and sentence stand. What’s worse, he has required Gladys Scott to donate a kidney to her ailing sister Jamie as a condition of their release.

Yes. Governor Barbour has required both of these sisters to undergo major surgery as a condition of their suspended sentence. Making major surgery a condition of release smacks of a time when black female bodies were subject to the whims of white owners (*cough*slavery*cough*), and later white men who just felt like it (*cough*Jim Crow*cough*).

The sense of privilege, entitlement and arrogance Barbour has displayed should outrage us all.

  • mnewton

    Anyone sit in a court room for a day and watch the show? The parade of black people (mostly young black males) gives the impression that only blacks commit crime. Go down to the probation office… same scenario. Prisons and detention centers are the mainstay of many State projects. Added to that is the increasing number of States that have dissolved their State operated probation department and hired private companies to manage probation and paroles. Some States also employ private companies to operate their prisons.

    In the political climate today, we build more and more prions, not more and more schools; we incarcerate people at $50k a year but we can’t get $30 over 4 years to go to college. States have moved away from appropiating funds for eduction and now use Lottery funds to fund education. The question remains: What happened to the hundreds of millions that once funded education BEFORE the advent of the Lottery.

    A close examination of most State Lottery systems is that they are nothing more than a tax on poor people eager to escape their low economic condition. When our State Lottery boasted that they had raised over a Billion Dollars… and given out over a billion scholarships, I wondered what was the value of each scholarship. Over the years our State lottery has raised the eligibility requirement to get a scholarship…. (well, the politicians are not going to cut their take of the payoff). Now the politicians are not stupid enough to operate the lotteries themselves so they legislate to created a corporation to run the lottery for the State. Guess what, you can’t find out where all of the money goes. Every lottery jackpot is only HALF of what the lottery has taken in from poor people wishing on a dream.

    Hold it… I’m off track…The U.S. has not changed much since the civil war. Their is justice for Blacks and a separate justice of Whites. Anyone ever read the Confederated Constitution? The Scott Sister’s situation don’t surprise me. From the outset they should not have received the sentence they got and as a humanitarian effort, the sister with the kidney failure should have been released. At least that what they did for Nazi war criminals… of which the Scott Sisters were not.