Submitted by Mark Esposito, Guest Blogger
Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour, preparing for a run for President, has granted clemency to two African-American sisters serving life sentences for an armed robbery 17 years ago. The sisters were convicted of robbing at gunpoint two men who were driving them to a nightclub in northern Mississippi in 1993. They had no prior criminal record and got $11.00. Each was sentenced to two life terms. Civil Rights activists have lobbied for their release arguing the sentences were too long.
The Chair of the Republican Governor’s Association did place one proviso on the pair however. Gladys Scott, 36, will have to donate a kidney to her ill sister, Jamie Scott, 38, who requires dialysis. Now a cynic like me might believe the move was a cost saving one to keep a few dollars in the state coffers, and … I’d be right. According to Barbour, the move was made to relieve a financial burden on the State. No thought of the harshness of the sentence on two then twenty-something year old “perps.” In Mississippi, the quality of mercy is apparently strained.
Not everybody is happy, however, with the cost-cutting move. “Michael Shapiro, chief of organ transplant at Hackensack University Medical Center in New Jersey, has criticized the decision to impose a condition for the release as unethical and possibly illegal.”
Source: Reuters
~Mark Esposito, Guest Blogger
So, they commit armed robbery and all the leftists get upset when they are actually taken off the street? Why is the amount of loot even relevant? I would just like to point out that EVERY member of the Jena 6 has committed crimes since their release.
Here is another Aafia article from a US legal blog.
I give up for the moment searching for that particular article. the thing is I do not think explicit evidence of police/prosecutorial malice is necessary, the over the top sentences for the Scott sisters with no criminal records compared with the short ones for the actual perpetrators is enough to indicate the presence of malice towards the Scotts by someone in the justice system.
A similar case where ridiculous sentencing, 86 years, indicates malice on the part of actors in the US justice system is that of Aafia Siddiqui. I have tried before to attract the professors attention to this case but he has not taken the bait. For those interested this Andy Worthington post is as good an introduction as any. Andy Worthington’s archives are worth searching for further Aafia information.