Free the Scott Sisters

[Article on some of the prisoners Gov. Barbour has pardoned already. --Jay]

The Mississippi pardons

The Mississippi pardons

By Bob Herbert

Gov. Haley Barbour of Mississippi has to decide whether to show mercy to two sisters, Jamie and Gladys Scott, who are each serving double consecutive life sentences in state prison for a robbery in which no one was injured and only $11 was taken.

This should be an easy call for a governor who has displayed a willingness to set free individuals convicted of far more serious crimes. Barbour has already pardoned four killers and suspended the life sentence of a fifth.

The Scott sisters have been in prison for 16 years. Jamie, now 38, is seriously ill. Both of her kidneys have failed. Keeping them locked up any longer is unconscionable and grotesquely inhumane.

The sisters were accused of luring two men to a spot outside the rural town of Forest, Miss., in 1993, where the men were robbed by three teenagers. The Scott sisters knew the teens. The evidence of the sisters' involvement has always been ambiguous, at best. The teenagers pleaded guilty to the crime, served two years in prison and were released. All were obliged by the authorities, as part of their plea deals, to implicate the sisters.

No explanation has ever emerged as to why Jamie and Gladys Scott were treated so severely.

In contrast, Barbour has been quite willing to hand get-out-of-jail-free cards to men who unquestionably committed brutal crimes. The Jackson Free Press, an alternative weekly, and Slate Magazine have catalogued these interventions by Barbour. Some Mississippi observers have characterized the governor's moves as acts of mercy; others have called them dangerous abuses of executive power.

The Mississippi Department of Corrections confirmed Barbour's role in the cases:

* Bobby Hays Clark was pardoned by the governor. He was serving a sentence for manslaughter and aggravated assault, having shot and killed a former girlfriend and badly beaten her boyfriend.

* Michael David Graham had his life sentence for murder suspended by Barbour. Graham had stalked his ex-wife for years before shooting her to death as she waited for a traffic light.

* Clarence Jones was pardoned by the governor. He had murdered his former girlfriend in 1992, stabbing her 22 times. He had already had his life sentence suspended by a previous governor.

* Paul Joseph Warnock was pardoned by Barbour. He was serving life for the murder of his girlfriend in 1989. According to Slate, Warnock shot his girlfriend in the back of the head while she slept.

* William James Kimble was pardoned by Barbour. He was serving life for the murder and robbery of an elderly man in 1991.

Radley Balko, in an article for Slate, noted that none of the five men was given relief because of concerns that they had been unfairly treated by the criminal justice system. There were no questions about their guilt or the fairness of the proceedings against them. But they did have one thing in common. All, as Balko pointed out, had been enrolled in a prison program "that had them doing odd jobs around the Mississippi governor's mansion."

The idea that those men could be freed from prison and allowed to pursue whatever kind of lives they might wish while the Scott sisters are kept locked up, presumably for the rest of their lives, is disturbing.

Supporters of the Scott sisters, including their attorney and Ben Jealous of the NAACP, have asked Barbour to intervene.

A spokeswoman for the governor told me he has referred the matter to the state's parole board. Under Mississippi law, the governor does not have to follow the recommendation of the board. With Jamie Scott seriously ill, the governor should move with dispatch.

The women's mother, Evelyn Rasco, told The Clarion-Ledger of Jackson, Miss.: "I wish they would just hurry up and let them out. I hope that is where it is leading to. That would be the only justified thing to do."

An affidavit submitted to the governor on behalf of the Scott sisters says: "Jamie and Gladys Scott respectfully pray that they each be granted a pardon or clemency of their sentences on the grounds that their sentences were too severe and they have been incarcerated for too long. If not released, Jamie Scott will probably die in prison."

As they are both serving double life sentences, a refusal by the governor to intervene will most likely mean that both will die in prison.

Bob Herbert is a columnist for the New York Times News Service.