Two Mississippi sisters whose life sentences were suspended after one agreed to donate her kidney to the other were freed from prison this morning.
The Clarion-Ledger newspaper says 38-year-old Jamie Scott and 36-year-old Gladys Scott left Central Mississippi Correctional Facility through a crush of news media en route to a reunion with their mother in Pensacola, Fla.
The Scotts have served 16 years of life sentences for their involvement in a 1993 armed robbery that netted between $11 and $200.
Republican Gov. Haley Barbour agreed to suspend their sentences indefinitely, but conditioned Gladys Scott’s release on her donating a kidney to her sister.
It is unclear, however, whether Gladys will be an organ match for her sister or whether she has any health complications that could prevent the procedure, the newspaper says. It is also unclear how that would affect her release.
“All of the ‘What if’ questions at this point are purely hypothetical,” Barbour said. “We’ll deal with those situations if they happen.”
In agreeing to the release, Barbour noted the high cost — nearly $200,000 a year — of providing dialysis treatment to Jamie Scott.
source: usatoday.com
