"Sisters sentenced to double life sentences for stealing $11" It's late, I'm tired, and scrounging through blogs for possible links to my new site, when this headline jumps out at me from someone's blogroll.
What country did this happen in, I ask myself? Curious enough to click on the link, I find that it happened in the United States of America.
In Mississippi. In 1994.
Reading about this case is sickening, but it's like watching a train wreck, and I just can’t stop digging into the story. Now, I can't get to sleep, and since I desperately want this story to be a hoax, I check Snopes, and no corresponding phrase is found. I tried a general search, and there are 9,300 references to "Jamie and Gladys Scott," (over a million if you search without quotes) and their names come up as an auto-fill search term in Google.
Three hours later, after reading the trial transcript, I'm filled with an almost insane rage and profound grief that this could happen in the United States. Putting aside the overt racial overtones of the case, (the Scotts are African American,) I’m very surprised that their case hasn’t garnered more national press. Instead, Jamie and Gladys Scott have a growing base of average citizens and bloggers, who are outraged.
While this is not the worst case of corruption I've ever seen, it's just such a blatant miscarriage of justice, that it motivates most ordinary people who know about it to take some sort of action, whether it is writing letters to the Justice Department or making phone calls to Mississippi’s Governor.
I have a deeply held belief that the American judicial system gets it right most of the time. And that when presented with the evidence that it got it wrong, it self-corrects.
Except that Jamie and Gladys Scott are still in jail.
The real kicker is, they never committed the crime the were accused of in court.
Here are the bare bones of the case, as I understand them:
Someone in the Scott Family testifies against the town Sheriff in a bootlegging trial. The Deputy Sheriff tells Jamie and Gladys Scott's father that he would "get" him for this, through his daughters if necessary.
After getting a ride from some acquaintances when their car breaks down, one of the Scott sisters asks that they stop on the side of the road, as she's feeling sick and needs to get out of the car.
Another car has been following them. Three young men get out of this car and proceed to get into a fight with the people in the first car. One of the men loses his wallet or is robbed in the scuffle.
One victim said he lost of $200, but the thieves said that they only got $11.
The three men involved in the robbery, ages 14-18, are questioned by the Deputy Sheriff and are told that if they implicate the Scott sisters in the robbery, they will receive lesser sentences. They are told that if they don’t agree to this, they will serve life sentences. Because they have criminal records, they comply.
- At least one of the statements was prepared by the Sheriff’s office in advance of their arrest. - One suspect, who was 14 years old, was told that unless he signed his statement he'd be sent to the state pen, where they would: make a woman out of him. His parents are not present at his questioning."
In the courtroom, witness testimony conflicted.
The three young robbers were given light sentences and are now out of jail.
The Scott sisters were given life sentences.
All witnesses and victims of this crime have testified that the Scott Sisters were not involved in the robbery. Witnesses testified that they were coerced and threatened to lie on the Scott Sisters.
Quote from freejamieandgladyscott.blogspot.com
These young women had kids and jobs. They should never have been arrested, much less convicted and given life sentences.
The Scott Case Today
Fast forward to 2009. The Scott Family has asked Attorney General Eric Holder to review the case. His office has not responded.
The Civil Rights Division says that this case is 5 years past it’s statutory limits, however the Scott Family lawyer has been sending them letters for the past 14 years.
Normally, I’d speculate as to why the Scott Family is being denied justice, but I don’t want to shift the conversation away from Jamie and Gladys Scott. I do ask that you go to their website, look at the courtroom transcript, examine the evidence and come up with your own conclusion.
And then, take action.
