Free the Scott Sisters: Grace calling Mississippi.

Hey Friends of Justice out there:

Don't let Governor Barbour leave Jamie and Gladys to die in prison.

This week is a pretty critical time for folks to be contacting the Governor of Mississippi to implore him to pardon Jamie and Gladys Scott. I'm posting one of the more recent news editorials detailing their struggle below. You can also hit their mom's blogspot for more info (Evelyn Rasco - such a beautiful soul - is their mom; Nancy Lockhart and Sis Marpessa are their champions). Be prepared for some awesome gospel, blues, and soul to stream through when you open it (that means crank up your speakers, not turn them down)!


The conditions of the prison they're in - particularly the trailer where Jamie receives dialysis treatments (when the machine is working, that is) are horrendous - but you needn't make reference to that in your communication with Governor Barbour's office about the pardon - there's an appropriate contact for that below.


If you're a registered Republican - even from outside of Mississippi - please share that with Governor Barbour in your letter, as the man will likely be running for national office in 2012. It would help for him to know that real Republicans are interested in seeing that Americans are capable of delivering both justice and mercy when we've been wrong...


Here's the info to reach Governor Haley Barbour (visit that link, first, to get to know a little about him):

Honorable Haley Barbour
P.O. Box 139
Jackson, Mississippi 39205


1-877-405-0733
governor@governor.state.ms.us


You may also want to put something on letterhead and e-mail it as an attachment to the governor's personal assistant - Dorothy Kuykendal:

DKuykendall@governor.state.ms.us

Jamie Scott (center) with Mom and brother.

Also, check out this recent post and please contact the Mississippi health department regarding the black mold, toilets in Quick Bed and inadequate infrastructure in this dialysis trailer which are all located at Central Mississippi Correctional Facility in Pearl, Mississippi. There are a lot of lives at stake - the survival rates for sick Mississippi prisoners have plummeted in recent years under the current health care provider, Wexford - Mother Jones did an excellent piece on this in March.


Jeffrey K. Brown, Ph.D., R.P.E., B.C.E.
Bureau Director
State Public Health Entomologist
Mississippi State Department of Health
570 East Woodrow Wilson Avenue
Jackson, Mississippi 39216


601.576.7972 Office
601.576.7632 Fax
769.257.2242 Cell


jeffrey.brown@msdh.state.ms.us
www.healthyms.com



Here's the latest article giving some background on Jamie and Gladys. Please take action on their behalf THIS WEEK.

----------From the Seattle Times via Free The Scott Sisters----------

Sisters may or may not be guilty, but Mississippi assuredly is


Leonard Pitts Jr.


Sunday, November 21, 2010

Let's assume they did it.

Let's assume that two days before Christmas in 1993, a 22-year-old black woman named Jamie Scott and her pregnant 19-year-old sister Gladys set up an armed robbery. Let's assume these single mothers lured two men to a spot outside the tiny town of Forest, Miss., where three teenage boys, using a shotgun the sisters supplied, relieved the men of $11 and sent them on their way, unharmed.

Assume all of the above is true, and still you must be shocked at the crude brutality of the Scott sisters' fate. You see, the sisters, neither of whom had a criminal record before this, are still locked away in state prison, having served 16 years of their double-life sentences.

It bears repeating. Each sister is doing double life for a robbery in which $11 was taken and nobody was hurt. Somewhere, the late Nina Simone is moaning her signature song:

"Mississippi Goddam."

For the record, two of the young men who committed the robbery testified against the sisters as a condition of their plea bargain. All three reportedly received two-year sentences and were long ago released. No shotgun or forensic evidence was produced at trial. The sisters have always maintained their innocence.

Observers are at a loss to explain their grotesquely disproportionate sentence. Early this year, the Jackson Advocate, a weekly newspaper serving the black community in the state capital, interviewed the sisters' mother, Evelyn Rasco. She described the sentences as payback for her family's testimony against a corrupt sheriff. According to her, that sheriff's successor vowed revenge.

You don't have to believe that to believe this: Mississippi stands guilty of a grievous offense against simple decency.

But there is hope. Recently, the sisters' cause has been championed by high-powered allies. New York Times columnist Bob Herbert and the NAACP have called on Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour to pardon the two women. I add my voice to theirs.

I have no way of knowing if the Scott sisters' fate is tied in to some sheriff's revenge and at some level, the question is moot. Whatever the proximate cause of this ridiculous sentence, the larger cause is neon clear: the Scott sisters are black women in the poorest state in the union. And as report after report has testified, if you are poor or black (and God help you if you are both), the American justice system has long had this terrible tendency to throw you away like garbage. Historically, this has been especially true in the South.

If you doubt it, play with the scenario in your head. Try to imagine some rich white girl doing double life for an $11 robbery. You can't.

But then, that girl has access to a brand of justice unavailable to women like Jamie and Gladys Scott. She will receive every break the law allows her and maybe a few it does not. No one will throw her away.

And while it would be nice to think this problem of discarding people's lives would be solved by the release of the Scott sisters, the truth is, that wouldn't even address it.

How many other Scott sisters and brothers are languishing behind bars for no good reason, doing undeserved hard time on nonexistent evidence, perjured testimony, prosecutorial misconduct or sheer racial or class bias?

So fixing the problem the Scott sisters represent involves nothing less than the reformation of the justice system, a commitment to make it, as the name implies, a system that reliably produces "justice” as opposed to these too frequent miscarriages thereof.

Meantime, Jamie Scott, who is in her late 30s now, is in poor health. She is said to be losing her vision and both her kidneys have failed. And we wait for common sense to take hold in Mississippi.

It is a situation that shocks the senses, even if we assume they did it.

Now, assume they did not.

Miami Herald columnist Leonard Pitts Jr.'s column appears regularly on editorial pages of The Times. His e-mail address is: lpitts@miamiherald.com

From: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/editorialsopinion/2013477385_pitts21.html

Justice for cops and the privileged few...

Upon reading Stephen Lemons' article about Marcia tonight, I became highly agitated and needed to chalk. So, I chalked up the sidewalks outside the Maricopa County Attorney's office.

Figured it might be the only way I'd ever get heard by Romley on the matter. Left my card at the scene in case he needs me to clarify any of what I had to say. It was dark, so the photos are kind of grainy - sorry.

Was stopped by a couple of detectives at one point, who told me I was breaking the law. Was about ready to pick a fight over that (I've been told repeatedly by cops - after they hassle me - that it's not criminal damage if it's chalk on a public sidewalk), but they didn't have time to argue with me about it and took off so I went back to work until I got it out of my system...

I find it really disheartening - and enraging - that when a cop gets bumped by a couple of kids at a rally, they call it a violent assault and threaten to put a young woman in prison for the next decade over it. But when a woman is locked in a cage in 108 heat, tormented and taunted and ignored until she collapses in her own feces, the county attorney's office can't even find a misdemeanor complaint to file against any one of the 16 people the ADC held responsible for her death. That's pathetic and deeply disturbing. So, when it comes to "justice" here, even with Andy Thomas out the rest of us are screwed.

Mississippi calling: Send Mercy and Justice to Prison, ASAP.

In Solidarity with our Imprisoned Sisters Around the World.

Celebrating Women's History and Resistance!
March 2010.

(My post on all the other sites yesterday - sorry not to get this up here 'till now.)

I've been out awhile, folks. Sorry. I tend to grow discouraged when ill, and couldn't pick my head up for a few days. Am back, now, I think. Braved my in-box this AM, and came across this update on Jamie. Stopped feeling sorry for myself. Reached down deep looking for some humility. Then I actually prayed to be an instrument, like my grandfather taught us to when we were small, and called Governor Barbour's office, asking to speak to the Light in him. I've been wrestling with how to do that ever since Mrs. Rasco's plea that we appeal to him reached me.

I know this may surprise some people to hear me say because I don't talk a lot about my faith as such, but I think what finally got my attention is the fact that he's a Christian. Not that he'd be the governor of Mississippi if he wasn't - it's fair to say that's a political necessity - but it does provide the potential for miracles and mercy, if for no reason other than because most Christians really believe in such things, and I think those are the people who elected the man. I know what "being a christian" means to me, at least. I, myself, have been pretty thoroughly indoctrinated to believe in miracles and the power of Spirit, too. Whatever name we give now to the source of life and wonder in the universe, I think we would recognize it if we saw it through each other’s languages and lives.

The essence of that Universal Spirit, I believe, is Love. That’s what keeps me going, anyway.

I know that Christianity's been used to justify many horrible things, but from all I've read of the teachings of Christ, he had a special affinity for prisoners, and his testament of truth and consequence is the most current. I think it's better to presume that the Light is in us all, and treat each other that way, than to automatically assume that every while male governor of Mississippi is a racist misogynist invested only in his own power. We have to believe there's more to Governor Barbour, and more to Mississippi, than that.

Sometimes, people in power do the right thing not because someone makes them or they’ll profit from doing so, but because something honestly moves them at the center of their soul. I’m not saying they’ll surrender the territory they claim as their own, but I believe the force that turns the tide of history on rare occasions comes from the spiritual energy of people longing to be free who fight not for themselves alone, but for all of human liberation. There’s something fundamentally compelling to the average American about that. We want to be on that side, even if it’s losing.

We war so bitterly on this planet because the only alternative we give each other to domination is subjugation or subservience - losing power - which means we can’t protect the people we love. We neglect the possibilities of sharing power, dispersing it, and disabling its current mechanisms so that all families can be safe, not just the privileged few. We have to find more ways to let each other win without making someone lose.

See the links above for more ideas, and sign up for email updates from the folks at Free The Scott Sisters, then check your box regularly; Jamie's been in crisis a lot, and they're counting on us doing more than just reading about it and weeping for a day. We need to act anew each morning, amplifying the voices of the women that we hear - those wall tappings and urgent calls from prison, begging someone to get a fellow prisoner some help. Once you realize what's happening to them, you really can't tune them out.

Nor should you. Your humanity has been summoned. Don't think it's up to someone else to answer.

- Peggy, AZ Prison Watch.
call me if I can help.
480-580-6807.

Jamie Scott needs to be taken to hospital at once

News from the Scott family, where Jamie Scott remains critically ill and not cared for well at all. Please help the Scott Sisters.

Greetings,


Mrs. Rasco received word this evening that Jamie Scott's temporary catheter has been moved to her chest and is plugged up with green fluid and pus. Her hands, legs and feet are swollen and she is in tremendous pain. She is very, very weak. This is at least her fourth catheter infection and this one is extremely bad. Jamie is doing very poorly. The prison is aware of Jamie's current condition yet Jamie remains in the prison infirmary.

Mrs. Rasco is asking that everyone please call into the governor and Commissioner Epps to release her from
the horrible conditions she is in and the poor medical care that she is receiving. Mrs. Rasco believes that Jamie is going to die in the prison if something doesn't happen soon and is calling out for all of the support that she can get.

CONTACT GOV. BARBOUR'S OFFICE
P.O. Box 139
Jackson, Mississippi 39205
1-877-405-0733 or 601-359-3150
Fax: 601-359-3741

(If you reach VM leave msgs, faxes, and please send letters)

CONTACT CHRISTOPHER EPPS
Christopher Epps, Commissioner of Prisons for the State of Mississippi
601-359-5600

CEPPS@mdoc.state.ms.us

723 North President Street
Jackson, MS 39202

LET THEM KNOW THAT JAMIE SCOTT IS SUFFERING WITH PAIN, SWELLING, INFECTION AND WEAKNESS & NEEDS IMMEDIATE MEDICAL ATTENTION OUTSIDE OF THE PRISON!
-------
We also need to continue pushing for national media attention on the case, some focus has been achieved &
we need to strike while the iron is hot! Jamie's condition is very serious and we need for as many people as
possible to get involved with raising the demand for her release as soon as possible. THIS CASE DEMANDS NATIONAL ATTENTION.

Jane Velez-Mitchell should do an entire segment on the Scott Sisters now that she is aware of the case, please contact her and urge her to follow-up her brief mention of the Scott Sisters on her 3/6 "Issues with Jane Velez-Mitchell" with a more significant segment that will focus on Jamie's serious medical condition and the Scott Sisters case period. The contact form is at http://www.cnn.com/feedback/tips/newstips.html

Today's Newsweek blog ran a piece called: "Left Wing: Pardon Me, Governor Barbour" at http://blog.newsweek.com/blogs/thegaggle/archive/2010/03/11 /left-wing-pardon-me-governor-barbour.aspx Many of these blogs where the Scott Sisters are getting attention have comment sections that supporters can use to put out updated information on Jamie's downward spiraling condition, there's only so much her body is going to be able to take and this needs to be emphasized!

PLEASE ACT AND REPOST BROADLY, THANK YOU!