Transplant ruling frees jailed sisters

Two sisters whose life sentences were suspended on the condition that one donate a kidney to the other were released from a Mississippi prison yesterday after serving 16 years for armed robbery.

Jamie and Gladys Scott waved to reporters and yelled, "We're free!" and "God bless y'all!" as they left the Central Mississippi Correctional Facility.

The sisters are moving to Florida, where their mother and grown children now live.

Mississippi governor Haley Barbour agreed to release Jamie Scott, 36, because of her medical condition, but 38-year-old Gladys Scott must donate the kidney within one year to her sister as a condition of her release.

Some medical experts have said the arrangement raises legal and ethical concerns, but the women's supporters say Gladys Scott wants to try to save her sister's life.

The Scotts were convicted in 1994 of robbing two men at gunpoint in central Mississippi on Christmas Eve the year before. The exact sum they stole is disputed. The sisters say they got $11, but authorities claimed they stole $200.

The sisters are black, and their case has been taken up by civil rights advocacy groups. They claim they are innocent. Civil rights advocates said their double life sentences were too harsh whether they were armed robbers or not.