Two sisters who have spent 16 years in prison in the US for an $11 armed robbery have been freed on condition that one donate her kidney to the other.
Jamie and Gladys Scott waved to reporters as they left the Central Mississippi Correctional Facility today.
The sisters are moving to Florida, where their mother and grown children live. Jamie (36) is on dialysis, which officials say costs the state about $200,000 a year.
Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour announced on Wednesday that he would grant an early release from prison to the sisters who were serving unusually long sentences for armed robbery.
The case of the Scotts had become a cause celebre among civil rights groups, including the NAACP, which mounted a national campaign to free the women.
The sisters were convicted in 1994 for an armed robbery in which they led two men into an ambush. The men were robbed of $11, and their supporters contend that the Scotts, who are black, received extraordinary punishment for the crime.
Mr Barbour said he decided to suspend the sentences in light of the poor health of Jamie Scott, who requires regular dialysis. The governor insisted Gladys Scott’s release is contingent on her giving a kidney to her sibling.
“The Mississippi Department of Corrections believes the sisters no longer pose a threat to society,” Mr Barbour said in a statement. “Their incarceration is no longer necessary for public safety or rehabilitation, and Jamie Scott’s medical condition creates a substantial cost to the state of Mississippi.”
NAACP president Benjamin Jealous said this was a "shining example" of how governors should use their commutation powers.
Mr Jealous and the Mississippi NAACP had been working for much of the year to win the release of the Scott sisters, who would have have been eligible for parole in 2014. NAACP members received e-mails asking them to sign a petition, and the association has pushed for news coverage of the case.
Mr Barbour, who is considering a run for president, announced the pardon a week after he ran afoul of civil rights advocates. Last week, he backtracked on comments he made about the civil rights era in Mississippi.
The governor, who came of age during the civil rights movement, told the Weekly Standard that he didn't remember the time "being that bad," and he spoke benignly of the white Citizen's Council in his home town. The councils enforced segregationist policies.
Mr Barbour condemned such groups and policies in a later statement.
Agencies