|
Edition: March 2010
|
Homepage l
Contact
How an $11 Robbery in
Mississippi May End in a Death Sentence
By: James Ridgeway and Jean Casella
On
February 25, a small crowd gathered outside the state capitol in Jackson,
Mississippi, to push for the release of sisters Jamie and Gladys Scott, who
are serving two consecutive life sentences apiece for a 1993 armed robbery
in which no one was injured and the take, by most accounts, was about $11.
Supporters of the Scott sisters have long
tried to draw attention to their case, as an extreme example of the
distorted justice and Draconian sentencing policies that have overloaded
prisons, crippled state budgets, and torn families apart across the United
States. But in recent months, their cause has taken on a new urgency,
because for Jamie Scott, an unwarranted life sentence may soon become a
death sentence.
Jamie Scott, 38, is suffering from kidney failure. At the Central
Mississippi Correctional Facility (CMCF) in Pearl, where Jamie and Gladys
are incarcerated, medical services are provided by a private contractor
called Wexford, which has been the subject of lawsuits and legislative
investigations in several states over inadequate treatment of the inmates in
its care.
According to Jamie Scott’s family, in the six weeks since her
condition became life-threatening, she has endured faulty or missed dialysis
sessions, infections, and other complications. She has received no
indication that a kidney transplant is being considered as an option, though
her sister is a willing donor.
Jamie Scott’s family and legal advisors believe the poor health care she is
receiving in prison places her life at risk. They have sent pleas for
clemency or compassionate release to Governor Haley Barbour, whose
tough-on-crime posturing and dubious record on issuing pardons do not bode
well for Jamie.
The Mississippi Department of Corrections (MDOC) has a
provision for what it calls “conditional medical release,” but Scott is not
a candidate, department spokesperson Suzanne Garbo Singletary said in an
email last week, because “MDOC policy provides that an inmate must have a
condition that is ‘incapacitating, totally disabling and/or terminal in
nature’ in order to qualify.” So Jamie Scott appears to be caught in a
deadly Catch-22: In order to be released from prison, she must convince the
MDOC that her illness is terminal or “totally disabling”; but the only sure
way for her to prove this is to die in prison.
Cruel and Unusual
Health Care
In telephone interviews earlier this week, the Scott sisters’ mother, Evelyn
Rasco, described the treatment Jamie has received at Central Mississippi
Correctional Facility (CMCF), based on her own observations and information
provided by her two daughters.
Jamie, who has diabetes and bouts of high
blood pressure, said that medical staff at the prison first diagnosed
possible kidney problems in 1997–but until recently, she received minimal
treatment outside of her regular insulin.
Jamie’s physical and mental health
suffered last fall when she spent 23 days in solitary confinement (for being
found in an “unauthorized area” in the prison gym) and was cut off from her
routine of work, classes, church, and occasional visits with her sister.
Then, in mid-January, Jamie became seriously ill when both her kidneys began
shutting down. She was sent to the prison infirmary and, after a week’s
delay, taken to the hospital. There, doctors inserted a shunt in Jamie’s
neck to allow her to receive dialysis through a catheter, and she was
promptly returned to prison.
Rather than letting Jamie Scott leave the prison regularly for dialysis,
prison authorities chose to truck in dialysis machines. About three times a
week, Jamie has received hemodialysis in a trailer on the prison grounds—if
the machines are working properly, which she reports isn’t always the case.
At one session, Jamie told her mother, the blood was flowing out of her
through a catheter into the dialysis machine—but it wasn’t flowing back in,
so the treatment had to be stopped. At the end of January, another inmate
looked in on Jamie, who was locked up alone in her cell, and found her
unconscious. She was rushed to the hospital, where doctors told her there
were problems with the shunt inserted into her neck. They made adjustments,
and she was again taken back to prison.
Evelyn Rasco, Jamie Scott, and Jamie's older brother. The prison permitted
Jamie to attend her sister's funeral--in shackles.
Evelyn Rasco lives in Pensacola, Florida, where she cares for her daughters’
five children while they are behind bars. Since Jamie and Gladys went to
prison, Rasco’s husband of 30 years died of a heart attack; another daughter
died of congestive heart failure; and her oldest son was away for several
years serving with the Army in Iraq. In a letter to supporters last year,
Jamie Scott wrote: “When I think of the word ‘strongest,’ I think of my
mother. She is 4 feet 9 inches tall and has the strength of Job in the
Bible.”
Rasco lacks the time and financial resources to visit her daughters often,
but in mid-February, she managed to make the trip to Mississippi. When she
visited the prison on February 18, along with Jamie’s 18-year-old son, Jamie
was feeling sick but was able to make it to the visiting room. When Rasco
returned two days later, she found Jamie in a cell attached to the
infirmary. “She was real weak,” Rasco said. “She couldn’t walk.” An
infection appeared to have developed at the site of Jamie’s catheter, which
had filled with blood and pus. Nurses reportedly told Rasco that Jamie
should be in the hospital, but the paperwork hadn’t been done.
Rasco said that when she entered her daughter’s cell, Jamie was sitting on
the edge of a hospital bed with dirty linens, near a toilet and wash bowl
that had not been cleaned.
Prison staff arrived with a plate of food—a
hamburger swimming in grease, some side dishes, and a cookie–but Jamie said
it looked so bad she couldn’t eat it. The doctors at the hospital had given
her a list of foods she should eat, including meat, fish, and vegetables,
but they were not available, and she did not have permission to purchase
food at the prison commissary. (That permission has since been granted.) So
Jamie sat on her grimy bed eating a Snickers bar. “She sat right there with
me,” Rasco said, “and tried to give me a piece.” Knowing it was the only
nourishment her daughter was likely to have, her mother declined.
Jamie Scott says goodbye to her mother before returning to prison.
Since Evelyn Rasco’s visit, Jamie was back in the hospital for a day after
experiencing chest pains following dialysis, and to a clinic where her
dialysis shunt was again adjusted and she was tested for infections. To
date, the family does not know the results.
Evelyn Rasco also said that when Gladys Scott, 34, learned of her sister’s
kidney failure, she immediately offered to give Jamie a kidney. If Gladys
were to prove a viable match, this would be by far the best medical option
for Jamie: Studies show that patients in their thirties who receive
successful transplants live considerably longer than those who remain on
dialysis.
Gladys says that CMCF staff told her that state prisoners don’t
qualify as donors, and that a transplant would be too expensive, though
there is no indication that their statements reflect official MDOC policy.
Rasco said that she was hoping the prison would at least let Gladys to care
for Jamie—feed her and bathe her—as inmates are sometime allowed to do for
ailing relatives. When Rasco last spoke to her, Gladys had not received the
necessary permission.
Chokwe Lumumba, a longtime activist and attorney who also serves on the
Jackson City Council, is representing the family in the medical matter. In
an interview last week, Lumumba said, “Our first idea is to get some medical
attention into the jail. Asking for a private doctor to go in there and see
her.” But what Jamie Scott really needs, he told me, is “to be in hospital
until a kidney transplant.”
Suzanne Garbo Singletary, Director of the MDOC’s Division of Communications,
replied to several email inquiries regarding Jamie Scott’s care. In one
email, she wrote that “MDOC cannot comment on any specific medical condition
or treatment for an inmate.” In another, she referred to patient privacy
laws when asked whether a kidney transplant was being considered for Jamie
Scott.
Regarding transplants for state prisoners in general, Singltary said
that “the state would pay for a needed and necessary transplant” and would
do so “when evaluated the Dr. as needed [sic].” Singletary added in another
message: “Dialysis units are fully operational with no malfunctions
documented in the past several years.” She also restated the MDOC’s policy
that “chronic, but stable, medical conditions are not eligible for
conditional medical release consideration.”
At the Central Mississippi Correctional Center, Jamie Scott’s care is in the
hands of Wexford Health Sources, a Pittsburgh-based private company that
provides prison medical services. According to information compiled by the
Private Corrections Working Group, Wexford’s record includes lawsuits by
prisoners and current or former employees in at least four states, as well
as allegations involving racial discrimination and improper gifts to public
officials. In 2006, the Santa Fe Reporter launched an investigation into
Wexford, which supplied health care to New Mexico’s 6,000 prisoners. It
discovered widespread complaints about Wexford’s care.
Those who have raised concerns about Wexford include the company’s former
regional medical director, the former medical director of Lea County
Correctional Facility (LCCF) in Hobbs and numerous former and current
Wexford medical employees. Their allegations are all hauntingly similar:
Wexford refuses to fill critical medical positions. Wexford refuses to grant
off-site visits for seriously ill inmates. Wexford refuses to renew critical
prescription medicine for inmates. And, according to those who worked for
the company, and some who still do, the company’s insistence on the bottom
line over the care of its charges causes inmates to suffer, sometimes with
lasting, even fatal, results.
The investigation prompted hearings on prison health care in the New Mexico
state legislature, and in December 2006, after just two years with Wexford,
Governor Bill Richardson ordered the New Mexico Corrections Department to
find a new health care provider.
Wexford’s reported resistance “to grant off-site visits for seriously ill
inmates,” is particularly relevant to the case of Jamie Scott, and the
potentially dangerous delays she has experienced before being sent to the
hospital. The same issue surfaced in a 2002 case in Pennsylvania, where a
26-year-old prisoner named Erin Finley suffered a fatal asthma attack in
prison while under Wexford’s care.
According to the Wilkes Barre Times
Herald, Finley’s family eventually received a $2.15 million settlement,
after their lawyer presented evidence showing that “Finley desperately
sought medical care for severe asthma she had had since she was a child, but
she was repeatedly rejected based on a prison doctor’s belief that she was
‘faking’ her symptoms.” On the day of her death, Finley was taken to the
prison infirmary several hours after complaining that she was having trouble
breathing.
A physician’s assistant examined her and told the doctor she
needed to go to a hospital, “but he refused to see her and left the prison
at 2:40 p.m. Twenty minutes later, Finley lost consciousness and stopped
breathing,” according to the Times Herald. Finally she was sent to the
hospital—only to be pronounced dead.
In Mississippi, where Wexford took over health care for the majority of the
state’s prisoners in 2006 under a three-year, $95 million contract, the
Jackson Clarion Ledger reported in November 2008 that “a search of the
federal court system found more than a dozen open lawsuits filed by inmates
against MDOC on medical issues.”
At Central Mississippi Correctional
Facility–the prison where the Scott sisters are housed—the sister of a dead
inmate said she watched her brother waste away for months from inadequately
treated Crohn’s Disease, an inflammation of the digestive tract. “He
literally starved,” Charlotte Byrd said of her brother William Byrd, who
died in November 2008. “We watched him turn into a skeleton.” Byrd told the
Clarion Ledger that people might lack sympathy for prisoners like her
brother, a convicted rapist, but “Even a dog needs medical attention.” She
said she believes that “If they are doing him that way, they are going to
let somebody else die, too.”
In fact, Mississippi has one of the highest prisoner death rates in the
nation, according to a review of prison statistics carried out by the
Jackson Clarion Ledger’s Chris Joyner, and the death rate in 2007 was 34
percent higher than in 2006—the year Wexford took over the MDOC’s medical
care. A December 2007 report conducted by the Mississippi Legislature’s
Joint Committee on Performance Evaluation and Expenditure Review (PEER)
concluded that inmates were not receiving timely and adequate medical
treatment from Wexford.
Among other things, the PEER report found that
Wexford “did not meet medical care standards set forth under its contract
with the state,” and that the company “did not adhere to its own standards
in following up on inmates with chronic health problems.” When questioned
about the report and the high prisoner death rates, the Clarion Ledger
reported, Corrections Commissioner Chris Epps “said he is satisfied with the
contractor’s performance.” The budget presented by Epps for the coming
fiscal year, which begins on July 1, 2010, shows a request of $37.4 million
to Wexford for medical services.
In response to questions about care provided by Wexford, MDOC spokesperson
Suzanne Garbo Singletary wrote: “Jamie Scott is receiving quality medical
care for her condition. Wexford provides basic medical care for all inmates
at MDOC prisons. Inmates are sent to hospitals if the need for hospital care
arises.” Singletary stated that such decisions are made by the attending
doctor at the prison, who is a Wexford employee. Wexford did not respond to
requests for comment.
Unpardonable
Offenses
Nancy Lockhart, a legal investigator and analyst based in South Carolina,
has been working with Evelyn Rasco for several years, organizing a
grassroots campaign to secure decent treatment for the Scotts and either a
review of their case or some provision for their early release. In
interviews last week, Lockhart said that she had helped Rasco appeal to the
Obama Justice Department, which informed her that the statute of limitations
was up for civil rights claims.
They plan to try again, offering proof of
earlier letters to the DOJ. They have also organized letter writing and
email campaigns to numerous state and MDOC officials, and set up a web site.
The Scott sisters’ group of supporters is growing, but they have received no
meaningful responses to their pleas.
During her recent visit to Mississippi, Evelyn Rasco had the opportunity to
confront Corrections Commissioner Christopher Epps in person when she
attended a meeting at the state capitol on prison budget cuts. She spotted
the Epps, whom she recognized from his photograph, walked up to him, and
told him about her daughter’s poor health and the problems with her medical
treatment. According to Rasco, Epps said that he was getting a lot of
messages about Jamie Scott, and that he would do what he could obtain a
pardon or clemency for the Scott sisters. He told her that he was “giving
his word on this,” although he had no power to actually make it happen
himself.
The person who could make it happen is Governor Haley Barbour, whose past
record on pardons does not bode well for Jamie and Gladys Scott. Barbour,
who took office in 2004, was initially known for refusing to grant any
pardons. In his second term he changed course–but only for a particular set
of offenders.
A 2008 investigation by the Jackson Free Press found that
Barbour had pardoned or suspended the sentences of five murderers, four of
whom had killed their former or current wives or girlfriends.
All five men
were part of a prison trusty program under which they did odd jobs at the
governor’s mansion. Writing in Slate, Radley Balko summarized Haley
Barbour’s policy on pardons as “show[ing] mercy only to murderers who work
on his house.”
Jamie Scott’s health crisis has also coincided with a protracted struggle
between the governor and state legislators over how to handle budget
shortfalls. Throughout, the ambitious Barbour, who is talked about as a
possible 2012 presidential candidate, has appeared determined to polish his
reputation for being both fiscally conservative and tough on crime.
With
revenue down due to the recession, Barbour implemented a series of deep,
across-the-board cuts to state spending in the current fiscal year. Last
week the he vetoed a bill that would have restored some of that funding,
primarily to education.
At the same time, he asked the legislature to put
$16 million back into the Department of Corrections budget. “We have the
resources to restore funding to our priorities this year,” the governor said
in a statement, “including law enforcement and corrections.”
Against opponents who argued that Mississippi already spends more on
prisoners than it does on schoolchildren, Barbour held up the specter of
what could happen if prison spending was cut: 3,000 to 4,000 inmates would
have to be released early. “The threat of convicted criminals on the
streets,” the Jackson Free Press wrote earlier this month, “has provided
Barbour a rhetorical trump card in budget negotiations.”
Even amidst this kind of rhetoric, it would be difficult to see the Scott
sisters as dangerous or violent offenders, although the state of Mississippi
went to great lengths to depict them as such.
On Christmas Eve of 1993, Jamie and Gladys,
then 22 and 19, were both young mothers with no criminal records. They were
at the local mini-mart buying heating fuel when they ran into two young men
they knew, who offered to give them a ride. Sometime later that evening, the
two young men were robbed by a group of three boys, ages 14 to 18, who
arrived in another car, armed with a shotgun.
Jamie and Gladys say that they had already left the scene to walk home when
the robbery took place, and had nothing to do with it. The state insisted
they were an integral part of the crime, and in fact had set up the victims
to be robbed. Wherever the truth lies, trial transcripts clearly reveal a
the case based on the highly questionable testimony of two of the teenaged
co-defendants–who had turned state’s evidence against the Scott sisters in
return for eight-year sentences—and a prosecutor who appears determined to
demonize the two young women.
Jamie and Gladys Scott were not initially arrested for the crime. But ten
months later, the 14-year-old co-defendant–who had been in jail on remand
during that time–signed a statement implicating them.
When questioned by the
Scotts’ attorney, the boy confirmed that he had been “told that before you
would be allowed to plead guilty” to a lesser charge, “you would have to
testify against Jamie Scott and Gladys Scott.”
The boy also testified that
he had neither written nor read the statement before signing it. It had been
written for him by someone at the county sheriff’s office, he said, and he
“didn’t know what it was.”
But he had been told that if he signed it “they
would let me out of jail the next morning, and that if I didn’t participate
with them, that they would send me to Parchman [state penitentiary] and make
me out a female”—which he took to mean he would be raped. The 18-year-old
co-defendant who testified against the Scott sisters also said he was
testifying against the Scotts as a condition of his guilty plea to a lesser
charge.
But the prosecutor succeeded in depicting Jamie and Gladys Scott not only as
participants in the crime robbery, but as its masterminds—two older women
who had lured three impressionable boys into the robbing the victims at
gunpoint. (This despite the fact that the oldest of the co-defendants was
just a year younger than Gladys, and was driving around with a shotgun in
his car.) In his summation, he told the jury:
They thought it up. They came up with the plan. They duped three young
teenage boys into going along and doing something stupid that is going to
cost them the next eight years of their lives in the penitentiary.
That probably makes me, at least, as mad about this case, simply at least as
much, as the fact that two people got robbed. That three young boys were
duped into doing the dirty work.
The prosecutor also reminded jurors that while Jamie and Gladys Scott
admittedly did not have a weapon, the judge’s instructions “tell you that if
they encourage someone else or counsel them or aid them in any way in
committing this robbery they are equally guilty.”
It took the jury just 36 minutes to convict the Scott sisters. And while
there was a range of possible sentences for the crime of armed robbery, the
state asked for—and received—two consecutive life sentences for the Scott
sisters.
In contrast, Edgar Ray Killen, the man convicted in 2005 of
manslaughter in the 1964 deaths of civil rights workers Schwerner, Cheney,
and Goodman, received a sentence of 60 years–meted out by the same judge who
presided over the trial of Jamie and Gladys Scott. A direct appeal, carried
out by the same lawyers who defended them at trial, failed to overturn the
Scotts’ conviction.
Because they were tried for a crime committed before October 1994, when even
harsher sentencing rules were put in place in Mississippi, the Scott sisters
will be eligible for parole in 2014, after they have served 20 years—though
there is no guarantee they will receive it. In the meantime, Evelyn Rasco is
praying for mercy, for a good lawyer—and for her daughter Jamie to live that
long.
About the Authors:
James Ridgeway and Jean
Casella can be reached at
Solitary Watch, where this article originally
appeared.
|
|
|
|
