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For Jamie Scott, an $11 Robbery in Mississippi May Carry a Death

Sentence

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 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.
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.