Question: what is freedom in Mississippi? Answer: This is a kidney. Or, if you want more appropriately monetize the exchange, that is U.S. $ 200,000, multiplied by the number of years of life that dialysis can give to those who - as in the case of Jamie Scott, who was sentenced to two life sentences for complicity in robbery in 1993 - of functioning kidneys no longer has any of them.Just this fact, a kidney, is the price that Gladys Scott - Jamie's sister and, as you pay for the same offense, not one, but two lives in prison - has in fact paid to leave, along with her sister, from prison in which is closed for 16 years. The story - already reported, even by some Italian media, space and tones usually reserved for "colored news" - is actually very simple.
Gladys has agreed to donate, or rather saw finally accepted his request to donate a renealla sister who, having lost the use of both its causes disease, survives only a few months thanks to the machine that ensures the purification of blood. For this, Gladys has seen suspended - not forgiven, nor commuted - an order that would keep her and her sister in jail until their last days (with the surplus of another life sentence to be served in the unlikely event, but the court obviously considered a miracle of resurrection).
The friendly Haley Barbour - the days of Clinton's Republican Party national secretary and now governor of the State of Mississippi, and anything but secret aspirant to the nomination for president in 2012 - was very clear in exposing, the accounts in hand, the true reasons which led it to open the prison gates, indeed, the two separate prisons in which the Scott sisters were not too happily spent the last 16 years of their existence.
Not out of pity he did, but for money. "The time spent in custody of Jamie and Gladys Scott - Barbour wrote - is no longer necessary, either for security reasons or for reasons of rehabilitation. And the medical conditions for Jamie Scott (the need for dialysis, ed) represent a considerable cost to the state.
" That's right: $ 200,000 per year. Happy ending, in fact. All happy, all happy. Jamie, finally free (if everything is going to work in the operating room) from the prison of the prison and two of dialysis. Gladys, a kidney with less, but more a sister and a life to spend, if you behave well, without the affliction, as they say, of having to gaze at the "sun of chess." And finally, Haley Barbour, freed from the burden of a bill of 200 thousand dollars a year, payable in money of taxpayers have traditionally been very reluctant to welfare costs of any kind and, in particular those aimed at poor people, black leather and for more - like the two sisters Scott - ended up in prison.
All's well that ends well? Not really. Especially if the story is told beginning, not its joyous ending, but its gloomy beginning. And what this reveals the beginning of a country that every year, with a separate ranking by the State Department, it purports to measure, ex cathedra, the violations of human rights consumed in any other country in the world.
Why, then, the two sisters were in jail and Scott would have to remain in jail, not one, but two of their lives? For a robbery without shedding of blood (and with a "booty" assessed $ 11) which, of course, Jamie and Gladys - who were then, respectively, 19 and 21 years - had not directly participated.
For the robbery, consumatasi on Christmas Eve of 1993 in Forest, Mississippi, against a white (and the detail is far from irrelevant) were initially charged four teenagers between 14 and 18, one of which had, during the assault, used (used in the sense that he had bet against the victim) a firearm.
Only when negotiating the penalty - and, apparently, only under strong pressure from the DA, one of four children (the youngest), had finally involved the two sisters arguing, in effect, that they had the task of " prime "pushing the victim to the place of the attack. Jamie and Gladys have always denied any responsibility.
And all the legal experts that, in these days, have reviewed the case, they found that they were very unstable, in fact, the evidence against them. But even if they had been absolutely overwhelming evidence against them, it is possible that, for a similar crime two girls with no criminal record, have been sentenced to four life sentences (two each)? The answer is: if you're black and poor - and if you live in Mississippi - is clearly possible.
And it is possible, too, that such a judicial monstrosity steps (as the only things more or less "normal" can happen) completely unnoticed for nearly two decades. Jamie had not had the nerve to get sick and begin to burden the state budget because of his bruised kidney, the two sisters would probably have served the full sentence (one death from the other half lives) without anyone s' Someone noticed their case ...
one of the most arid of heart and brain (think we Northern League), could now say, dura lex sed lex. If Jamie and Gladys were sentenced to prison so heavy, it means that the law allows. And it remains fair to use the law so relentless against those who commit crimes of any kind. Imprison and throw away the key, this is the beginning.
The fight against crime - with good peace of beautiful souls duped by the most Christian idea of forgiveness and redemption - you win in this way. The problem, however, is that even when seen from this granite and inflexible point of view, the story of Forest is an absolute aberration. Because Haley Barbour, to forgive (pardon, mind you, not suspension of the sentence, as in the case of the Scott sisters) has in fact since 2003, granted a good number.
And in at least five cases the beneficiaries were responsible for most serious of crimes: murder premeditated. What explains this difference in treatment? Racism? Perhaps, given that, in Mississippi, racism remains a half-century after the battle for civil rights and a century and a half after the abolition of slavery, disguised a reality, but ubiquitous.
And because, above all, a couple of the beneficiaries were of white skin. However, what emerges from the bowels of this horrible story is something worse than simple racism. Rather, it is a piece of the Middle Ages or, if you prefer, a medieval monument to inequality before the law. Since no skin color shared by the "forgiven" by Barbour, but the participating in a program of "redemption" which provided for prison work chores in the properties of the time ...
As governor of the absolute king. And absolute king - king, who are, themselves, the law - are, you know, full stories. Jamie and Gladys Scott had not done any work of chores for the king. And the king had to - to regain their freedom - to give something. They gave him three kidneys. The two that Jamie has lost while in prison.
More than that Gladys gave his sister to relieve the state budget. And now, finally, justice is done. For this, in Mississippi, USA, is now the law. To each of you to judge if that Haley King - which certainly has an obscene performance - is a fable with a happy or sad ending ...
- Mississippi Officially Begins Harvesting Organs of Prisoners [Justice] (30/12/2010)
- Mississippi Citizens Councils: What Were They? (27/12/2010)
- Mississippi State gives Mullen extension, raise (30/12/2010)
- Coverage of the FFRF Sign in the Mississippi Media (22/12/2010)
- Colorado State holds off Mississippi 68-61 (24/12/2010)
No comments:
Post a Comment