Centuries Ole entrenched feud, corruption, judicial misconduct, sisters sacrificed
Re-reporting, editing, brief comment by Carolyn Bennett
“The absurd and vicious incrimination of the Scott sisters,” a blogger writes for “free the sisters” posted at IndyBay news, “is the result of a vendetta by former Sheriff Glenn Warren… because the father of the Scott Sisters, James ‘Hawk’ Rasco, and other family members refused to be intimidated by a Mississippi county system of white power and corruption.” A cousin who had had to pay a bribe to the former sheriff in order to sell illegal alcohol in his club testified against Warren in a case investigating ‘a bootlegging operation, which may have also involved the judge who presided in the trial of the Scott sisters.’ After the cousin and former sheriff bribery incident, the Scott sisters’ father, James Rasco, bought the nightclub from his nephew and refused to go along with the official corruption. Marvin Williams, the new sheriff, “a Black man at the service of white power, swore that the family would pay dearly.…
“On the night of December 23, 1992, the Scott sisters (Gladys, 19, and Jamie, 22) left a local Minit Mart. They had car trouble and asked two young Black men for a ride. The men agreed and drove the sisters to their home. Later that night, three teenagers of the Patrick family robbed the men who earlier had driven the sisters to their home.
“The teenagers confessed to the robbery. The next morning Sheriff Marvin Williams showed up at Scott sisters’ house and arrested them.”
On elements of facts in the case, Nordette Adams wrote in an article published this past June, “[I have] not seen documentation that indicates Deputy Sheriff Marvin Williams has been charged with extortion or any other crime. That allegation by the family and advocates does not appear in the official transcripts of the first trial and would be considered hearsay without the testimony of ‘Hawk’ [James] Rasco [the Scott Sisters’ father], who is deceased.
“However, one of the young robbers, who was 14 at the time of the trial and who received a plea deal, said under cross examination by the sisters’ first attorney, Firnist J. Alexander, Jr., that Williams and another officer threatened to send him to the Mississippi State Penitentiary in Parchman if he did not testify against the Scott sisters.
“He said they told him inmates there would ‘make me out a female,’ meaning he would be raped (This testimony appears around page 93 of the PDF transcript). If the teen testified as they asked, however, he could go home. As a result, he signed a statement, which he said under oath he neither wrote nor read. He said that Williams brought it to him already typed. He simply had to sign it to go free and testify at trial to get his plea deal. …”
These Black women, The Scott Sisters, are serving double life sentences for a robbery they did not commit that netted the thieves $11. The women have endured imprisonment for more than 15 years, their lives ruined by apparent prosecutorial and judicial misconduct, abuse by entrenched power.
Until his death from a heart attack in 2003, the father of the Scott sisters, James Rasco, reportedly grieved in his inability to help his daughters. Mrs. Evelyn Rasco now cares for her children and the children of Gladys and Jamie Scott. Seeking help to free her daughters, Mrs. Rasco knocks on doors, writes letters, calls officials and civil rights groups. The official response has been unhelpful. In recent years, demonstrators for justice for the Scott Sisters have appeared at the Mississippi State Capitol and more information about the case has come to light.
The upshot of the case is this, Adams writes, “If you should find yourself falsely accused and facing prison time, or worse, in prison serving time for a crime you did not commit or for a crime you committed but received an excessively harsh sentence ─ you’ll need a good attorney. Almost as much as an attorney, you may need social activists ─ who understand social media ─ to take up your cause.”
Sources and notes
Kambiz Mostofi, Spokesman for the family of the Scott Sisters, spoke with Flashpoints [KPFA} on Wednesday, August 11, 2010, http://www.flashpoints.net/
“The case of the Scott Sisters of Mississippi goes to Washington, DC” (Carolina Saldaña and Dr. Lenore Daniels in the Black Commentator) , June 20, 2010,
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2010/06/20/18651392.php
For more information, see: http://freethescottsisters.blogspot.com/
y http://www.grayhairedwitnesses.blogspot.com/ .
“The Scott Sisters of Mississippi: Social Justice Meets Social Media” (Nordette Adams in News and Politics, a BlogHer), June 16, 2010, http://www.blogher.com/social-media-takes-freeing-scott-sisters-mississippi
Scott Sisters:
Jamie Scott #19197
CMCF
Area 3, Clinic Bed 7
P.O. Box 88550
Pearl, MS 39288-8550
Gladys Scott #19142
CMCF/B-Bldg.
P.O. Box 88550
Pearl, MS 39288-8550
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