Kidney Donation Set as Condition of Miss. Sisters' Parole

If two Mississippi sisters serving life in prison for an armed robbery that netted $11 want to go free, one will have to donate a kidney to the other.

Gov. Haley Barbour has pardoned Gladys and Jamie Scott, black women whose case has been a cause celebre among civil rights activists. But to be released, Gladys, 36, must donate a kidney to her 38-year-old sister, Jamie, who requires dialysis and needs a transplant.

There was no grumbling about the odd condition of the Scotts' release. Their lawyer called the governor's decision a victory and noted that Gladys Scott had already planned to donate a kidney to her sister.

"It's been a long time coming. I talked to Gladys on the phone and she was feeling wonderful. I'm sure Jamie is too," Chokwe Lumumba, the sisters' attorney, told AOL News by phone today. He said that while including the kidney as a condition of release "does sound a little barbaric," Gladys would have donated the organ anyway.

The women had each served 16 years of their sentences and were eligible for parole in 2014, but state prison officials said they no longer considered them a threat to the public. In 1994, the pair were sentenced to life terms after they were convicted of armed robbery for hitting two men in the head with a shotgun in Forest, Miss., and stealing $11.

Civil rights activists hailed the latest development and had long rallied around the women, arguing that their unusually long sentences were motivated by race.

NAACP President Ben Jealous tweeted his approval Wednesday night. "Spoke to Governor Barbour today, The Scott Sisters will be freed!!!!" he wrote. In an rare moment, the NAACP president praised the governor outright. "This is a shining example of how governors should use their commutation powers," he told The Washington Post. Earlier this year, activists marched on the state Capitol to push for the women's' release.

Barbour said the release was an early parole, not a pardon, and noted that Jamie Scott's dialysis was costing the state nearly $200,000 each year. "The Mississippi Department of Corrections believes the sisters no longer pose a threat to society," 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."

The women are expected to be released within the next 45 days.

Barbour, who is considering a run for president in 2012, announced news of the sisters' parole only days after his comments about the civil rights movement sparked anger. In an interview with The Weekly Standard, Barbour credited the white Citizens Council with helping to rid his hometown of Yazoo City, Miss., of the Ku Klux Klan. White Citizens Councils were civic organizations created to prevent racial integration. Barbour later backtracked and called the groups -- along with their opposition to integration -- "indefensible."