Haley Barbour to Free Imprisoned Sisters -- but One Must Donate Kidney to the Other

Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour said he would free two sisters serving life sentences for armed robbery, citing the poor health of one of the women, who, under terms of the release, is required to receive a kidney transplant from her younger sibling.

The case of Jamie Scott, 38, and Gladys Scott, 36, has become a cause celebre for civil rights groups, which assert that the women's race -- African American -- was cause for their unusually long sentences, according to the Washington Post. Their crime: luring two men into an ambush where accomplices smacked the victims with a shotgun and robbed them of $11. That was in 1994. The three accomplices have since served their sentences and been released, the Post said.

Barbour said he suspended Gladys Scott's sentence contingent on her following through with a plan to donate a kidney to Jamie, who is on dialysis.

The Corrections Department "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."

Barbour, a Republican who is considering running for president in 2012, planned to meet Thursday with NAACP President Benjamin Jealous, an advocate for the release of the women. "This is a shining example of how governors should use their commutation powers," Jealous told the Washington Post. The Scotts, who have served 16 years, would have been eligible for parole in 2014, AOL News said. They are expected to go free within the next 45 days.

Barbour granted the early paroles just days after he got the unwanted attention of the civil rights activists with comments suggesting a segregationist group called the White Citizens Council was responsible for keeping the Ku Klux Klan out of Yazoo City, Miss., where he grew up the 1960s. He told the Weekly Standard that he didn't remember race relations "as being that bad" in his home town. Barbour quickly backtracked, saying the all-white Citizens Council was a "totally indefensible" organization.