All in one package.
Two Mississippi sisters who have been imprisoned for 16 years were released on Friday morning on the condition that the younger sibling donate a kidney to her older sister, whose organs are failing....
The Scotts were arrested on Christmas Eve 1993, when Jamie was 21 and Gladys 19, and they were convicted the following year on charges that they led two men into an ambush, during which the men were robbed of about $11, according to the trial transcript.
Three boys, aged 14 to 18 at the time, were also convicted in the case; they served their sentences and were released from custody years ago, Mississippi officials said. The sisters have denied playing any role in the crime....
Gov. Barbour said he had acted in part out of concern over Jamie Scott’s health, but also to relieve the state of the cost of her dialysis treatment, approximately $200,000 a year.
“The Mississippi Department of Corrections believes the sisters no longer pose a threat to society,” Mr. Barbour said in a Dec. 29 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.”
Didn't I read somewhere that a large percentage of US slave manumission was when slaves were too ill to work and their cost of upkeep exceeded their profitability? And that by shifting the cost of upkeep of old and ill people onto their still enslaved family members, slave owners would delay the time when productive slaves could purchase their freedom? I'm looking in Ira Berlin, Generations of Captivity (Harvard UP, 2003), but can't find it there. But I'm quite sure I've read that somewhere. Any help would be appreciated.
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