They have not had the surgery because they have not lost enough weight for doctors to consider the procedure safe, but Lumumba said that probably was not a factor in Barbour’s decision.
Gladys Scott said yesterday that she started crying when she found out. She said she is in nursing school, but will not be able to become a nurse unless her record is wiped clean.
“I have to report to the Mississippi Department of Corrections for the rest of my life for a crime I didn’t commit,’’ she said. “I guess if I had been a murderer, he would have pardoned me.’’
The sisters say they are innocent, and their lawyer said others involved in the crime have recanted testimony. One of the alleged victims said last year that the sisters planned the 1993 stickup in which he was lured down a dark road and robbed at gunpoint by three teenage boys. Civil rights advocates said the sisters’ sentences were far too harsh.
Chokwe Lumumba, the sisters’ lawyer, said that he will ask Governor Phil Bryant, a Republican, to pardon the women.
Bryant’s spokesman Mick Bullock said in an e-mail that “Governor Bryant has no intentions to pardon anyone.’’
Barbour’s representative did not respond to messages seeking comment.
“It is very contradictory to me . . . that you got people accused of killing people, burning their bodies, and all that kind of stuff, killing pregnant people, who are walking free without any restrictions, and the Scott sisters don’t have that kind of freedom,’’ Lumumba said yesterday.
Barbour has not explained why he did not pardon the sisters and has not given an explanation to Lumumba, the attorney said.
The early release granted to the Scott sisters is different than a pardon because they have restrictions, like reporting to a parole officer every month and having to get permission to travel. The women now live in Pensacola, Fla.
