The Philadelphia Inquirer, 3/6/25: “Pennsylvania’s Board of Pardons on Thursday voted unanimously to grant Marie Scott, who has served 51 years behind bars for murder, a public hearing — a critical step in her quest to be considered for an early release from prison.

The vote does not mean that Scott, 71, will be freed and it does not guarantee that the Board will approve her petition for a commutation of the life sentence she has been serving for her role in a robbery that led to the death of a Philadelphia man in 1973. But it is hurdle she has never before surpassed and that wasn’t guaranteed after her attorneys said the head of Pennsylvania’s Department of Corrections did not back her application.

Scott will now go before the board for a public hearing in May, where her attorneys, along with prison officials and the family of the victim of her crime will testify for or against her petition for release. To win her freedom, Scott would need a unanimous vote of the five-member board and final approval from Gov. Josh Shapiro.

Scott has been incarcerated since she was 19, after she took part in a deadly robbery at a Germantown gas station in 1973. She and her then-boyfriend, while high on drugs, confronted the store’s cashier, Michael Kerrigan, at knifepoint before rifling through the register and safe. Scott was acting as lookout when — to her surprise, she says — the boyfriend shot and killed Kerrigan, an off-duty firefighter and father of seven.”

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