The Philadelphia Inquirer, 5/9/25: “Pennsylvania’s Board of Pardons on Friday voted to recommend commuting the life sentence of Marie Scott, a 71-year-old woman with cancer who has spent more than a half-century incarcerated for murder and who a community of advocates in Philadelphia has said should be released.

The board voted unanimously to recommend that Scott’s sentence be reduced to time served. Gov. Josh Shapiro must give final approval for the commutation to go into effect, and there’s no time frame for when he would have to make that decision.

The board’s recommendation came despite opposition from the family of Scott’s victim — and it came with a caveat: If the governor approves the commutation, Scott must serve at least six more months behind bars as a penalty for the three times she escaped from prison decades ago before she could become eligible for parole.

Still, Scott’s team of attorneys and advocates, who for years have applied for a commutation without success, were overjoyed Friday at the news that, for the first time in 52 years, she has a chance at going home.

‘I really see today as an acknowledgment that people are capable of changing,” said Rupalee Rashatwar, one of Scott’s attorneys at the Abolitionist Law Center.'”

Read the full article here.