The Philadelphia Inquirer, 5/9/25: “A 71-year-old woman who has spent more than a half-century in prison for murder is expected to go before Pennsylvania’s Board of Pardons on Friday and ask for mercy.

Marie Scott has been in prison since 1973, after she and her 16-year-old boyfriend, Leroy Saxton, robbed a Germantown gas station. She was 19 and addicted to heroin when she helped Saxton restrain the cashier, Michael Kerrigan, and then rifle through the store’s cash register and safe. Her attorneys say she was acting as a lookout when — to her surprise, she says — Saxton shot Kerrigan, 35, in the back of the head.

The pair was later arrested. Saxton was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison. Scott was convicted of felony murder and sentenced to the same fate.

But Saxton was released on time served in 2020, after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned mandatory life sentences for juveniles.

Scott, meanwhile, remains in prison.

She is now wheelchair-bound and suffering from Stage 2 breast cancer. She underwent a double mastectomy late last year, but because her doctors say she has more than a year to live, she doesn’t qualify for compassionate release under Pennsylvania law, her attorneys said.

For years, Scott and her lawyers at the Abolitionist Law Center have applied for a commutation from the Board of Pardons, asking that her life sentence be reduced. They have repeatedly been denied — until this year, when she was granted a public hearing in her case.”

Read the full article here.