June 5, 2015This week marks five years since the Israeli military raided a flotilla of civilian ships on international waters en route to deliver humanitarian aid to Gaza and challenge the Israeli blockade. Ten...
January 20, 2016Bobby James Moore was sentenced to death by the State of Texas in 1980, when he was 20 years old. He has spent three and a half decades on death row, and the last fifteen years in solitary...
Attorneys: Obama must follow through promptly with release August 11, 2016, Arlington, VA – Today, a Periodic Review Board (PRB) made public its decision to clear Guantánamo detainee Sufyian Barhoumi...
Rights Attorneys to Argue Post-9/11 Sweeps Case in Supreme Court Week of Trump Inauguration December 22, 2016, New York – Today, Center for Constitutional Rights Legal Director Baher Azmy responded...
August 3, 2018, North Dakota – Today, a federal judge blocked Energy Transfer Partners (ETP), the corporation behind the Dakota Access Pipeline, from continuing a lawsuit against Earth First!. ETP...
Anne White Hat is a member of the Aske Tiospaye (clan) of the Sicangu Lakota Oyate. The Sicangu Lakota are one of the Oceti Sakowin, the Seven Council Fires of the Lakota Oyate (the Lakota Nation)...
Updated: September 7, 2021
January 6, 2019, New York – Today, the Center for Constitutional Rights welcomed Ken Montenegro as its first-ever Technology Director. He will lead and develop the organization’s technology to...
January 6, 2019, New York – Today, the Center for Constitutional Rights welcomed Ken Montenegro as its first-ever Technology Director. He will lead and develop the organization’s technology to...
Current Escalations Tied to Past Failure to Hold Agencies Accountable for Abuses July 20, 2020, New York – The Center for Constitutional Rights issued the following statement in response to recent...
Marsha Scaggs is 56 years old and is currently imprisoned at the State Correctional Institution at Cambridge Springs in Pennsylvania. Marsha is serving a Death By Incarceration sentence (more commonly known as Life Without Parole) after being convicted of felony murder. Marsha was prosecuted after an altercation with the victim in her case resulted in her co-defendant killing the victim; she was not responsible for the killing nor did she have any intention for that to happen. She was 23 years old at the time. Marsha has been incarcerated since 1987 and has spent over 30 years—more than half of her life—in prison. She is a plaintiff in Scott v. Pennsylvania Board of Probation and Parole, a lawsuit that argues that Pennsylvania's mandatory life sentences without the eligibility for parole for felony murder are unconstitutional.
When asked what she wants the outside world to know about people serving life sentences, she said, "We are human beings who have made mistakes but we are not defined by those mistakes. There are lifers that have taken the necessary steps to redeem ourselves and if given the opportunity, we will rise to the occasion and be role models."
Marsha wants to be released from prison. She wants the chance to use the certification and degree that she worked so hard to get while incarcerated. During her incarceration, she has lost loved ones on the outside. She wants to be free to be able to spend time with friends and family outside of the prison walls. Marsha says she also wants the chance to do things that many people on the outside take for granted. She wants to get a job, pay bills, and do her taxes.
Marsha says that aging in prison is, "no picnic...you do not get the proper medical attention that is needed, and the more you age, you can see and feel your body deteriorate. It's like a loss of life emotionally, physically, mentally, and spiritually."
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