Sisters reunite with family after 16 years behind bars

Pensacola, Florida (CNN) -- Evelyn Rasco started crying early Saturday morning as soon as she saw the cars carrying her daughters turn the corner.

Minutes later, her voice took on a tougher tone: "I'll tell you one thing, y'all ain't going back to the state of Mississippi. I'll tell you that. Y'all ain't going there to get a drink of water."

Her daughters, Gladys and Jamie Scott, were released from a Mississippi prison Friday after 16 years behind bars. Gov. Haley Barbour suspended their armed robbery sentences on one condition -- that one sister donate a kidney to the other.

Jamie Scott, 38, is gravely ill and needs a kidney transplant, said attorney Chokwe Lumumba.

Barbour said last week it "should be scheduled with urgency." And Jamie Scott told CNN she feared at one point that she would die in prison.

The sisters were convicted of armed robbery and sentenced to life in prison for their role in a 1993 ambush in Scott County, Mississippi. Authorities accused the sisters of leading two men to a group of three teenagers, who hit them with a shotgun and took their wallets. The robbers netted between $11 and $200, according to CNN affiliate WLBT.

Both sisters have maintained their innocence. After their release Friday, they told reporters they planned to continue fighting.

"The governor granted us our first step and we are grateful for that," Jamie Scott said, her sister next to her, nodding in agreement. "The fight is not over until our name is cleared."

Early Saturday morning, the sisters arrived at their mother's home in Pensacola, Florida.

Gladys Scott, 36, walked arm-in-arm with her mother toward the door.

"We're home, Mama, we're home," she said.

"You don't know how many nights I prayed for this," Rasco replied.

Gladys Scott's 22-year-old daughter, Olivia, placed her arm around her mother's shoulder and said she was looking forward to making up for lost time.

"We're going to get her an up-to-date cell phone. We're going to show her the beach... We're going to have fun, do what we couldn't do, do what the state of Mississippi took from us," she said.

In Florida, the sisters will be under the supervision of the Florida Department of Corrections parole office, said Suzanne Singletary, a spokeswoman for the Mississippi Department of Corrections.

Lumumba said Friday that Gladys Scott had not yet been tested to determine whether her kidney could be used in a transplant.

"I'm praying to God I'm a match," she said. "I want her to raise her grandkids with me."

Bumper stickers on cars parked in the Rasco's driveway Saturday said "The Scott Sisters" -- a lingering sign of the legal fight the family says it's determined to continue.

Lumumba said the sisters would seek a pardon from the state of Mississippi.

"We're not going to lay down the guns. We're going to keep fighting in order to get them totally exonerated," he said.