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Thread: Richard Gerald Jordan - Mississippi Death Row

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    Richard Gerald Jordan - Mississippi Death Row



    Summary of Offense:

    Was sentenced in Jackson County for the January 1976 kidnapping and murder of Edwina Marter, who was shot in the back of the head when she tried to escape.

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    Administrator Moh's Avatar
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    On October 28, 2010, Jordan filed an appeal before the US Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals over the denial of his habeas petition in Federal District Court.

    http://dockets.justia.com/docket/cir.../ca5/10-70030/

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    Related:

    Hood says 3 Miss. death row inmates running out of appeals, executions possible in late fall

    One delay doesn't stop justice, says Attorney General Jim Hood.

    Although the execution of Robert Simon Jr. is on hold, Hood said the clock is ticking on at least three other death row inmates who could be executed before the year is up.

    The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans has turned down petitions by all three inmates, Hood said.

    "This means that Mississippi could see three executions in the late fall, as early as November," Hood said. "Our office will stay in communications with the victims' families involved in these cases to keep them updated."

    The three inmates on the list are William Gerald Mitchell, Larry Matthew Puckett and Edwin Hart Turner.

    The longest serving inmate on death row, Richard Jordan, has appeals still winding their way through the federal courts. Now 65, Jordan has spent 34 years on death row.

    Jordan's petition for a certificate of appealability has been filed with the 5th Circuit. A federal judge in Mississippi turned down Jordan's petition last year.

    A certificate of appealability is similar to a post-conviction petition, in which an inmate argues he has found new evidence — or a possible constitutional issue — that could persuade a court to order a new trial.

    Jordan was sentenced to death in 1977. He was convicted of capital murder and kidnapping in the death of Edwina Marta in Harrison County Jan. 13, 1976. Court records show he kidnapped the woman, took her to a wooded area in north Harrison County and shot her in the back of the head. Prosecutors said he then collected a $25,000 ransom from Marta's husband.

    Two inmates were executed in May: Rodney Gray and Benny Joe Stevens.

    Hours before Robert Simon Jr., was to be put to death on May 24 for the 1990 slaying of members of a Quitman County family, his execution was stopped by a three-judge panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans. The panel is considering arguments whether a blow to the head that Simon suffered in January has rendered him incompetent to be executed.

    The appeals of Mitchell, Puckett and Hart have been on similar grounds: mental disability and/or ineffective counsel.

    Mitchell, now 50, was sentenced to death in 1998 in Harrison County. He was convicted of capital murder in the death of Patty Milliken, a 38-year-old store clerk, on the night of Nov. 21, 1995. Prosecutors said Mitchell took Milliken from the store where she worked, brought her under the north end of the Popp's Ferry Road bridge and killed her by beating her and driving his car over her body.

    In May, the 5th Circuit declined to grant Mitchell a certificate of appealability on the grounds of mental retardation and ineffective counsel.

    Puckett, now 34, was sentenced to death in 1996 in Forrest County. He was convicted of capital murder and sexual assault in the 1995 death of Rhonda Griffis of the Sunrise community. Authorities said Griffis died from blows to the head.

    The 5th Circuit in May denied Puckett's post-conviction claims that blacks were kept off his trial jury and that prosecutors shouldn't have been allowed to discuss his post-arrest silence.

    Turner, now 37, was sentenced to death in 1997 in Forrest County, where the trial was moved on a change of venue. He was convicted on two counts of capital murder in the 1995 deaths of two Carroll County men: Eddie Brooks and Everett Curry.

    Brooks, a clerk at Mims Auto Truck Village on U.S. Highway 82 East, was killed on the job on Dec. 13, 1995. Shortly thereafter, Curry, a prison guard, was shot to death while pumping gasoline into his car at Mims One Stop, also east of Greenwood on U.S. 82, according to the court record.

    In February, the 5th Circuit denied Turner's claim that his trial attorney could have done a better job on his defense.

    http://www.therepublic.com/view/stor...pi-Executions/

  4. #4
    What`s with Richard Jordan the longest on Mississippi`s death row (since 1977)? A few months ago I read on a website that his appeal has been denied by United States Court of Appeals for the fifth circuit!

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    Administrator Moh's Avatar
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    Have you got a link for that Fifth Circuit denial?

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    On June 25, 2014, the 5th Circuit Court, in a 2-1 decision, denied Jordan a COA (Judge James Dennis dissented in part).

    RICHARD JORDAN v. CHRISTOPHER B. EPPS

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    Administrator Helen's Avatar
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    Mississippi's oldest death row inmate Richard Jordan continues appeals of 1976 sentence in Harrison County

    JACKSON, Mississippi -- Richard Gerald Jordan is the oldest inmate on Mississippi's death row at 68.

    He is also the longest serving death row inmate at 37 years.

    Jordan was convicted of capital murder committed in the course of a kidnapping and was sentenced to death on four separate occasions. Following the first three convictions, Jordan challenged his death sentence successfully, was re-tried, and was again re-sentenced to death.

    Jordan, now 68, was convicted of kidnapping and killing Edwina Marta in Harrison County on Jan. 13, 1976. He was accused of collecting a $25,000 ransom from Marta's husband, then taking the woman to a wooded area in north Harrison County and shooting her in the back of the head

    In 1991, after a third successful challenge to his sentence, Jordan entered into an agreement with the prosecution to serve a sentence of life imprisonment without parole in exchange for not further contesting his sentence.

    Jordan appealed to the Supreme Court, saying he had agreed to the sentence but it was invalid under state law.

    The Supreme Court in 1997 agreed, ruling life without parole as a sentencing option did not exist until July 1, 1994. The justices said the only sentences available to Jordan were death or life imprisonment with parole. The justices ordered a new sentencing hearing.

    Thereafter, Jordan sought to a life with parole sentence. The prosecutor refused. The prosecutor said that, because Jordan "violated" the first agreement by asking the court to change his earlier sentence, the prosecutor would not again enter into a plea agreement with Jordan for a life sentence.

    The prosecutor instead successfully sought the death penalty for the fourth time in a 1998 sentencing trial.

    In a post-conviction appeal denied in June, two members of a three-judge panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected Jordan's arguments of prosecutorial vindictiveness and ineffective assistance of counsel. Jordan argued his attorneys at the 1988 sentencing didn't do a good job of protecting his rights.

    A third judge, James L. Dennis, said Jordan should get to appeal the issue of vindictiveness.

    "The prosecutor had a 'considerable stake' in Jordan accepting his life-without-parole sentence without challenge and, when Jordan did lodge a challenge, the prosecutor 'upped the ante' by deciding that a life sentence of any sort was no longer acceptable and only death would now suffice," Dennis said.

    The two other judges said Jordan had not presented any evidence of actual prosecutorial vindictiveness.

    Jordan's options now are to ask the full 5th Circuit to review his petition or file a motion with the U.S. Supreme Court.


    http://blog.gulflive.com/mississippi...death_row.html

    "I realize this may sound harsh, but as a father and former lawman, I really don't care if it's by lethal injection, by the electric chair, firing squad, hanging, the guillotine or being fed to the lions."
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    "There are some people who just do not deserve to live,"
    - Rev. Richard Hawke

    “There are lots of extremely smug and self-satisfied people in what would be deemed lower down in society, who also deserve to be pulled up. In a proper free society, you should be allowed to make jokes about absolutely anything.”
    - Rowan Atkinson

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    Edited

    Jordan presses new appeal of 1976 death sentence

    Mississippi inmate Richard Gerald Jordan has asked the full 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to hear his death penalty appeal.

    In a post-conviction petition denied in June, two members of a three-judge panel of the 5th Circuit rejected Jordan's arguments of prosecutorial vindictiveness and ineffective assistance of counsel.

    The 5th Circuit set a deadline of Friday for the Mississippi attorney general's office to respond to Jordan's motion for a full court hearing.

    http://www.wjtv.com/story/26247955/j...death-sentence
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  9. #9
    Administrator Moh's Avatar
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    On October 20, 2014, the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit DENIED Jordan's petition for en banc rehearing.

    http://www.supremecourt.gov/search.a...es/14-8035.htm

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    Suit says Mississippi lethal injections are unconstitutional

    By Jeff Amy
    The Associated Press

    JACKSON, Miss. — Two Mississippi prisoners condemned to death are challenging the legality of the state's lethal injection procedures.

    A lawyer for Richard Jordan and Ricky Chase writes in a suit filed Thursday in U.S. District Court in Jackson that Mississippi prisoners face risks of excruciating pain and torture during an execution that violates the U.S. Constitution's Eighth Amendment prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment.

    A prison spokeswoman declined to comment.

    Mississippi plans to execute prisoners by mixing pentobarbital from ingredients it purchased from a compounding pharmacy in Grenada. Lawyer Jim Craig said Mississippi doesn't seem to have ever used the drug in an execution before and questioned whether the state can mix a safe and effective anesthetic for prisoners.

    Even if it can, Craig warns that the drug may act more slowly than drugs used previously, meaning that prisoners could be conscious as a paralyzing agent is injected, causing them to know they're unable to breathe. They might remain conscious as potassium chloride is injected to stop their hearts.

    "The defendants' untried and untested drugs create a substantial risk that plaintiffs will suffer unnecessary and excruciating pain, either by injection of the compounded pentobarbital causing a painful reaction itself, or by the compounded pentobarbital failing to work, resulting in a torturous death by life suffocation and cardiac arrest," the suit states.

    The prisoners also allege using pentobarbital is illegal under state law, because it doesn't meet the legal mandate for an ultra-fast-acting barbiturate. Mississippi formerly used a different drug, but the supplier cut off use in executions.

    Craig has fought the state Corrections Department in court seeking information about Mississippi's suppliers of execution drugs. The new lawsuit argues that the secrecy is a separate constitutional violation, because it retards prisoners' ability to mount Eighth Amendment challenges.

    "Under the due process clauses of the United States and Mississippi constitutions, plaintiffs are entitled to notice of the defendants' intended method of execution," the suit states.

    Craig argues that under evolving standards of decency, U.S. District Judge Henry T. Wingate should bar Mississippi from using the paralytic agent and potassium chloride, though they are required by state law. He said executing people using only barbiturates, as Texas now does, could meet these standards.

    Jordan was convicted of capital murder committed in the course of kidnapping Edwina Marta in Harrison County in 1976. At 68, Jordan is the oldest inmate on Mississippi's death row, having won three successful appeals only to be resentenced to death. He's also the longest serving, having spent 38 years in death row. What would likely be Jordan's final appeal is pending before the U.S. Supreme Court. Hood's office could ask the state Supreme Court to set an execution date within weeks if Jordan's appeal is refused. That's important, because Mississippi's current supply of pentobarbital is supposed to expire May 20.

    Chase was convicted and sentenced to death in 1990 for the 1989 killing of an elderly vegetable salesman in Copiah County.

    http://www.sfchronicle.com/news/arti...re-6211391.php

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