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  1. #1
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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.

  2. #2
    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!

  5. #5
    Administrator Moh's Avatar
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    Have you got a link for that Fifth Circuit denial?

  6. #6
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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

  7. #7
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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."
    - Oklahoma Rep. Mike Christian

    "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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    No drug, no death: State's lethal injection protocol stalls execution of South Mississippi murderer

    The execution of Richard Gerald Jordan, Mississippi's longest-serving death row inmate, is being held up over a lawsuit. Jordan filed suit to stop the state from using a lethal cocktail he says is experimental and could cause him great pain before he dies.

    Jordan exhausted all of his appeals before the U.S. Supreme Court at the end of June, paving the way for Attorney General Jim Hood to request an execution date.

    In other such cases from as far back as April 1989, the Attorney General's Office filed for an execution date within a day or two of the exhaustion of an inmate's final appeal.

    Attorney General Jim Hood's office said Jordan's litigation has held up the request to set an execution date because the Mississippi Department of Corrections "can no longer obtain (the anesthetic) pentobarbital and thus will have to obtain another drug in (its) place."

    "That change has not been made as of yet and we have informed the federal court we will not request an execution date prior to that change," Hood's office said.

    Pentobarbital, which is produced in European countries, is not available because those countries do not support lethal injection or the death penalty.

    MDOC did not wish to comment, citing the pending litigation.

    The state adopted the latest lethal-injection protocol in 2011 after manufacturers of the previous execution drug ceased its distribution to prisons in the United States because it did not want them used in executions.

    Jordan's lawsuit, filed by the Solange MacArthur Justice Center in New Orleans, requested an injunction to stop the use of the current execution protocol.

    In the suit, lawyer Jim Craig said Mississippi is one of the last states in the nation to use a compounded form of pentobarbital before injecting a paralytic drug and potassium chloride to execute a condemned person.

    He questioned whether the state could mix a safe and effective form of pentobarbital as an anesthetic.

    Even if it did, Craig said, it could act more slowly than the previous drugs used, resulting in a person remaining conscious and aware he is suffocating when the paralytic drug is administered prior to potassium chloride to stop the heart.

    "… The untried and untested drugs …" the suit says, result in a substantial risk for the condemned to face a "torturous death by live suffocation and cardiac arrest."

    Jordan is suing based on his right to not suffer cruel and unusual punishment.

    Family wants justice

    That means little to the family members of Jordan's victim, Edwina Marter, who have waited more than 38 years for closure.

    "This has been going on for us far too long," said Marter's sister Mary Degruy. "When is this going to happen? Nobody is calling us."

    Edwina Marter was 37 years old when Jordan kidnapped and killed her in Harrison County on Jan. 11, 1976.

    Degruy still visits her sister's grave in New Orleans often, leaving flowers and maintaining its surroundings in her memory.

    Marter and her husband, Charles, had been together for years and had two sons.

    "She was very good-hearted and she loved her kids," Degruy said. "She did charity and they were well known in Mississippi. She would always come and stay with us for a week or two when the kids weren't in school. We did everything together when we could."

    Charles Marter over the years has often spoken out about his wife's killing and the delay in justice, but now in his 70s, he no longer wants to discuss it, his son Eric Marter said.

    Eric Marter said he was 11 years old when his mother was murdered.

    "She was a stay-at-home mom and she took care of us," he said. "She was always there for us. But ours wasn't a normal childhood with a mom and dad because of this."

    As for Jordan, he said, "He should have been executed a long time ago."

    The murder plot

    Jordan killed Edwina Marter execution-style shortly after he arrived in South Mississippi on Jan. 11, 1976, and spotted Gulf National Bank at U.S. 90 and U.S. 49 in Gulfport. He called and asked for the name of the senior commercial loan officer and was told it was Charles Marter, who was also vice president of the bank.

    Jordan went through a Gulfport city directory, which at that time listed occupations, to find Marter's home address.

    Jordan went to the home, posing as an electrical repairman to check the breaker boxes, and Edwina Marter let him in.

    He grabbed her as her 3-year-old son slept in a bedroom and forced her into a car. He drove to De Soto National Forest, where he let her out and killed her.

    After the killing, Jordan called Charles Marter demanding a $25,000 ransom in exchange for his wife's safe return. He told Marter to wrap the ransom up in a brown paper bag and drop it off at a location on U.S. 49. Marter gathered up the money, but also alerted authorities.

    Twice Marter tried to deliver the ransom to Jordan, but Jordan saw law enforcement officers as Marter was making his way to the drop-off point. He left both times. He contacted Marter a third time, telling him to leave the money under a jacket on Interstate 10 near the Canal Road exit.

    Marter left the money, but neither he nor Jordan knew authorities were watching.

    When Jordan picked up the money, authorities chased him, but he eluded them. He drove to a discount pharmacy to buy new clothes, then called a taxi. He was in a taxi when authorities arrested him in a roadblock.

    Jordan confessed to killing Edwina Marter and told authorities where to find her body. Her family said she'd been shot and tied to a tree.

    "He took my sister away and we're still dealing with it," Degruy said. "I think he's been living long enough. It's not fair to us. You know, you don't like people to die, but he deserves it."

    http://www.sunherald.com/2015/07/23/...#storylink=cpy
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  9. #9
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    Update: AG requests execution date 'forthwith' for Mississippi's longest-serving death row inmate

    The Attorney General's Office has filed a motion requesting an execution date "forthwith" -- on or before Aug. 27 -- for Richard Gerald Jordan, convicted in the 1976 kidnapping and killing of a Gulfport banker's wife.

    The motion, filed Tuesday with the state Supreme Court, paves the way for the execution of Jordan, 68, Mississippi's longest-serving death row inmate.

    The Attorney General's Office had agreed to wait until a replacement drug was found for one of the drugs used in the cocktail administered to inmates to kill them.

    Jordan had filed suit to stop his execution by challenging the lethal cocktail, which he says is experimental and could cause great pain. He questioned whether the state could mix a safe and effective form of pentobarbital as an anesthetic.

    When asked if a replacement drug had been found for the cocktail, the Attorney General's office sent the Sun Herald the following statement:

    "The Mississippi Department of Corrections amended its lethal injection protocol today to include the use of midazolam. MDOC can no longer obtain sodium thiopental or pentobarbital due to efforts by death penalty opponents who have put pressure on drug manufacturers to cease production of or to no longer supply drugs to departments of correction for use in lethal injections. The use of midazolam in lethal injections was recently found to be constitutional and not a violation of the 8th Amendment..."

    Jordan killed Edwina Marter execution style Jan. 11., 1976, after calling Gulf National Bank Gulfport and learning her husband, Charles Marter, was a senior official there. Jordan found the Marters' home address, went to the home and kidnapped her as her 3-year-old son slept in a bedroom. He drove to De Soto National Forest and he killed her, but called Charles Marter demanding a $25,000 ransom in exchange for her safe return. He was in escaping a taxi with the ransom money when authorities arrested him in a roadblock.

    Jordan confessed to killing Edwina Marter and told authorities where to find her body.

    http://www.sunherald.com/2015/07/28/...with.html?rh=1

  10. #10
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    According to deathpenaltyinfo.org X-date is set to 08/27.

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