In the remaining weeks before his scheduled execution, Richard Jordan, Mississippi’s oldest and longest serving death row inmate, is looking for ways to fight his death sentence.
Jordan was sentenced to death for the kidnap and murder of Gulfport resident Edwina Marter in January 1976. Marter’s sons, who were 3 and 9 at the time of her death, and her husband are still alive, according to public records. About a decade ago, her family told The Advocate they were hoping to receive closure from the execution after years of its delay.
The decision to let the execution proceed rests in the hands of the Mississippi Supreme Court, the U.S. Supreme Court and a federal district court judge – two courts that have rejected his previous requests and a judge who has allowed another execution to be carried out while a challenge to the state’s execution protocol continues.
Attorneys filed two motions asking the Mississippi Supreme Court to rehear its denial of the 78-year-old’s petition for post conviction relief and to rehear its order setting his execution.
They wrote that when the court denied his post-conviction relief petition, it “misapprehended the facts and the law.” To fix it, Jordan asked the court to vacate his death sentence or at a minimum return it to the trial court for another look.
His attorneys argue Jordan’s death sentence is not valid because in 1976, when the murder was committed and Jordan was sentenced, Mississippi and all other states had ceased executions based on a 1972 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Furman v. Georgia that capital punishment was unconstitutional.
On July 2, 1976, four months after Jordan was sentenced, the Supreme Court overturned this ruling in Gregg v. Georgia. Mississippi passed a statute allowing discretionary death penalty sentences in 1977.
“Here, because there was no constitutional provision for the death penalty at the time of Jordan’s offense, his death sentence is unconstitutional,” the May 15 filing states.
Jordan went to trial multiple times and his sentences were overturned. His death sentence did not stick until decades later in 1998. Since his first trial, Jordan has been incarcerated for nearly 50 years.
In another recent court filing, Jordan’s attorneys argue the state’s motion to set Jordan’s execution didn’t follow state law because he has not exhausted all state and federal remedies.
Jordan asked the U.S. Supreme Court in March to hear his case. As of May, that petition for writ of certiorari is awaiting a decision. The state opposes and has asked the high court not to take up Jordan’s petition, saying the Mississippi Supreme Court was correct in its ruling.
That petition centers around his access to a mental health expert separate from the prosecution to develop and present sentencing mitigation as an indigent defendant, which was established as a constitutional right through the U.S. Supreme Court’s Ake v. Oklahoma decision. The other issue is how the Mississippi Supreme Court handled Jordan’s Ake claims in his appeal and post-conviction.
At trial, Jordan was evaluated by a state psychiatrist whose report was also given to the prosecution, which his attorneys argue undermined his mitigation case since the Ake decision specified the evaluation was to be used on the indigent defendant’s behalf.
The petition states he was not diagnosed as suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder resulting from his combat service in Vietnam, but instead incorrectly as having antisocial personality disorder.
“Review of that decision is manifestly warranted to ensure appropriate respect for this Court’s decisions, vindicate the supremacy of federal law, and ensure that those defendants in Mississippi whose mental health will be an issue at trial receive the right to the expert assistance to which the Due Process Clause entitles them,” the March court filing states.
Additionally, Jordan and fellow death row inmate Ricky Chase are lead plaintiffs in a federal lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the drugs used for lethal injection.
Since 2022, the state has since added alternative execution methods if lethal injection drugs aren’t available: execution by gas chamber, electrocution or firing squad. To date, a handful of states have used these other methods, including the use of nitrogen gas in Alabama and firing squad in South Carolina.
The Mississippi lawsuit did not stop the December 2022 execution of Thomas Loden, another inmate who was part of the legal challenge.
The same day Jordan’s attorneys filed motions with the Mississippi Supreme Court, Jordan and Chase filed a motion with U.S. District Judge Henry Wingate, asking for him to order the state to provide essential documents to the plaintiffs about the state’s possession and planned use of execution drugs as well as documents related to the most recent executions of David Cox in 2021 and Loden.
Plaintiffs wrote that access to this information would help them seek an injunction to stay Jordan’s execution and help with discovery, which is the process of obtaining evidence from other parties before trial. Trial for the lawsuit has been scheduled for Dec. 1, 2025.
“It is unconscionable for Defendants to seek the execution of Richard Jordan while continuing to stonewall Plaintiffs’ repeated demands for supplementation of discovery in this case,” a May 14 court filing states.
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