Latest news with #MississippiOfficeofCapitalPost-ConvictionCounsel
Yahoo
4 days ago
- Yahoo
Mississippi prisoner Richard Jordan takes to YouTube to plead for clemency before execution
In an effort to seek clemency for convicted murderer Richard Gerald Jordan, the Mississippi Office of Capital Post-Conviction Counsel released a video in which Jordan shares his story and asks the state not to execute him. The 79-year-old is scheduled to be executed on June 25. The U.S. Supreme Court will discuss on June 18 whether to grant Jordan an emergency stay of execution, and the Mississippi Southern District of U.S. District Court is expected to rule on whether to halt the execution at least temporarily as the court considers Jordan's objections to the state's three-drug method. Jordan has been on death row in Mississippi since 1977 for the kidnapping and murder of Edwina Marter, a Gulfport bank executive's wife. He also tried to collect a ransom after Marter was already dead. In the video, Jordan talks about his childhood and military service, saying he was a model citizen until he returned from Vietnam after serving three tours there during the war. He believes and experts shared in the video that Jordan likely suffered post-traumatic stress disorder from his time in Vietnam at the time he killed Marter. Jordan's brother Houston Jordan and sister Nordeen Jones talk about their older brother "Gerald" as a kind person and a role model for his younger siblings. The Jordans, they said, were a God-fearing family and spent a lot of time at church. "From the time we were small up, we went to church every Sunday morning, Sunday night and Wednesday night," Houston Jordan said. "We were quite active in the church." Others, including former schoolmates, ministers and a retired corrections officer, talk about Richard Jordan's willingness to help others. In the video, Richard Jordan is not asking the state to set him free. He admits his crime was wrong and has apologized for what he did. He is asking the state to commute his sentence to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Jordan's attorneys said at a hearing held Saturday at the Thad Cochran Federal Courthouse in Jackson that the state's preferred method of execution is tantamount to cruel and unusual punishment, which is unconstitutional under the Eighth Amendment. Jordan also contends the execution method violates the Fourteenth Amendment, which speaks to due process and equal protection under the law. U.S. District Judge Henry Wingate asked the state and Jordan if they would be amenable to halting the execution if Jordan is deemed conscious after the first drug is administered and before the second has begun so the federal court could decide what should happen next, since it is not clear in Mississippi code what should happen if the first drug, a sedative, fails. Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch replied on Monday that there is a protocol. If the first consciousness test fails, Department of Corrections Commissioner Burl Cain can restart the process. If it fails a second time, the process would be halted until the state could decide what to do next. Wingate has not yet ruled on the matter. Lici Beveridge is a reporter for the Hattiesburg American and Clarion Ledger. Contact her at lbeveridge@ Follow her on X @licibev or Facebook at This article originally appeared on Mississippi Clarion Ledger: Richard Jordan pleads for clemency ahead of execution in Mississippi
Yahoo
25-02-2025
- Yahoo
Death row inmate asks Supreme Court to hear oral arguments
JACKSON – Attorneys for death row inmate Charles Ray Crawford want the state's highest court to hear oral arguments in the latest appeal of his 30-year-old capital murder conviction and death sentence. Defense attorneys with the Mississippi Office of Capital Post-Conviction Counsel argue that three decades ago, Crawford's attorneys admitted his guilt and pursued an unwanted insanity defense over Crawford's repeated objections before and during the capital murder trial. That act denied Crawford his constitutional entitlement to decide how he was represented. Late last year, Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch petitioned the Supreme Court to set an execution date. About three weeks later, the defense team filed a motion for Crawford's third post-conviction relief effort, bringing up the unwanted insanity defense for the first time. 'Before the court executes a person with such a substantial claim for post-conviction relief, … the court should at a minimum hear oral argument on the matter,' lead defense attorney Krissy Nobile said in the motion filed last week. 'All in all, Crawford should not have been forced to undergo a trial in which his own lawyer served as a second prosecutor advocating his guilt to the jury. The issues presented in Crawford's petition for post-conviction relief warrant oral argument.' Crawford, 59, admitted he kidnapped, raped and killed Northeast Mississippi Community College coed Kristy Ray, 20, more than 30 years ago. A jury found him guilty of capital murder and sentenced him to death in April 1994, but legal wrangling over the years has kept him out of the death chamber at the Mississippi State Penitentiary at Parchman. Defense attorneys say disregarding the PCR claim would create a federal due process issue. The state holds the position that the latest PCR is 'barred and meritless' and 'can be viewed as merely a delay tactic.' 'His third PCR motion filed 30 years (after the 1994 conviction and death sentence) is clearly outside the time allowed by law,' and should not be considered, the attorney general argued. Crawford ran out of appeals on the capital murder conviction in 2014, so he appealed a separate rape conviction, which the state used in arguing for the death penalty. The federal appeal was initially denied in U.S. District Court, but the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals agreed to hear the case. The New Orleans-based court heard oral arguments in October 2023 and issued an 11-4 ruling denying the appeal in November 2024. The same day the appeal was denied, Nov. 22, 2024, Fitch filed a motion asking the Mississippi Supreme Court to set an execution date.
