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@gannett.com. Follow her on X @licibev or Facebook at facebook.com/licibeveridge
This article originally appeared on Mississippi Clarion Ledger: Richard Jordan pleads for clemency ahead of execution in Mississippi
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