Mississippi has 35 men and one woman awaiting execution on death row.
The state Supreme Court handed down two decisions Thursday that dealt blows to two men on Mississippi's death row.
Richard Jordan, who has been on death row in Mississippi since 1977 for the 1976 kidnapping and murder of Edwina Marter, the wife of a Gulfport bank executive, learned the court denied a motion for rehearing in his pursuit of post-conviction relief.
Jordan, at 78, is the oldest prisoner on death row and has been there the longest.
Attorney General Lynn Fitch asked for a date to be set for Jordan's execution on Oct. 1. Since the court denied Jordan's latest motion, it is possible the state could soon rule on the execution date request.
In court documents, Krissy Nobile, director of the Mississippi Office of Capital Post-Conviction Counsel, has long held the attorney general's office is determined to keep death row prisoners on death row even when the CPCC has shown there is reason to believe some of the convictions may be wrong or the sentences are inappropriate.
Instead, Nobile said, Fitch has responded to the motions with swift responses that suggest the prisoners are only attempting to delay the inevitable and have no business doing so.
"By filing this fifth — and frivolous — PCR petition, Jordan has proven the State’s prediction correct — if left unchecked, death row petitioners like Jordan will continue filing baseless PCRs in perpetuity to avoid the execution of their lawful death sentences," the attorney general's office wrote in its response to Jordan's latest motion for relief.
Nobile responded quickly, saying the prisoners have every right to be heard and Fitch's office should provide answers that explain their take on the law.
"Instead of filing a responsive pleading with substantive legal argument, the State weaponized Mississippi’s rules of ethics and interferes with counsel’s duty to advocate on behalf of their client," Nobile wrote in a motion to strike Fitch's response to Jordan's motion for a rehearing. "The State’s bullying tactics have no place in litigation — let alone death penalty litigation."
Caleb Corrothers was sentenced to death in 2011 for the 2009 murders of a Lafayette County man and his son, Frank and Taylor Clark. Corrothers shot a third person Tonya Clark — Frank Clark's wife and Taylor Clark's mother — in their home. Tonya Clark survived her injuries.
Corrothers' case did not go in his favor either. The court sided with the trial court in Corrothers' quest for post-conviction relief in which he claimed juror bias. His mother and cousin testified that an unnamed female juror allegedly mouthed "We got it" to Tonya Clark after returning to the courtroom to announce Corrothers' sentence.
The trial court found Corrothers' witnesses were not credible, according to court records. In an appeal of that decision, the Supreme Court agreed with the trial court.
"In post-conviction proceedings like this one, it is the trial judge who determines witness credibility," Justice James Maxwell wrote on behalf of the court. "And this Court must give deference to his credibility decisions."
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"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted."
— Oscar Wilde
