Execution date set for man on Mississippi death row for nearly 50 years

The Mississippi Supreme Court set an execution date for Richard Jordan, the state's oldest and longest-serving prisoner on death row.

The execution date is set for June 25, exactly one month after his 79th birthday.

Jordan 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.

"After due consideration, the Court finds Jordan has exhausted all state and federal remedies for purposes of setting an execution date," the court wrote in its decision. "Accordingly, the Court finds the State's Motion to Set Execution Date should be granted and a date should be set for execution of the death sentence imposed upon Jordan."

The Mississippi Attorney General’s Office asked the court in October to set a date for Jordan’s execution, claiming the 78-year-old had exhausted all legal remedies at the state and federal levels.

In March, Jordan's attorneys filed a petition for a writ of certiorari with the U.S. Supreme Court. In other words, they are asking the court to review a lower court's ruling, in this instance, the Mississippi Supreme Court.

The federal court has not yet ruled on the petition, according to the Supreme Court's docket. The state asked for and was granted an extension to file its response by May 7. That response has not been filed.

Jordan’s attorneys were seeking the review because they believe the state's highest court erred when it did not grant him access to mental health assistance in preparing a defense for himself at his 1998 sentencing hearing outside of an evaluation by a state psychiatrist.

"Instead, he was evaluated by a state psychiatrist whose report the court ordered be concurrently produced to the prosecution — meaning that the defense received no expert assistance independent of the prosecution," the petition says. "And in the prosecution’s hands, that report — which directly undermined Petitioner’s mitigation case by failing to diagnose the serious post-traumatic stress disorder he suffered as a result of his combat service in Vietnam and instead (incorrectly) tarring him as an antisocial personality — became a weapon wielded against Petitioner."

They contend the court denied Jordan his right to due process, which is guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment.

The sentencing hearing was the fourth time Jordan was sentenced to death for killing Marter.

Jordan attempted to collect a ransom from her husband after he had already killed her, according to court records.

He was initially sentenced to death in 1977, but that sentence later was reduced to life in prison without the possibility of parole in exchange for his confession. He challenged that sentence in hopes of gaining the possibility of parole. Instead, he was resentenced to death for a second time. 

Subsequent challenges have also resulted in death sentences for Jordan.

Mississippi currently has 37 prisoners on death row: 36 men and one woman.

Source: Clarion Ledger, Lici Beveridge, May 1, 2025

"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted."

— Oscar Wilde