Mississippi’s longest-serving death row inmate seeks clemency from governor

JACKSON, Miss. (WLBT) - Mississippi’s longest-serving death row inmate is seeking clemency from Gov. Tate Reeves.

On Monday, attorneys for Richard Gerald Jordan filed the petition, asking the governor to commute his sentence to life in prison without parole.

Jordan’s attorneys are also requesting a 15-minute in-person or virtual interview with the state’s top elected leader.

“It is the long-standing practice of the Office of the Governor in Mississippi to allow a 15 to 20-minute meeting with a death-sentenced inmate’s representatives,” Frank Rosenblatt, a representative for Jordan wrote.

The group also provided a video to the governor, which includes statements from Bishop Joseph Kopacz, of the Jackson Diocese, and others.

“It is said that when the state executes the condemned, they kill the entire person - not just the person at the time of offense. In Richard Jordan’s case, the entire person includes a kind man, who grew up in Petal, Mississippi, in a devout church-going family, and is remembered as a good son, brother, and friend,” Rosenblatt wrote. “He is a person who volunteered to serve our country in Vietnam and then re-enlisted to allow his brother to return home from the war.”

Rosenblatt went on to highlight Jordan’s record as an inmate, and his record in the military, citing experts who argue that the death penalty may not be the right sentence for those who served their country.

“First, veterans have made a vital contribution to the safety of our country. Second, many have experienced trauma that few others in society have ever encountered - trauma that may have played a role in their committing serious crimes,’” the petition states. “It would have been unjust to [the veteran defendant] and to society to throw out the circumstances that we as a society put him in.”

Rosenblatt spent 33 months in Vietnam, including “extensive time in a helicopter in the combat theater” and was honorably discharged.”

Years after coming home, the 79-year-old was sentenced to death years ago in connection with kidnapping and murdering Edwina Marter, a 35-year-old wife and bank executive from Harrison County.

Records indicate Jordan forced Marter to drive him to a secluded area at DeSoto National Park, where he eventually shot her in the head.

Jordan was convicted of capital murder in 1976 and received an automatic death penalty. Following a Supreme Court ruling requiring “bifurcated hearings,” he was again sentenced to death in 1997. The U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals granted him habeas corpus, and he was given a new trial and again sentenced to die in 1983.

That sentence was reversed and remanded on appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, and Jordan accepted a plea deal of life in prison. Jordan appealed that decision, it was vacated, and he was again convicted in 1998 and sentenced to death.

According to the petition, Jordan has been an “exemplary inmate,” and received “Tier Worker status,” which is “a position of trust given to inmates who have shown good behavior, and no record of violation reports for a long time.”

Jordan is slated to die on June 25. On Saturday, attorneys asked to delay that execution, saying that the three-drug protocol used by the Mississippi Department of Corrections in the lethal injection process could cause severe pain for the prisoner.

The state’s three-drug protocol includes Midazolam, rocuronium bromide, and potassium chloride. Midazolam is designed to render the prisoner unconscious, while the bromide is used as a chemical paralytic, and potassium chloride is used to stop the heart.

Jordan contends that the method could cause pain, in part, because the Midazolam isn’t always effective. His attorneys also argue that the state has not properly implemented a consciousness check protocol to ensure the prisoner is unconscious when the second two drugs are administered.

U.S. District Judge Henry Wingate asked both parties if the execution could go forward if prison officials agreed to a consciousness check before administering the final two drugs in the protocol, and to contact the court before proceeding with the execution if that check failed.

William Minor, an attorney for the state, told the judge that he would have to check with Commissioner Burl Cain. In a letter submitted to the court on Monday, he wrote that MDOC procedures already outline the process.

“In the event that the IV Team leader informs the commissioner that the inmate remains conscious after performing the consciousness check, the commissioner will, as the protocol allows, restart the execution, and the inmate will be administered another 500 mg dose of Midazolam. If the IV team leader informs the commissioner that the inmate still remains conscious... the commissioner will stop the execution and notify the court and counsel opposite in writing not later than the following day.”

“This is the proper course of action,” he wrote. “The states’ execution protocol... gives the commissioner the discretion to restart the execution, and he should be allowed to exercise that discretion, and all other discretion under the state’s execution protocol.”

In a response, attorney Jim Craig said that the state essentially sidestepped the question in its response, and that the commissioner would not agree to the judge’s suggestion.

“This court is correctly concerned about the consequences of allowing Commissioner Cain unbridled discretion. Under Mr. Cain, after all, the ‘consciousness check’ language of the MDOC protocol has been changed three different times... The 2022 protocol moved the... check from four minutes before the injection of the first drug to four minutes after the injection of the third drug, despite the fact that the third drug, potassium chloride, ‘interferes with the electrical signals that stimulate the contractions of the heart, inducing cardiac arrest.’”

“The notion that the consciousness check would be performed after cardiac arrest demonstrates a profound lack of understanding about the reason for the check.”

We have reached out to a spokesperson for Gov. Tate Reeves and will update this story once we receive a comment.

Source: wlbt.com, Anthony Warren, June 17, 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