A federal judge is greenlighting the execution of Richard Jordan, limiting options to avoid execution by the death row inmate.
On Friday, U.S. District Court Judge Henry Wingate denied a stay for the 79-year-old Jordan, who is one of the lead plaintiffs in a lawsuit challenging the use of certain lethal injection drugs. Jordan’s execution is set forWednesday, June 25, at the Mississippi State Penitentiary at Parchman.
Jordan was first convicted in 1976 for kidnapping and killing Edwina Marter in Harrison County, and it took four trials until a death sentence stuck in 1998. He is the state’s oldest and longest serving death row inmate.
Jordan’s attorneys argued that Mississippi’s lethal injection protocol might constitute “cruel and unusual punishment,” under the 8th Amendment, arguing the sedative administered doesn’t prevent the inmate from feeling pain, suffocation and cardiac arrest.
“Mr. Jordan and all the other people on death row were sentenced to death to have their lives extinguished,” said Jim Craig of the MacArthur Justice Center at a Saturday hearing for a preliminary injunction to halt the execution.
“They were not sentenced to be tortured before they die.”
But Wingate ruled that Jordan failed to prove the method of execution was “sure or very likely to cause serious illness and needless suffering.”
He referred to a previous Supreme Court ruling which stated that “the Eighth Amendment does not guarantee the prisoner a painless death.”
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A main point of contention in the hearing was the protocol the state would have to follow if the sedative failed to render Jordan unconscious.
Mississippi Department of Corrections lethal injection protocol requires execution staff to ensure inmates are completely unconscious before proceeding. The “proposed consciousness check” is a mandated wait time of three minutes between administering the sedative and the lethal drugs, according to court records.
But the latest two executions in Mississippi – David Neal Cox on Nov. 17, 2021, and Thomas Loden on Dec. 14, 2022 – did not follow this protocol. Instead, execution staff waited one to two minutes before injecting the other drugs.
At the Saturday hearing, citing a deposition from Corrections Commissioner Burl Cain, the Attorney General’s Office assured Wingate that protocol would be followed with Jordan. It also promised to perform a “sternum rub” to check Jordan’s reaction to the painful stimuli.
“Ultimately, the record contains no evidence that either David Cox or Thomas Loden needlessly suffered prior to death by the same method of execution at issue here, and the Court finds that to be persuasive evidence against the issuance of a stay,” Wingate wrote on Friday.
However, he issued a provision: the state has to stop Jordan’s execution if he shows signs of consciousness.
Although the clock is ticking, Jordan is not entirely out of options yet.
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A petition for clemency was submitted to Gov. Tate Reeve’s counsel on Monday by Frank Rosenblatt, professor at Mississippi College school of Law. The petition highlights Jordan’s diagnosed post-traumatic stress disorder from his two years of combat service in Vietnam. It cited a 2019 Missisisppi statute that asks courts to consider veterans’ PTSD during criminal sentencing.
“Prolonged exposure to machine gun fire is its own contributor to brain trauma in ways that alter brain behavior,” Rosenblatt explained.
Reeves has never granted a petition for clemency before.
The U.S. Supreme Court also discussed on Wednesday whether to issue an emergency stay of execution, but has not released an opinion.
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