Richard Gerald Jordan, Mississippi’s longest-serving death-row inmate and a Vietnam veteran diagnosed with PTSD, is scheduled for execution on June 25, 2025, ending a legal saga that has spanned nearly five decades and raising urgent questions about modern mental health insights, execution ethics, and the meaning of delayed justice.
At a Glance
- Jordan was convicted in 1976 for kidnapping and murdering Edwina Marter; the Mississippi Supreme Court set his execution date on May 1.
- His final appeals emphasized that combat-related PTSD—never independently evaluated—was excluded from his original trials, and challenged Mississippi’s three-drug lethal injection protocol, particularly the use of midazolam.
- The U.S. Supreme Court and Governor Tate Reeves denied his clemency requests; victim’s son Eric Marter said, “it should have happened a long time ago.”
- This will be Mississippi’s third execution in a decade, and Jordan’s is among the 25 executions scheduled or carried out nationwide in 2025, marking a level not seen since 2018.
Fifty Years of Trials and Appeals
Jordan’s case includes four overturned death sentences since 1976 due to constitutional flaws, culminating in a final death sentence in 1998. His latest appeals argued that his PTSD and the three-drug lethal injection protocol warranted reevaluation. Courts upheld the protocol under judicial assurances that the execution would halt if sedation failed to render him unconscious. He continues to challenge the drug’s effectiveness.
Protocol on Trial: Medicine or Torture?
Mississippi’s lethal injection method—midazolam, a paralytic, and potassium chloride—has drawn condemnation from the MacArthur Justice Center as risking cruel and unusual punishment if sedation fails. Critics point to cases like Ohio’s controversial midazolam execution in 2014, where gasping and writhing occurred during the procedure. The state defends its approach, citing court-ordered consciousness checks.
Final Reckoning During a U.S. Execution Surge
As of June 24, 2025, the U.S. has carried out 24 executions, with five more—including Jordan’s—scheduled in Mississippi, Texas, Tennessee, and Florida. Mississippi last executed someone in December 2022. Jordan’s execution poses a sobering question: can a justice system that waits half a century for closure still claim fairness when modern science and ethics weigh heavily?
