Richard Jordan: Mississippi: Amnesty International: Bulletin: Mississippi is set to execute this 79-year-old Vietnam veteran on June 25th - even though experts have concluded that Richard Jordan did not receive a competent assessment for combat-related post-traumatic stress disorder for his 1998 resentencing, and that he has had this disorder since his military service in Vietnam. The Governor should commute this death sentence."

RELEASE: Abolition News: Campaign to Abolish the Death Penalty. June 20. 2025; 

GIST: "Richard Jordan, aged 79, is due to be executed in Mississippi on 25 June 2025. He was convicted of the murder of a woman in 1976. His death sentence has been reversed three times for constitutional errors.

 A strong claim that pursuit of his fourth death sentence was driven by unconstitutional prosecutorial vindictiveness remains unreviewed on the merits. 

Experts have concluded that Richard Jordan did not receive a competent assessment for combat-related post-traumatic stress disorder for his 1998 resentencing, and that he has had this disorder since his military service in Vietnam. 

The Governor should commute this death sentence."

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ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:  "In 1985, the US Supreme Court established that states must provide indigent criminal defendants whose mental health would be an issue at trial with access to a mental health expert sufficiently available to the defence and independent from the prosecution to effectively "assist in evaluation, preparation, and presentation of the defense". 

Prior to the 1998 resentencing, Richard Jordan's lawyers moved for a psychiatric assessment of him to determine whether he had combat-related PTSD from his time in Vietnam. 

The court responded by appointing a state-employed psychiatrist not experienced in combat-related PTSD and the judge ordered that his subsequent report be provided to both prosecution and defence simultaneously. 

The report, based on a two-hour interview, concluded that there was no evidence of PTSD, instead concluding that he had antisocial personality disorder (ASPD), a prejudicial finding and since shown to be a misdiagnosis. 

Richard Jordan's accurate report that he had been honourably discharged from the Army was dismissed as a lie and the assumption that he been dishonourably discharged was used to support the ASPD diagnosis. 

The defence opted not to call certain witnesses for fear that they would be undermined by the prosecution using the psychiatrist's report (as occurred with their first witness).

With nothing in the record to suggest that the factors he had listed in 1991 as supporting a life sentence had changed, the prosecutor argued that life for the defendant was not justice, that his "trusty" status (earned for good conduct while serving LWOP, and which gave him some limited freedom of movement in the prison), gave him "absolute freedom" to "stroll around", and have outside contact by phone, while the victim's family "suffer more than he does" in a kind of "reverse punishment".

 It would be "a death [knell] for our criminal justice system", he said, "to allow this charade to continue". He "is enjoying the good life" and "killing society today". 

These and other inflammatory arguments breached international standards requiring prosecutors to "perform their duties fairly" and "respect and protect human dignity and uphold human rights"…... 

The entire  release can be read at:

https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/?hl=en#sent/FMfcgzQbfpFXhzVGKzqcKBFVKsMBkSGd

PUBLISHER'S NOTE:  I am monitoring this case/issue/resource. Keep your eye on the Charles Smith Blog for reports on developments. The Toronto Star, my previous employer for more than twenty incredible years, has put considerable effort into exposing the harm caused by Dr. Charles Smith and his protectors - and into pushing for reform of Ontario's forensic pediatric pathology system. The Star has a "topic"  section which focuses on recent stories related to Dr. Charles Smith. It can be found at: http://www.thestar.com/topic/charlessmith. Information on "The Charles Smith Blog Award"- and its nomination process - can be found at: http://smithforensic.blogspot.com/2011/05/charles-smith-blog-award-nominations.html Please send any comments or information on other cases and issues of interest to the readers of this blog to: hlevy15@gmail.com.  Harold Levy: Publisher: The Charles Smith Blog.

SEE BREAKDOWN OF  SOME OF THE ON-GOING INTERNATIONAL CASES (OUTSIDE OF THE CONTINENTAL USA) THAT I AM FOLLOWING ON THIS BLOG,  AT THE LINK BELOW:  HL:

https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/120008354894645705/4704913685758792985

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FINAL WORD:  (Applicable to all of our wrongful conviction cases):  "Whenever there is a wrongful conviction, it exposes errors in our criminal legal system, and we hope that this case — and lessons from it — can prevent future injustices."

Lawyer Radha Natarajan:

Executive Director: New England Innocence Project;

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FINAL, FINAL WORD: "Since its inception, the Innocence Project has pushed the criminal legal system to confront and correct the laws and policies that cause and contribute to wrongful convictions.   They never shied away from the hard cases — the ones involving eyewitness identifications, confessions, and bite marks. Instead, in the course of presenting scientific evidence of innocence, they've exposed the unreliability of evidence that was, for centuries, deemed untouchable." So true!

Christina Swarns: Executive Director: The Innocence Project;

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