In Mississippi

"Mississippi's oldest death row inmate presses new appeal of 1976 Harrison County murder," is the AP report, via the Mississippi Press.

Mississippi inmate Richard Gerald Jordan has asked the full 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to hear his death penalty appeal.

At 68, Jordan is the oldest inmate on Mississippi's death row. He is also Mississippi's longest serving death row inmate at 37 years.

Jordan was convicted in the kidnap-slaying of Edwina Marta in Harrison County in January 1976. He was accused of collecting a $25,000 ransom from Marta's husband, then shooting the woman in Harrison County.

In a post-conviction petition denied in June, two members of a three-judge panel of the 5th Circuit rejected Jordan's arguments of prosecutorial vindictiveness and ineffective assistance of counsel.

Earlier coverage of Richard Jordan's case begins at the link.