Mississippi executes its longest serving death row inmate for 1976 murder

Mississippi executes its longest serving death row inmate for 1976 murder.

ICE has arrested only 6% of known immigrant murderers, 11% of known sex criminals.

This afternoon at 6:16 pm, the state of Mississippi put to death Richard Gerald Jordan, 79. Jordan spent nearly 50 years on death row, the longest of any inmate in the state. He was put to death by lethal injection, and his wife, attorney, and members of his victim’s family were present as witnesses.

According to records, in 1976, Jordan called up the Gulf National Bank in Gulfport and asked to speak to a loan officer. He was told an employee named Charles Marter would speak to him, but Jordan immediately hung up. After looking up Marter’s address in a phone book, Jordan went to the home and kidnapped Charles’ wife Edwina Marter, a mother of two boys.

Jordan drove Edwina to a nearby forest and fatally shot her, though his reasons for doing this remain unclear. Jordan then called Charles Marter, told him that he had Edwina and demanded $25,000 for her safe return.

In recent years, Jordan’s attorneys have appealed for clemency in his case, citing Jordan’s three back-to-back tours in Vietnam. His legal team argued that his violent actions may potentially have been influenced by undiagnosed PTSD. However, both Gov. Tate Reeves and the US Supreme Court declined to intervene to prevent Jordan’s execution.

ICE has arrested only 6% of known immigrant murderers, 11% of known sex criminals

When Trump administration began its campaign of mass deportation raids, The administration originally said that it would prioritize detaining and deporting “the worst of the worst”. In October of last year, immigration and Customs Enforcement told Congress that there were 13,099 migrants convicted of homicide and 15,811 migrants convicted of sexual assault who had not been detained. At the time, Trump used these numbers to criticize the Biden administration.

Now more than six months into his administration, there are currently about 59,000 people in ICE detention, and only about half of them have any criminal records or charges (most commonly immigration and traffic offenses). However, according to ICE data obtained by NBC News, only 752 convicted murderers and 1693 sex criminals have been arrested. That’s only 6% of known murderers and 11% of known sex criminals.

According to sources who spoke to NBC News, it appears that DHS has de-prioritized Going after genuinely dangerous immigrants. This apparently is because these convicted criminals are more difficult to find, and arrest, and potentially because it is more dangerous for ICE agents to do so. On the other hand, it is much easier to fill the Trump administration’s quota of 3000 detentions a day by going to workplaces, courthouses, schools, churches and other places where they are likely to find migrants without papers who are unlikely to put up much of a fight.

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