No. 17-7153October Term 2017Decided Jun 28, 2018
Richard Gerald Jordan, Petitioner v. Mississippi
This case involved a Mississippi death-row prisoner who argued that keeping him incarcerated for more than 40 years while repeatedly seeking to execute him violated the Eighth Amendment.
Case status
- Current stage
- Decided
- Latest event
- Decision released Jun 28, 2018
- What it's about
This case involved a Mississippi death-row prisoner who argued that keeping him incarcerated for more than 40 years while repeatedly seeking to execute him violated the Eighth Amendment. He said the delay, much of it caused by unconstitutional sentencing proceedings and one point at which the State agreed a life-without-parole sentence was appropriate, meant the death sentence no longer served a legitimate penal purpose.
Question presented
1. Whether incarcerating a prisoner over four decades awaiting execution, even after the State found at one point that a life without parole sentence was appropriate, violates the Eighth Amendment because it fails to serve any legitimate penological purpose? 2. Whether incarcerating a prisoner over four decades awaiting execution, with over half that time attributable to repeated constitutional violations in a succession of sentencing hearings, violates the Eighth Amendment because it fails to serve any legitimate penological purpose?
- Case path
Supreme Court of Mississippi / Decision released Jun 28, 2018
- Area
Criminal Procedure
Timing
Decided June 28, 2018
The Court released its decision on June 28, 2018 without hearing oral argument.
Documents
Related cases
Grounding
- Grounding
- Primary-source trail available.
- Note
- Plain-English explainer. Official filings and opinions remain authoritative.
- Checked
- Jul 25, 2026
- Method
- Methodology