Texas\u2019 highest criminal court has overturned the death sentence of a Harris County man who was on death row for nearly half a century.<\/p>\n
Clarence Curtis Jordan, 70, was first convicted in 1978 of murdering Joe L. Williams, a 40-year-old Houston grocer. Jordan, who is intellectually disabled, was then found in subsequent years to be incompetent and therefore could not be executed. But for almost four decades, he did not have an attorney to advocate for him and was seemingly forgotten on death row.<\/p>\n
Jordan was finally appointed a new attorney in 2024 as news emerged that there were numerous delayed criminal appeals in Harris County, some of which were lost for more than a decade. The revelation came amid an effort by the county to reduce the backlog in its criminal courts.<\/p>\n
Following new legal advocacy, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals vacated Jordan\u2019s death sentence in a Thursday ruling. The panel also sent the case back to Harris County for a new punishment proceeding.<\/p>\n
Ben Wolff, Jordan\u2019s attorney and director of the Office of Capital and Forensic Writs, said his office is grateful for the outcome. But the case also shows \u201ca troubling truth\u201d of the criminal justice system that people most in need of help are often \u201cforgotten or cast aside,\u201d he said in a statement.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a really sad case,\u201d Wolff told The Texas Tribune. \u201cHe\u2019s been on death row basically as long as I\u2019ve been alive.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Harris County District Attorney\u2019s Office said Thursday that the overturning of Jordan\u2019s death sentence is \u201cwhat justice looks like,\u201d while adding that his conviction stands.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis outcome does not lessen the harm caused to Joe Williams\u2019 family and friends,\u201d the office\u2019s statement said. \u201cWhen a life is at stake, we must follow the law and ensure the process is fair.\u201d<\/p>\n
The district attorney\u2019s office said Friday that it is not going to ask for a new punishment proceeding. The184th District Court, where Jordan was convicted, didn\u2019t immediately respond to the Tribune\u2019s question about next steps.<\/p>\n
Wolff told the Tribune that the only other eligible punishment for his conviction would be life in prison with the possibility for parole. He added that his office, whose work is limited to post-conviction litigation for death row inmates, would also have to hand off Jordan\u2019s case if the proceeding goes beyond a simple resentencing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Texas\u2019 highest criminal court has overturned the death sentence of a Harris County man who was on death…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":42709,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[5291,27,29,28,991],"class_list":["post-244026","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-ap-a-wire","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-news","tag-wires-bot"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244026","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=244026"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244026\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/42709"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=244026"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=244026"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=244026"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}