Understanding Mississippi's death row as state seeks execution dates for two

The state is seeking execution dates for two prisoners on death row, but what do we know about Mississippi's death row?

The prisoners on death row are a diverse group from all parts of the state. There are 35 people awaiting execution in Mississippi — 34 men and one woman. One prisoner is Asian, one is Hispanic, 12 are white and 21 are Black.

The longest-serving prisoner has been on death row for 46 years. Richard Gerald Jordan, who is 77, also is the state's oldest person on death row.

Jordan was convicted for the 1976 kidnapping and murder of a Gulfport bank executive's wife and then attempting to collect ransom money.

Jordan is still pursuing judicial relief. His most recent filing, his third successor petition for post-conviction relief, according to court documents, was filed in December 2022. It is temporarily on hold since Jordan's attorney was deployed by the military and won't return until December.

The state Supreme Court has given Jordan and his attorney until March to respond to the state, which is asking the court to deny Jordan's petition.

The prisoner most recently sentenced to death in Mississippi is Willie "Cory" Godbolt, 41, who was sentenced in 2020 for the shooting deaths of eight people at three locations in Lincoln County.

Godbolt's case is currently going through the appellate process. The state Supreme Court heard oral arguments on Nov. 14.

The youngest prisoner on Mississippi's death row is 37-year-old Terry Pitchford. He was sentenced to death in 2006 for killing a man in a Grenada County grocery store in 2004. He was 18 at the time of the murder.

The only woman on Mississippi's death row is Lisa Jo Chamberlin, who was convicted of capital murder, along with her then-boyfriend Roger Gillett, for the 2004 murders of Gillett's cousin Vernon Hulett and Hulett’s girlfriend Linda Heintzelman. Chamberlin was sentenced to death in 2006. Gillett was sentenced to death in 2007, but his death sentence was overturned and he is now serving life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Chamberlin, 51, is seeking post-conviction relief with the state Supreme Court.

Male prisoners on death row are housed at Mississippi State Penitentiary at Parchman. The lone female prisoner is housed at the Central Mississippi Correctional Facility for women.

Nineteen prisoners have been executed by lethal injection in Mississippi since 2002.

From 1955 to 1989, 35 prisoners were executed in the state's gas chamber. A portable electric chair preceded the gas chamber. The state executed 75 people in the electric chair between 1940 and 1952.

From 1817 to 1940, prisoners were executed by hanging. The total number of prisoners executed by hanging is unknown.

Although the death penalty has been carried out by lethal injection since 2002, the Legislature in 2022 approved other methods of execution: lethal injection; nitrogen hypoxia (gas chamber); electrocution; or firing squad.

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This article originally appeared on Hattiesburg American: Mississippi's death row facts. Who's on death row, ages, races