A death sentence handed down by a Harris County jury in 1978 was overturned Thursday by the Court of Criminal Appeals.
Clarence Jordan, 70, has been on Texas Death Row for almost 50 years, serving out one of the longest death sentences in the nation while suffering from intellectual disabilities and schizophrenia, his attorney told the Houston Press.
The court’s decision doesn’t mean Jordan will immediately be set free. He’s still convicted of capital murder, but because the only options available for that offense at the time of his trial were life with the possibility of parole and death, he now has a chance at parole or at least being moved to a lower-security prison that can provide better medical care than he’s been receiving.
In 1989, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that “although the execution of the mentally retarded was not constitutionally banned, the law in Texas did not give mentally retarded defendants sufficient protection to ensure that their disability was considered as a mitigating factor.” At that time, the death sentences of several mentally ill men were commuted to life with the possibility of parole. Jordan was overlooked.
Jordan’s attorney, Ben Wolff, director of the Office of Capital and Forensic Writs in Austin, said Jordan’s sentence was unconstitutional because, at the time, the jury was not able to fully consider mitigating evidence related to mental illness that was presented by trial attorneys. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals agreed.
“This case presents a troubling, yet remediable failure of Texas criminal justice,” Wolff said in a 2025 legal filing. “Mr. Jordan is an incompetent, brain-damaged person with an IQ that has been assessed at scores of 56 and 60. Mr. Jordan has been diagnosed with schizophrenia, mental retardation, and organic brain dysfunction — and was known during his trial as Father Nature. He has largely been unable to advocate or care for himself.”
Jordan was convicted of capital murder in the October 1977 shooting death of 40-year-old Joe L. Williams, a clerk at Rice Food Market in Houston, according to Texas Department of Criminal Justice records.
Harris County District Attorney Sean Teare could have retried Jordan and again sought the death penalty but announced shortly after Thursday’s court ruling that he would not do so.
“As prosecutors, our duty is to seek justice — not to simply convict,” Teare said in an emailed statement. “After review of this defendant’s case, we have concluded his death sentence must be vacated. This is what justice looks like.”
“To be clear: the defendant’s conviction stands,” Teare added. “This outcome does not lessen the harm caused to Joe Williams’ family and friends. When a life is at stake, we must follow the law and ensure the process is fair.”
Wolff said Thursday that Jordan, who is bedridden and has difficulty communicating, is housed at the maximum security Estelle Unit in Huntsville, which has limited medical capability. Wolff took the case in late 2024 after determining that Jordan hadn’t had legal representation for about 30 years and was “utterly forgotten and wasting away in a Texas prison. “
The attorney said he expects a district judge to resentence Jordan to life in prison with parole and he’ll immediately be eligible for release. “He’d also qualify for a better and higher level of medical care,” Wolff said.
As far back as 1982, while in the Harris County Jail psychiatric ward awaiting retrial after his death sentence was overturned due to a “jury issue,” Jordan reported hearing voices and hallucinations of “old, weird, burnt-up looking people slashing at his ear,” according to court documents. He was convicted of murder and sentenced to death a second time in 1983.
“Jordan has a history of bizarre behavior, claiming at one point that Jesus Christ had endowed him with unique and superior abilities,” according to prison records.
Over almost five decades of Jordan’s incarceration, Texas taxpayers have spent more than $1 million just to house him, not to mention the medical bills. Just one Texas Death Row inmate, Earvin Harvey of Angelina County, and a few others in the 27 death penalty jurisdictions in the United States have been waiting on an execution date longer than Jordan.
Wolff said the resentencing offers an opportunity for Jordan to “live out whatever days he has remaining outside of the prison system, should he be paroled.” The Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles doesn’t have to grant him freedom just because he’s eligible, Wolff added. The attorney declined to comment on whether Jordan, who was 20 at the time the crime was committed, has any family members or supporters who could care for him if he’s released.
“I will be advocating for his interests, and I think that his interests are to receive the best care possible in the least restrictive way possible,” Wolff said. “He has chronic medical issues separate and apart from his mental health issues that render him immobile and debilitated.”
Kristin Houle Cuellar, executive director of the Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, said 19 people have been removed from death row in Texas since 2017 due to evidence of intellectual disability. More than one-third of those cases were tried in Harris County.
Wolff acknowledged that Jordan’s situation went unnoticed for far too long but declined to blame any particular person or entity.
“This is an example of how often people with the greatest needs fall through the cracks of the criminal justice system,” he said. “This is a case that no one should be proud of. He was effectively warehoused and forgotten after everybody agreed he was incompetent to be executed. In the meantime, Supreme Court precedent made clear that his sentence was unconstitutional, but until we intervened, nobody was there to advocate for him.”
