Texas court overturns sentence for man on death row for nearly 50 years

• 01Clarence Curtis Jordan was convicted in 1978 for the murder of Joe L Williams, a 40-year-old grocer in Houston, and was sentenced to death.
• 02Jordan, now 70 years old, spent nearly 50 years on death row and has not had a lawyer for over 30 years.
• 03Courts determined that Jordan has intellectual disabilities and is 'incompetent', making him ineligible for execution under constitutional standards.
• 04Attorney Ben Wolff, director of the Office of Capital and Forensic Writs in Austin, filed a petition in 2025 arguing Jordan's death sentence was unconstitutional under Eighth Amendment jurisprudence.
• 05Wolff's filing stated that Jordan has an IQ assessed at scores of 56 and 60, has been diagnosed with schizophrenia, mental retardation, and organic brain dysfunction.
• 06On Thursday, the Texas court of criminal appeals vacated Jordan's death sentence and sent the case back to Harris county for a new punishment proceeding.
• 07The Harris county district attorney's office stated that the conviction stands and that the only other eligible punishment would be life in prison with the possibility for parole.

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The Texas court of criminal appeals overturned the death sentence of Clarence Curtis Jordan on Thursday, who had spent nearly 50 years on death row without legal representation for over 30 years. Jordan was convicted in 1978 for murder but courts determined he has intellectual disabilities making him ineligible for execution under constitutional standards; attorney Ben Wolff argued the case represented a failure of the Texas criminal justice system. The case returns to Harris county for a new punishment proceeding, with life in prison with parole eligibility as the only other available sentence.