The Mississippi Supreme Court has denied the appeal from a death row inmate in a 20-year-old capital murder case that happened in Clarke County.
Kelvin Jordan claimed his previous attorneys were ineffective, that his death sentence is disproportionate and that the trial judge, the now-retired Judge Robert Bailey, erred in evidentiary decisions at trial.
Jordan, who was 19 years old at the time, was sentenced in November 1996 to die by lethal injection. According to court documents, the motive for the robbery was to get money to go to a ball game in Heidelberg.
Jordan and Frontrell Edwards were both convicted and sentenced to the death penalty for murdering Tony Roberts and his 2-year-old son, Cordera Bradley October 5, 1995.
Jordan and Edwards stopped at the Amoco gas station in Pachuta. The two approached the father and son and Roberts’ agreed to give the two men a ride to a ballgame in Heidelberg.
Roberts’ 1987 Nissan was found burned in a dirt pit near Rose Hill October 8, 1995. Roberts’ and his son’s body were found two miles below the Barnett community on Highway 11 near the railroad tracks. The father had been shot numerous times and the child once. The gun was later recovered by authorities from a pond in Jasper County.
The Mississippi Supreme Court found Jordan's claims to be without merit, with one exception. The opinion clarified that Jordan’s claim of ineffective post-conviction-relief counsel would be proper for consideration, if presented by an attorney other than the attorney alleged to have been ineffective.
