The Murder Trial

Ronald Green­field didn’t look like a mur­der­er. From my seat in a Char­lottesville, Vir­ginia, court­room in June, 1973, I thought he looked more like one of the tenth grade stu­dents I had taught at Albe­mar­le High School. Short, pudgy, with curly shoul­der-length black hair, he appeared younger than his sev­en­teen years, but he was on tri­al as an adult for murder.

That sum­mer I had fin­ished my first year in law school, and I clerked for a lawyer in Char­lottesville. When Com­mon­wealth v. Green­field came to tri­al, he encour­aged me to watch the pro­ceed­ings in between projects as a learn­ing expe­ri­ence. In three ses­sions, I saw six hours of the trial.

The prosecution’s wit­ness­es set the back­drop. In Novem­ber, 1972, Green­field had worked for a short time as a door­man for Poe’s, a tav­ern that catered to UVA stu­dents. He was from Brew­ster, New York. His father was a den­tist there. His co-work­ers described him as a “drifter.”

Twen­ty-one years old, Mary Frances Jor­dan was a senior in UVA’s Edu­ca­tion School. She worked for Poe’s as a waitress.

About 12:30 a.m. on Novem­ber 8, Green­field asked around for a ride home after work because of heavy rain. Jor­dan offered him a lift. She drove him to the West­min­ster Pres­by­ter­ian Church park­ing lot on Rug­by Road, next to his apartment.

Green­field tes­ti­fied that they talked for a while. He said he “shot up” hero­in that night at six p.m. and took psilo­cy­bin, a pow­er­ful hal­lu­cino­genic, at nine, and Jor­dan “bugged” him about his drug use. He resent­ed it, but he claimed their con­ver­sa­tion end­ed on a good note.

When he got out of the car, he expe­ri­enced a “falling” sen­sa­tion. The next thing he remem­bered he awoke in a “crouched posi­tion” on the driver’s side of the car. He saw Jor­dan lying motion­less in a pool of blood. His hand was bleed­ing. He saw his penknife on the floor­board and picked it up. He thought he had “freaked out” and killed her.

Thomas Kee­van lived near the lot. He tes­ti­fied he ran out­side when he heard screams and he saw some­one run­ning from the lot dressed in a green army jack­et. Green­field wore a green army jack­et that night. Kee­van found Jor­dan bleed­ing, but alive. He car­ried her to his apart­ment and called the res­cue squad and the police.

Green­field fled to a house near­by. A stu­dent there tes­ti­fied that he said he’d killed a nar­cotics agent and a girl. He asked for a ride out of town and mon­ey. No one would help him, so he ran to rail­road tracks near Rug­by Road and hid there.

Jor­dan died at the UVA hos­pi­tal at 2:55. Her mur­der­er had stabbed her twen­ty-one times in the chest, abdomen, arms, and head, and punc­tured her liv­er and lungs.

At day­break Green­field walked to a main road to hitch a ride to Rich­mond. Basil Miller, a truck dri­ver, said he picked up Green­field and drove him to a first aid sta­tion because his hand was bad­ly cut. Miller lat­er heard the descrip­tion of the mur­der sus­pect on the radio and called the police.

The police tes­ti­fied they found Green­field in a Rich­mond hos­pi­tal and arrest­ed him. They said he vol­un­teered that he killed Jor­dan with a penknife they found in his pock­et and that he told them, “I don’t feel bad about tak­ing a human life.” Green­field denied this.

The most dra­mat­ic ses­sion I attend­ed came just before Green­field took the stand. One of my law school pro­fes­sors had joined the defense team. Out­side the pres­ence of the jury, he told the judge that Green­field could recall cer­tain facts only when hyp­no­tized. While in a trance, he remem­bered a karate blow to the back of his neck that knocked him out. When he awoke, he saw a man wear­ing a jack­et like Greenfield’s in the park­ing lot. He chased the man, but lost him. My pro­fes­sor asked the judge to allow Dr. Ken­neth Locke to hyp­no­tize Green­field and have him tes­ti­fy while in a trance, or in the alter­na­tive, to allow Locke to tes­ti­fy about what Green­field remem­bered under hypnosis.

The admis­si­bil­i­ty of tes­ti­mo­ny under hyp­no­sis was a mat­ter of first impres­sion in Vir­ginia. The judge refused to allow it on the basis that jurors might regard the hyp­not­ic state itself as proof of truth even though a wit­ness could invent false state­ments while pre­tend­ing to be in a trance. The defense team went bal­lis­tic because Greenfield’s hyp­not­i­cal­ly induced mem­o­ry of the “oth­er man” was their only direct evi­dence that some­one else killed Jordan.

The judge stood firm against an avalanche of pas­sion­ate advo­ca­cy and then ordered a recess for every­one to cool down. After the break, Green­field took the stand, march­ing to the wit­ness chair with slow robot­ic strides and a far-off look in his eyes.

The commonwealth’s attor­ney asked to approach the bench. With the jury out of the room, he accused the defense of hyp­no­tiz­ing Green­field dur­ing the break. Defense coun­sel didn’t admit it, but they didn’t flat out deny it either. After major fire­works, the judge sur­pris­ing­ly decid­ed not to sanc­tion them and recessed again. When Green­field returned to the stand, he tes­ti­fied nor­mal­ly and didn’t men­tion the oth­er man.

I wasn’t there when the jury ren­dered its ver­dict, but the news swept through town like a thun­der storm. The jury found Green­field guilty of sec­ond degree mur­der and the judge sen­tenced him to twen­ty years. The over­whelm­ing sen­ti­ment of the com­mu­ni­ty was that Green­field com­mit­ted first degree mur­der and deserved a life sentence.

Mary Jor­dan had planned to be an ele­men­tary school teacher. Her co-work­ers at Poe’s described her as smart, sen­si­tive, and fun. The man­ag­er said she was like fam­i­ly. “We’re not putting you on. She was a won­der­ful per­son.” Two hun­dred UVA stu­dents made the dri­ve north to Arling­ton to attend her funer­al the week after her mur­der. UVA estab­lished a fund in her name.

From his arrest onward, Green­field seemed unfazed by the grav­i­ty of the mur­der. Upon his arrest, he said, “I don’t feel bad about (the mur­der).” While he sat in jail pend­ing tri­al, he sent a let­ter to the UVA stu­dent news­pa­per com­plain­ing about jail­house liv­ing con­di­tions. His meals were ined­i­ble, he wrote. The food was cold. He was allowed only two cold show­ers a week and was forced to shave with­out a mir­ror. And dur­ing the ses­sions of the tri­al I watched, he showed no remorse.

After the con­vic­tion, Thomas and Amelia Jor­dan sued him for the wrong­ful death of their daugh­ter. They won a dam­age award, but I doubt they cared about the mon­ey. I think they want­ed to make a state­ment to Green­field: their daughter’s life mattered.

Green­field appealed his con­vic­tion and lost. In 1974 he led a press con­fer­ence to protest liv­ing con­di­tions in the pen­i­ten­tiary. He was a ring­leader of a prisoner’s strike in 1977, and he was lat­er one of sev­en, who filed an unsuc­cess­ful law­suit about prison con­di­tions. My inter­net research trail of Green­field goes cold in 1980. I couldn’t find records about his release, but if he served his full sen­tence, which is unlike­ly, he was 37 in 1992 when he got out; he’s 61 today; and he’s been free for at least 24 years, longer than Mary Jordan’s entire lifespan.

This was the first tri­al I watched and I learned a lot, but the out­come left me cold. In my view, Greenfield’s pun­ish­ment didn’t fit his crime. Crim­i­nal sen­tenc­ing should bal­ance the need for pun­ish­ment with the oppor­tu­ni­ty for reha­bil­i­ta­tion, but when you take someone’s life for no rea­son in a sav­age fren­zy of blood­lust, drug-induced or not, I believe you should for­feit your free­dom for life, and along with it, your chance to reha­bil­i­tate. Mary Jor­dan is dead. She got no sec­ond chance. Maybe I’m being too harsh, but even if I’d thought in 1973 that Green­field could reha­bil­i­tate and turn his life around, I would have vot­ed as a juror for guilty of first degree mur­der with a sen­tence of impris­on­ment for life.