First U.S. prisoner execution in 2013 happens in Virginia
March 2011 file photo provided by the Virginia Department of Corrections shows inmate Robert Gleason at the Red Onion prison in Pound, Va. / AP
JARRATT, Va. A man who strangled his prison cellmate and made good on a vow to continue killing if he wasn't executed has been put to death in Virginia's electric chair.
Robert Gleason Jr. was pronounced dead by authorities at 9:08 p.m. Wednesday at the Greensville Correctional Center.
The 42-year-old inmate was the first executed in the U.S. this year and the first to choose to die by electrocution since 2010. In Virginia and nine other states, inmates can choose between electrocution and lethal injection.
Gleason had fought last-minute attempts by former attorneys to stop the execution. He told The Associated Press he deserved to die for what he did.
Gleason was serving life in prison for a 2007 murder when he killed his cellmate in 2009.
When the system wasn't moving fast enough, he strangled another inmate in 2010 and warned that the body count would rise if they didn't heed his warnings.
"Why prolong it? The end result's gonna be the same," Gleason said from death row in his thick Boston accent in one of numerous interviews he's given to The Associated Press over three years. "The death part don't bother me. This has been a long time coming. It's called karma."
The unusual choice followed a series of other shocking moves.
Deputies had to use a stun gun on him during a violent outburst in court in 2008 before he pleaded guilty to a shooting death that sent him to prison for life. Despite there being little evidence against him, Gleason admitted to shooting Mike Jamerson, whose son was cooperating in a federal investigation into a methamphetamine ring that Gleason was involved in.
A year later, he got so frustrated when prison officials wouldn't move his new, mentally disturbed cellmate, 63-year-old Harvey Watson Jr., that Gleason hogtied, beat and strangled the older man. Gleason remained in the cell with Watson's lifeless body for more than 15 hours before officers discovered the crime.
"Someone needs to stop it. The only way to stop me is put me on death row," he told AP at the time, repeating his threats in court on numerous occasions.
While awaiting sentencing at a highly secure prison in the mountains that is reserved for the state's worst inmates, Gleason strangled 26-year-old Aaron Cooper through the wire fencing that separated their individual cages on the recreation yard.
Gleason claims he's killed others -- perhaps dozens more -- but he has refused to provide details. He claims he's different from the other men on Virginia's death row for one important reason: He only kills criminals.
Watson was serving life for killing one man and injuring two others. Cooper was a carjacker with gang ties.
"I ain't saying I'm a better person for killing criminals, but I've never killed innocent people," Gleason said. "I killed people that's in the same lifestyle as me, and they know, hey, these things can happen."
Gleason says he only requested death in order to keep a promise to a loved one that he wouldn't kill again. He said doing so will allow him to teach his children, including two young sons, what can happen if they follow in his footsteps.
"I wasn't there as a father and I'm hoping that I can do one last good thing," he said. "Hopefully, this is a good thing."
Cooper's mother, Kim Strickland, put aside her religious beliefs in opposition to the death penalty when Gleason sent her Bible verses that preached an eye for an eye before his sentencing. She testified that he deserved to die for killing her son. She is suing the prison system over the death.
"May God have mercy on his soul," Strickland told AP. "I've been praying and will continue to pray that his family can heal from this ordeal."
Gleason, 42, was born in Lowell, Mass., a proud Yankee who still signs his letters "Bobby from Boston." After going to art school in North Carolina, Gleason became an award-winning tattoo artist in shops up and down the East Coast. He settled down for a while outside of Richmond, owned a tattoo shop and embraced religion. He later said he was feigning interest in religion to benefit his tattoo business.
In court papers, attorneys detail his "profoundly disturbed and traumatic life" marked by abuse as a child and depression and other mental health problems as an adult. Gleason started drinking alcohol as a teen and later abused cocaine, meth and steroids, among other drugs. His long criminal record dates back to armed robberies as a teen. He looked up to an older brother who died in a Massachusetts prison during a botched escape attempt.
Attorneys who tried to intervene on his behalf claimed Gleason is severely disturbed. They argued his competency has deteriorated over the year he's been in isolation on death row, and that he suffered from extreme paranoia, delusional thinking, severe anxiety and other mental afflictions that leave him with "a nearly overwhelming urge to end his own life."
"His mental illness is causing him to be suicidal, and he is enlisting the government's help to end his life," attorney Jon Sheldon wrote in court documents asking a federal appeals court to require a new competency evaluation. Two other evaluations deemed Gleason capable of making his own decisions.
While those closest to Gleason acknowledge he's had a troubled life, they also describe a man who dressed up as a big, purple dinosaur for his young son's birthday and comforted him when he was scared of the costume, who organized a motorcycle run to raise money for a child with cancer and who is fiercely protective and supportive of those he loved.
"It's a shame," one friend told attorneys of Gleason's death sentence, according to court papers, "because there's a lot of goodness in him."
But there's no mistaking Gleason's dark side.
Prison and jail officials have intercepted letters and calls in which he either discussed killing or directly threatened judges, attorneys, jurors and mental health experts tied to his criminal cases. He told investigators that killing was "like tying a shoe" or "going to the fridge to get a beer."
Those on both sides of the death penalty debate have seized on Gleason's case to prove their point.
Death penalty supporters say that keeping Gleason alive puts others at risk. Opponents of capital punishment argue that the prospect of being executed gave him incentive to kill Watson and Cooper.
Gleason agrees with death penalty opponents on at least one point: that it's likely individuals feel immense pain during a lethal injection. That's partly why he chose electrocution.
The other reason: He just can't imagine going out lying down.
"I can't do that," he said. "I'd rather be sitting up."
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Completely false. There are not ten states that authorize the use of the electric chair as an "option" for the inmate. There are ten states that formerly held that electrocution be the sole method in place, post 1982.
Some states technically authorize its use by default, should the current and sole means ever be ruled unconstitutional. Oklahoma is one of them. As for inmate "choice": GA, AL, FLA, S.C., KY and TN all DO permit an option, but it is NOT a choice ALL death row inmates in those five states are currently permitted to make.
Kentucky and S.C., like Florida and Virginia, allow outright choice, no others. Georgia only allows inmates to choose if their crime predates 5/2000, and in TN, all inmates convicted after 1999 are subjected to injection. For convictions prior to that, electrocution is MANDATORY absent a specific request, duly filed and made in time, for injection.
Arkansas, Nebraska and Louisiana are the only remaining states that still have active legislation permitting the use of the electric chair as an alternative to whatever the current and legal method that exists which is legally in place. But only Arkansas has clear laws on this, as Nebraska and Louisiana's laws are somewhat unclear, as to the permissibility of inmate choice, and the constitutionality of this prior used method.
Correction: "Seven" states, not five (Alabama is currently also an outright choice state, and I forgot to mention VA in that paragraph).
all murders are cruel and unusual only the criminal gets to plead it, victims never do get a "Do over appeal " sane or insane hearing troubled childhood drug and alcohol abuse just Cruel and unusual death. Also Thomas Edison used DC current(battery) Westinghouse used AC, Edison demostrated the Killing power of AC
in order to promote dc -never advocated it's use as a death penalty
mind you topping the git dose not seem a bad choice either.
Should have given him lethal injection just because he wanted the electric chair.
Virginia once had a case where attorneys said an inmate couldn't be executed until he was sane enough to understand his punishment, the inmate refused his medication, and the prosecutors asked the court for permission to medicate him against his will so he could be made sane enough to execute. I always liked that one.