Ending the Death Penalty through
Education, Organizing & Advocacy
Credit: AP
Robert Gleason Jr. was serving a life sentence for murder when he killed his cellmate in 2009 then strangled another inmate last year.
RICHMOND, Va. —
In 2009, inmate Robert Charles Gleason Jr. murdered his cellmate and hours later ate the victim’s lunch as well as his own next to the undiscovered body.
He threatened to kill again unless sentenced to death and, in 2010, Gleason strangled a second inmate, this time in Virginia’s ultrasecure Red Onion State Prison, in the guise of fitting him for a religious necklace.
Afterward, he told would-be resuscitators, “You’re gonna have to pump him a lot harder than that to get him back.”
So far, 2012 has been “particularly insane” for the lawyers and law students who make up the University of Virginia School of Law’s Innocence Project Clinic, according to Deirdre Enright, the clinic’s director of investigation.
The Innocence Project has received a great deal of media attention this year for its work to exonerate Eric Weakley, one of the so-called Culpeper Three. Weakley, alongside Michael Hash and Jason Kloby, was arrested in May 2000 in connection with the 1996 shooting death of church organist Thelma Scroggins.
The project is also working to clear the name of a Mineral man who was wrongly convicted of rape based on an accusation that was later recanted, and his own false confession.
For the five-year-old Innocence Project, the recent successes have provided a national profile and drawn new interest from donors, the legal community and from prisoners who hope to convince people that their convictions are worth a second look.
As expected, members of the House voted 86-62 in favor of the bill after a floor debate that lasted nearly 10 hours on Wednesday.
The legislation, which would make Connecticut the 17th state to abolish the death penalty, awaits a signature from Gov. Dannel P. Malloy, who has said he would sign the bill into law.