Amherst County murderer executed by electric chair

[jsr]

Source: Associated Press

Robert Gleason Jr., 42, was pronounced dead at 9:08 p.m. at Greensville Correctional Center. He became the first inmate executed in the United States this year and the first to choose death by electrocution since 2010. In Virginia and nine other states, death row inmates are allowed to choose between electrocution and lethal injection.

Before being lowered into the chair, Gleason winked into the witness booth. Then he sat calmly while six members of the execution team strapped him in.

"Can they hear me out there?" Gleason asked. He had some brief words before ending with an Irish expletive and concluding: "God bless."

Then, after a metal helmet was placed on his head and a clamp on his right calf, his face was covered with a leather strap with a triangle cut out for the nose. He made a thumbs-up with his right hand for several seconds. Then, his body tensed as he was given two 90-second cycles of electric current before being pronounced dead.

Read more: http://www2.wsls.com/news/2013/jan/16/6/amherst-county-murderer-be-executed-tonight-ar-2470676/

[samsingh]

1. good. something longer and more painful would have been better

[CBGLuthier]

5. especially if they let you watch it,eh?

[samsingh]

6. probably would not want to

[obamanut2012]

7. If you can't watch it, then you shouldn't be for it

[Fearless]

9. +1

[1983law]

30. Agreed

But I'm against it anyway so my opinion is irrelevant.

[samsingh]

44. i could watch it if that was required to execute that cold blooded killer

[MrSlayer]

2. Well, that's what he wanted.

And who are we to argue?

[Control-Z]

3. From every direction, no matter how you

look at is, this is so fucked up. Just so very fucked up.

[harmonicon]

4. So, this still goes on.

What are the other countries that execute prisoners? I think there's Saudi Arabia, China... any help here? I know I could look it up, but most countries that have this stuff on the books haven't actually used it in decades, or it only applies to military traitors or something.

[geek tragedy]

11. This guy needed to be killed. Had to die.

Gleason was serving life in prison for the 2007 fatal shooting of a man when he became frustrated with prison officials because they wouldn't move out his new, mentally disturbed cellmate. Gleason hogtied, beat and strangled 63-year-old Harvey Watson Jr. in May 2009 and remained with the inmate's body for more than 15 hours before the crime was discovered.

"Someone needs to stop it," he told The Associated Press after Watson's death. "The only way to stop me is put me on death row."

While awaiting sentencing at a highly secure prison for the state's most dangerous inmates, Gleason strangled 26-year-old Aaron Cooper through wire fencing that separated their individual cages in a recreation yard in July 2010. As officers tried to resuscitate Cooper - video surveillance shows had been choked on and off for nearly an hour - Gleason told them "you're going to have to pump a lot harder than that."

Putting this guy behind bars couldn't stop him from killing.

[harmonicon]

23. I still don't think murder is the answer.

What could be done about him? I don't know, but if you've got security footage of him killing someone while in prison, I know there's a hell of a lot that could have been done that wasn't.

[geek tragedy]

24. He wasn't murdered.

He was executed.

Other than solitary confinement for the rest of his life (a form of torture) there really isn't another way to guarantee that guys like this won't kill again.

[harmonicon]

28. The difference is? (nt)

[geek tragedy]

31. The same difference between prison and kidnapping. nt

[harmonicon]

32. So...

in one case the person who is killed gets to go home after a certain amount of time and in another they get to go home after paying a ransom?

I don't think your analogy works, especially because murder is sort of the threat with kidnapping. What's the threat with murder? It's just murder.

[geek tragedy]

33. The point is that it's illegal to kidnap someone and lock them up in

your basement, but it's perfectly legal for the state to do that.

That's the difference between a crime like murder or kidnapping and a state-mandated punishment.

if the state were to just shoot a suspect at the scene of a crime while he was in handcuffs--that would be murder.

[harmonicon]

34. Would it be murder if it were legally sanctioned?

Is torture ok because Bush and some of his lawyers said it was? Was the killing of people in WWII death camps not murder because it was sanctioned by the state?

[geek tragedy]

35. Murder is by definition illegal. It is not every killing that offends

our moral sensibilities.

[harmonicon]

36. Illegal to whom?

Are you seriously suggesting that a country could set up any system of laws sanctioning killing, and that would be ok because they determined it to be legal?

Would you suggest that a lynching wasn't murder if no one was arrested for it? I mean, a lot of lynching in the US didn't offend "our moral sensibilities."

[geek tragedy]

37. Murder has a specific meaning that does not include executions of those

convicted by juries of heinous crimes.

Call it a moral outrage, fine.

But it's not murder.

[CE5]

38. So did Pol Pot murder civilians?

That was sanctioned by the Cambodian government.

[geek tragedy]

40. Since they weren't convicted of crimes, there's an arguable case there.

But, it's beyond absurd to compare the Khmer Rouge shooting someone for being a school teacher vs a guy who's committed three murders, two of which occurred in prison, proving that imprisonment was not a reasonable means of prevention of future murders on his part, and for whom there is ZERO doubt of guilt.

[harmonicon]

41. So, if there's "zero doubt" of someone being of a certain minority...

and it's legally determined that it's ok to execute people belonging to this minority, you think it's ok? Once murder is sanctioned by the state, it is immaterial what the "crime" is, because a justification has been made that a government can make that determination. I don't see how state-sanctioned murder is any less reprehensible than state-sanctioned slavery. You can argue for it up and down, but - as most of the world recognizes - you are putting yourself on the wrong side of history by doing so.

[geek tragedy]

42. You're defining any killing as a murder, ergo stripping the word of any meaning.

By your logic, putting this guy in prison was exactly the same as Stalin locking up Solzhenitsyn in a gulag. Both were premeditated exercises in taking away a person's basic civil liberties, freedoms, and human rights.

Might as well just argue against any kind of criminal or civil sanction by the state.

Because, of course, then taxation is the equivalent of theft, etc.

[harmonicon]

43. You're changing the subject.

I am certainly not defining any killing as murder, nor have I ever suggested as much. However, execution is most certainly murder. Sure, it's contract killing, but that's not so different from any other sort.

[geek tragedy]

45. Only if you strip the word 'murder' of any objective meaning

outside of a dead body being there.

The common definition of murder is that it is an UNLAWFUL premeditated killing. If it's not illegal, it's not murder.

Sorry, but it is not murder, and attempts to call it murder are cheap emotionalistic tricks.

[harmonicon]

46. Ok. So, you are implicitly answering those questions you've previously refused to?

That is, if the state sanctions a killing, it is not murder. Correct? So, mass-killings, genocide, death camps, etc. are not murder, so long as they are not "unlawful."

You're welcome to think that, but I find it to be a very disturbing view, as does most of society, especially the "modern" type. I really am surprised to read this from you, because it seems I often agree with you more than almost anyone else here. It's fine. We can disagree, but I can also hope that you'll some day change your mind.

[geek tragedy]

47. To put it another way--was his execution a prosecutable crime according to the

law of any legal body with conceivable jurisdiction over it?

The answer of course, is no.

Mass killings etc are prosecutable under international law as crimes, as are Bush's torture crimes, etc. Executing a murderer convicted under due process by a jury of his peers is not a crime under international law.

[harmonicon]

48. However, it is wrong.

Many international laws and courts were created for the express purpose of prosecuting crimes after the fact. You can dress up state sanctioned murder by calling it "execution" or "capital punishment" or "targeted killing" but it will always be murder. Almost every country recognizes this. The killing of a prisoner in the US for a crime is no different from the killing of a prisoner in another country for a crime. We are no better than the Saudis stoning people to death for whatever crime they are tried for if we go by your standard. However, we can accept that there is a difference between right and wrong, no matter what the law at the time suggests.

Do you think slavery was ok before it was made illegal? I certainly don't, and I don't see how this is any different, simply because there may be "international law" at the moment.

[geek tragedy]

50. Murder is a legal term, not a moral one.

The way you use it, it's an entirely subjective term that anyone can define as they choose, thus losing its power. It becomes not descriptive of objective reality, but rather an emotive statement of disapproval.


Sure someone can look upon the practice of capital punishment and see it as barbaric. They may be right.

Just like some countries view life imprisonment as inherently barbaric and have banned the practice. For example, in Norway if you kill someone when you're 20, you'll be released before you turn 42.

Does that make our system of life imprisonment illegal and inherently criminal because Norwegians find it objectionable?

[harmonicon]

55. Life imprisonment is also inherently wrong, now that you mention it.

However, that wasn't the topic of this thread, and is another attempt of yours to change the subject without answering questions I'm putting forth.

[geek tragedy]

56. Well, for that matter can we say the anti-choicers are wrong when

they claim that abortion is murder?

Murder is a legal term. Its agreed-upon meaning is not "any killing which the speaker finds immoral."

[harmonicon]

58. Come on, this is just pussyfooting.

I can say that people who think abortion is murder are wrong, because I have the opinion that they are wrong. While I think most of them use that argument in attempted obfuscation of their real motives, I don't doubt that some really have that thought.

So, I'll reiterate some questions from earlier:
Is a lynching where no one is tried for murder not murder?
Is the killing of minorities in a death camp not murder because it is legally justified?

[geek tragedy]

59. Those are prosecutable crimes. nt

[harmonicon]

63. Pfft. How so?!?!

ANYTHING is a "prosecutable crime" if it's brought to trial in one legal system or another. Murder is also a "prosecutable crime" that our government is carrying out, though they're not being tried for it. This is my entire fucking point. Throughout history, there have been a lot of murders that have been untried or even sanctioned by law. Our government has been responsible for a small number of them, but some all the same.

I made a point of taking a few minutes to look up one of a multitude of interesting examples (this is about North Carolina):

"Slaves had no way to legally protest their masters’ harsh treatment and abuse. A black person had no means of bringing a complaint to court, and could not even testify against a white person who had committed a crime against him or her. In fact, before 1774 it was not a crime in North Carolina to assault or even kill a slave. After 1774, a white person who murdered a slave would receive only 12 months in prison if it was their first offense. However, according to the 1774 law, if the slave was killed while the white person was using “moderate correction” to punish him or her, there would be no criminal charge."

http://www.learnnc.org/lp/editions/nchist-antebellum/5602

I see. Of course it was impossible for crimes to be committed by masters against slaves, because slaves couldn't press charges, and of course slavery wasn't a crime, because it wasn't prosecutable. See, a little later on a master willfully killing a slave became murder, but before it wasn't, because of the law. Certainly a slave killed in cold blood in 1770 wasn't murdered, but one killed in cold blood in 1775 in the exact same way was murdered (maybe), because of THE LAW at the time.

[geek tragedy]

64. If you're trying to argue that legality is irrelevant to the definition

of 'murder' you're just flat out factually incorrect.

[harmonicon]

65. What I'm asking is "what law?"

What is done in the name of the law in one place may well be illegal in another. What law? The murder of prisoners in the US by our government would be against the law in most places. It is unjustifiable.

Murder is a concept that (so far as I am aware) has been with us for much longer than any written legal code.

So, untried lynching is not murder - RIGHT?!
Killing prisoners by legal order in gas chambers is not murder - RIGHT?!
A white slave owner killing a slave in cold blood in North Carolina in 1770 wasn't murder - RIGHT?!

Or are these cases of murder carried out in a place and time where they were not going to be prosecuted as such?

[geek tragedy]

66. Lynching was a murder.

Gas chamber deaths were prosecuted at Nuremberg, so the record's clear those were illegal.

Slaveowners killing slaves wasn't murder because slaves were property, not human beings. Today that would be murder, just like keeping slaves would be illegal.

However, it's indisputable that at no point in human history has any prosecution even been contemplated, let alone attempted or implemented, for the act of executing someone convicted of a capital offense under due process by a jury of their peers.

Just like an execution fails to meet one element of murder--legality--abortion fails to meet the element no matter if it's legal or illegal because there's no life in being.

[harmonicon]

67. To the victor go the spoils, unless it's lynching?

How is lynching murder if no charges are filed? By your logic, if it's not prosecuted explicitly as "murder," it's not murder. Which is it? You can't have it both ways.

[Socal31]

71. If it is state sanctioned, then it is still illegal, even if it is not considered "murder."

There are several kinds of murder and there are several kinds of charges for causing the death of another, depending on the circumstances.

Interntional law deals with the things you listed, although not very well.

[tabasco]

62. The so-called "government" of Cambodia at the time was a gang of barbarians

so yes, it was fucking murder.

[LanternWaste]

68. Merely the path used to get there...

"The difference is..."?

Merely the path used to get there, and the rationalizations made, to wind up at precisely the same place. Little other difference of note or relevance...

As long as the most popular excuse is "he needed to die", there is no more point in discussing the death penalty with its proponents than there is getting angry with a new puppy for pooping on the carpet.

[harmonicon]

69. hahaha...

Thanks for making me laugh about something I was getting myself worked up about.

[Tom Ripley]

29. I don't think solitary confinement for the rest of his life would have added much more significant..

damage to this guy's mental well-being.
His mind seems to have already been irreparably broken.

[MicaelS]

19. 57 Countries actively use the Death Penalty

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_punishment#Global_distribution

According to information published by Amnesty International in 2012, 97 countries had abolished capital punishment altogether, 8 had done so for all offences except under special circumstances, and 36 had not used it for at least 10 years or were under a moratorium. The other 57 retained the death penalty in active use.

According to Amnesty International, only 21 countries were known to have had executions carried out in 2011. In addition, there are countries which do not publish information on the use of capital punishment, most significantly China, which is estimated to execute hundreds of people each year. At least 18,750 people worldwide were under sentence of death at the beginning of 2012.

The one country most people would be very surprised that still executes people is Japan. They use Death By Hanging.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_punishment_in_Japan

Capital punishment is legal in Japan. The only crimes for which capital punishment is statutory are murder and treason. Between 1946 and 1993, Japanese courts sentenced 766 people to death (including a small number from China, South Korea and Indonesia), 608 of whom were executed. The death penalty is ordinarily imposed in cases of multiple murders involving aggravating factors.

As of late March 2012, there were 135 people awaiting execution in Japan. Tsutomu Miyazaki and two others were hanged on 17 June 2008. A total of nine convicted murderers were executed in 2007. Three men were executed on August 23, 2007, four men were executed on December 25, 2006, one execution was carried out in 2005 and two in 2004.

Two inmates were executed in July 2010, and three in March 2012.

[Ed Suspicious]

26. And every one of them is wrong. n/t

[Fearless]

8. Ahh theater.

How disgusting.

[obamanut2012]

10. Barbaric, and we are part of a Rogue's Gallery that allows it

Murder is murder.

[geek tragedy]

12. This is one of those rare cases where it was necessary.

The guy was in prison for life for one murder when he committed TWO other murders.

Execution was the only way to stop him from killing.

[obamanut2012]

13. There is no "rare case" -- someone is either pro or anti DP

I believe it is state-sanctioned murder. There is nothing wrong with life without parole, and keeping him out of the general population.

A civilized country should have no place for capital punishment in its society. People always talk about guns and violence in general, but fail to see the death penalty is the same thing, just the government does it.

[geek tragedy]

16. In this case, the only effective deterrent was incapacitation.

Also, absence of death penatly means prisoners in prison for life get to kill with no fear of punishment.

He himself said that there'd be no way to stop him from killing other than killing him.

[obamanut2012]

18. It's still state-santctioned murder

If you are pro DP, that is 100% your opinion, and you are certainly not alone. Just say the guy deserved to be murdered by the state. I don't like rationalizing the killing of someone when it isn't in self defense. And no, it wasn't: they have means to lock him up.

So, you believe there should be no such thing as life without parole, only the DP. Interesting. I hope no one these people were, you know, innocent, because that never happens, does it? Or, do you know of a way to keep innocent people railroaded from being executed before they are discovered innocent? If they ever are.

How many innocent people do you think have been executed?

And, it doesn't matter about this creep. The legal system isn't supposed to work that way.

[geek tragedy]

25. Again, murder is a legal term that does not apply here.

Life without parole was ineffective at preventing this guy from killing again.

Death penalty should be used only very rarely, but this is one of the exceptions.

[WestCoastLib]

14. I'm opposed to the death penalty...

...but it is hardly equatable to murder in this case. The guy kept killing people, even after incarceration, asked to be killed and chose the method. Much closer to assisted suicide than murder.

[obamanut2012]

15. It is state-sanctioned murder

How is it not murder in this case?! There is such a thing as life without parole, and keeping someone out of the general population. Good God, they even do that for Lindsay Lohan every time she gets tossed into the pokey.

And, if you think the creep deserved the DP, then of course you aren't anti DP.

[geek tragedy]

17. Murder is the unlawful killing of another human being

without justification.

So, this is certainly not murder, since it was lawful and certainly had justification (how many more people did he have to kill to make that point?).

[BuddhaGirl]

49. So you're okay with the U.S. being the only country in the western hemisphere that has the DP?

We're in good company with countries like China, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Iran, North Korea, etc.

Woo hoo!!

[geek tragedy]

52. I'm against the DP in most cases.

However, for some cases (necessarily where there is no doubt of guilt) it's not inappropriate.

[BuddhaGirl]

54. in other words, you're okay with our country's unevolved status

compared to other modern, western nations.

How backward we are

[geek tragedy]

57. No, but when the person has shown a likelihood they will kill again

unless put to death, there's a certain amount of sense in making sure they won't kill again.

[BuddhaGirl]

60. no, that is what prison is for

there's no rationalizing the DP.

An eye for an eye until the whole world goes blind - Gandhi

So, you ARE okay with our country's unevolved status. Maybe one day we will learn, and that day can't come too soon!

[geek tragedy]

61. Did you read the article?

He killed two people in prison while serving a life sentence.

[BuddhaGirl]

72. yes - he belongs in solitary, or whatever

You cannot rationalize the DP.

[WestCoastLib]

20. I didn't say that I thought he deserved the death penalty

I said that he asked for the death penalty, not that I thought he deserved it.

[MicaelS]

21. It is NOT "State Sanctioned Murder".

"Murder is the unlawful killing, with malice aforethought, of another person."

Note the word "unlawful". Since each state defines what is lawful and what is not, if the state says a certain type of killing is lawful then it is not murder.

The DP is no more "State Sanctioned Murder" than a soldier killing acting under lawful orders from superiors when the kill an adversary. Or a Law Enforcement Officer killing a criminal during the commission, or attempted commission, of a crime. Or for that matter a citizen who lawfully kills someone under the laws of their state.

All of these could be classed as Homicide, and that is why states use the term "Justifiable Homicide".

And yes, I do support the DP, and I don't weasel about it. I support it because I think some crimes are so heinous, the only proper punishment is Death. I think some people who commit certain crimes are beyond rehabilitation or redemption.

So you sentence someone to Life Without Parole in segregation. What further punishment are you going to sentence them to if they kill another prisoner, or even worse a Correctional Officer?

[Tom Ripley]

27. I am strongly against the death penalty, but absolutely hate the phrase "State Sanctioned Murder"

it is not only incorrect, but also uses cheap emotional rhetoric. It is no different than anti-choice advocates referring to abortion as "murder"

[Ian David]

51. Instead of Suicide-by-Cop, this was Suicide-by-Jury? n/t

[zabet]

22. And so it continues......

We murder people who murder people to prove that murder is wrong.

[BuddhaGirl]

53. +1

Sad, isn't it?

Our nation has not evolved enough, like other western nations, to abolish the death penalty.

[lynne]

39. He requested to be put to death and chose the electric chair -

- no different than the two twins who were recently euthanized at their request, IMO. All requested to die - although for different reasons - and all chose their method of death.

[treestar]

70. 90 seconds?

OMG. Who would choose that over the needle?