The Associated Press via The Republic
RICHMOND, Va. — A Virginia inmate who has killed two prisoners is challenging the state’s policy of denying him in-person visitation with his family, arguing he’s no more dangerous than some of the other killers on death row who get to talk to their loved ones face to face.
A Circuit Court judge recently sided with death row with inmate Robert Gleason Jr., ruling that the state Department of Corrections must grant him in-person visitation with his child and other family members rather than visitation through closed-circuit video. But the Attorney General’s Office challenged that decision in court papers filed last week, saying that requiring prison staff to move Gleason for in-person visitation would put them and other prisoners “at substantially greater risk.”
Gleason was serving a life sentence for murder when he killed his cellmate in 2009 then strangled another inmate while in separate cages on the prison recreation yard last year. The murders occurred at the state’s two highest-level security prisons. In interviews with The Associated Press and in court proceedings, Gleason vowed to keep killing unless he was given the death penalty.
Full Story: Va. death row inmate challenging video visits, says he’s no more dangerous than other killers