RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — Attorneys are asking the U.S. Supreme Court to block the execution of a Virginia man who strangled two inmates and vowed to keep killing unless given the death penalty.
A panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals refused to intervene today. Attorneys then asked the nation's top court to appoint them to 42-year-old Robert Gleason's case so they can order a mental health evaluation.
The attorneys argue Gleason wasn't competent to waive his appeals.
Gleason is set to die by electrocution tomorrow night at Greensville Correctional Center.
In Virginia, condemned inmates can choose between lethal injection and electrocution, and Gleason is the first inmate to choose electrocution since 2010.
Gleason says it's not that he wants to die, it's because he knows he will kill again if he's not executed.
He was serving life in prison when he killed his cellmate in 2009. After threatening to kill again, he strangled another inmate in 2010 as he awaited sentencing.
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