A former assistant director of the Bureau of Prisons told Fox News this week that it would be unwise to have alleged Charlie Kirk assassin Tyler Robinson among the general jail population where he is being held — for his safety and everyone else.
It also shouldn’t necessarily be seen as a punishment, either, Judi Garrett explained.
“Somebody like that,” she said, “is in a very different circumstance than he has been in prior times in his life. ... So while he may or may not have displayed any tendency towards certain behaviors, he may be interested in engaging those behaviors now. … Any custodian of someone like that would be remiss in not treating him very differently from most everyone else in their population.”
Robinson’s attorneys filed a request on Thursday that their client be allowed to wear street clothes for his first physical appearance in court, scheduled for Oct. 30.
They also requested that he not be bound by physical restraints as the 22-year-old and his team prepare for the high-profile event, per reports.
“These requests are necessary to maintain the presumption of innocence, to protect Mr. Robinson’s rights to a fair and impartial trial, and to maintain courtroom decorum and dignity,” the motion obtained by the Deseret News said. “The psychological reality is that the human beings who serve on the bench are likewise not immune to such subconscious and subliminal influence from seeing a human being in chains to protect others from him.”
“With each development in the case generating thousands of articles and comments online, the likelihood of potential jurors seeing and drawing conclusions regarding Mr. Robinson’s guilt and or deserved punishment from obvious signs of pretrial incarceration will only increase,” the filing added. “In the face of worldwide scrutiny, permitting Mr. Robinson to wear civilian clothing for court appearances is a minor inconvenience compared to the already present concerns with securing a fair trial before an impartial jury.”
Why high-profile inmates receive unique treatment
Infamy brings attention to both the corrections facility and the individual accused of committing the high-profile crime. Because of this, an inmate’s classification can be manually changed by correction administrators, putting them under stricter, higher security supervision.
Under the Utah Department of Corrections’ policies, this term is called notoriety override, and “may be invoked when the inmate’s crime is a high-profile case, or there is evidence that the inmate may pose a serious risk to others or the institution.”
If UDC leadership comes to that conclusion, then Utah State Correctional Facility Lt. Chase Olsen said the prison would transfer that individual to maximum security, separated from the general population.
“They would be in the single cell setting. They’re only getting recreation outside of the cell by themselves,” he told the Deseret News. “That could be whether it’s a risk to others or there’s a risk to the individual,” but “they would be able to have their shower, phone calls, you know, access, order, commissary, things like that.”
When many picture solitary confinement, an image concocted by Hollywood comes to mind — The Hole in “The Shawshank Redemption” or the mind-numbing isolation room in “Orange is the New Black.” A far cry from modern corrections, Olsen explained.
“Things get dramatized in the movies, and for most people, I would say, whether someone’s in general population, or if they’re in maximum security, or even on a notoriety where someone’s isolated,” he said, everything remains relatively normal.
“Let’s say we had a high-profile individual that was part of a certain religious service denomination, they would be able to tune in and watch those religious services take place, even though they may not be able to go there physically,” he said, noting that every cell has a tablet device for the inmate.
“They’d be able to message their case managers from the tablets as well. There’s all kinds of programs on the tablets that they can participate in. So they’re not just sitting idly with nothing to do.”
He made the case that maintaining normalcy and granting basic humanity is always a priority.
The goal is to “give these folks the tools to be more successful while they’re incarcerated, or to set them up for when they get out,” Olsen said. “If they’re going to get out of prison, let’s make sure they’re good neighbors, and if they’re in prison, let’s also make sure that they’re good neighbors and good community members to those who live here.”