Domestic Relations – Termination Of Parental Rights – Inadequate Supervision 
By Deborah Elkins
Published: April 7, 2008
In this case in which the Department of Social Services had extensive contact with mother and her children, one of whom was fatally struck by a car and others who were not adequately supervised, the trial court did not err in terminating the mother’s parental rights to her youngest child.
Another child was already in foster [...]
Domestic Relations – Termination Of Parental Rights – Mother’s Drug Use
By Deborah Elkins
Published: April 7, 2008
A mother who has repeatedly relapsed into drug use despite treatment, and who has been unable to care for her child when she is using drugs, and whose child is thriving in the care of her foster family who desires to adopt the child, has her parental rights terminated.
The mother’s continuous use of cocaine led [...]
Domestic Relations – Termination Of Parental Rights – Father’s Contact
By Deborah Elkins
Published: April 7, 2008
There was no evidence that father’s failure to communicate with his child or the child’s foster care worker was due to the father’s incarceration, and termination of his parental rights is affirmed.
The father’s interaction with his child was limited to a few visits in 2002 or 2003 while he was in a detention facility and [...]
Criminal – Appeals – Certification – Suppression Order – Curtilage
By Deborah Elkins
Published: April 7, 2008
The commonwealth’s failure to comply with the certification requirement of Va. Code § 19.2-400 is not a fatal jurisdictional defect that requires dismissal of this appeal of a trial court’s order suppressing evidence that led to defendant’s indictment for possession of a controlled substance, but on the merits of that question, the appellate court holds [...]
Criminal – Concealing Merchandise – Prior Larceny Conviction
By Deborah Elkins
Published: April 7, 2008
Although defendant contends the evidence introduced at trial was insufficient to prove he had two prior larceny convictions, his conviction of concealing merchandise, a third or subsequent larceny offense under Va. Code § 18.2-104, is affirmed.
Defendant argues that a final conviction order from the Norfolk General District Court memorializing a 1999 conviction for petit larceny, [...]
Criminal – Drug Distribution – Minor
By Deborah Elkins
Published: April 7, 2008
A defendant who gave pills to his 17-year-old daughter and her teenage friend that he described as morphine and Darvocet, washed down with beer provided by defendant, properly was convicted of two counts of drug distribution to a person under age 18 and two counts of contributing to the delinquency of a minor.
Defendant’s pharmacist testified [...]
Workers’ Comp – Ordinary Disease – MRSA Infection – Hospital Worker
By Deborah Elkins
Published: April 7, 2008
Health care professionals treating an employee from Central State Hospital for methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) who opined that she probably picked up the infection from patients at the hospital, who had poor hygiene, the denial of comp benefits for her MRSA infection is affirmed.
The two treating physicians explained why they found a “direct causal connection” [...]
Workers’ Comp – Coal Mine Accident – PTSD
By Deborah Elkins
Published: April 7, 2008
A treating doctor who diagnosed a mine maintenance foreman as suffering from acute post-traumatic stress disorder, based on the foreman having observed a friend’s death in a mine accident, when claimant did not observe the incident but arrived on the scene shortly thereafter, and who did not have claimant’s complete medical history, did not provide [...]
Traffic Offenses – DUI – Sixth Amendment – Crawford Claim
By Deborah Elkins
Published: April 7, 2008
A DUI defendant who did not subpoena the “booking tech” who administered a blood alcohol breath analysis to defendant after his arrest for driving while intoxicated cannot overturn his DUI conviction with a challenge on appeal to admission of the BAC evidence.
Defendant argues that because the BAC represented testimonial evidence, the admission of the BAC [...]
Federal judge: college alcohol-ad ban violates free speech
By News in Brief
Published: April 7, 2008
A federal magistrate judge has overturned Virginia’s decades-old ban on alcohol-related advertising in college newspapers, saying that the law violates the student publications’ constitutional right to free speech.
U.S. Magistrate Judge M. Hannah Lauck sided with the student newspapers at the University of Virginia and Virginia Tech, which said the restrictions on alcohol references – including [...]
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