The Supreme Court of Virginia upheld Friday the lower court holdings in a sexually violent predator case and three criminal appeals. The court heard arguments in the cases last month and resolved the appeals with unpublished orders. In the SVP case, Graves v. Commonwealth, Record No. 100209, a Portsmouth judge admitted the statement of a [...]
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Following the U.S. Supreme Court’s holding in Melendez-Diaz, the Supreme Court of Virginia has acknowledged Virginia’s former procedure for admission of lab reports in criminal trials failed to safeguard a defendant’s rights under the Confrontation Clause. The decision today in Cypress v. Commonwealth (VLW 010-6-083) means a new trial for one drug defendant, but no [...]
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Posted in Criminal Cases, Writs Granted on Aug 26th, 2010
Charles Edward Reed III might well have been as guilty as a Stafford County Circuit Court jury found him to be in June 2005. But there was a significant problem in the trial for murder and three related counts that netted Reed a sentence of life plus 38 years for what witnesses said was a [...]
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