Criminal | Virginia Lawyers Weekly

No Miranda Violation for Presentence Report

By Deborah Elkins
Published: May 16, 2012
Tags: Criminal, Judge Everett A. Martin Jr., Norfolk Circuit Court, Virginia Circuit Courts

The commonwealth did not violate an incarcerated defendant’s Miranda rights when a probation officer sent defendant a presentence report form that asked him to describe the crime in detail, and used his response to charge him with another crime; a Norfolk Circuit Court says defendant was not “in custody” under Miranda.
Defendant was convicted of second [...]

Conspiracy From Informant’s Contacts

By Deborah Elkins
Published: May 16, 2012
Tags: 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, Criminal, Judge Paul V. Niemeyer

A defendant convicted of distribution of crack cocaine for sale of drugs to a confidential informant also can be convicted of conspiracy to traffic crack cocaine, based on his interactions with the confidential informant before he started working as a government agent after his arrest; the 4th Circuit affirms defendant’s convictions and his life sentence.
If [...]

Return to Death Row Granted

By Deborah Elkins
Published: May 15, 2012
Tags: Criminal, Judge Raymond A. Jackson, U.S. District Court - Eastern District

A Norfolk U.S. District Court grants correctional officials’ motion for a temporary stay of the court’s earlier order granting a writ of habeas corpus to a defendant convicted of murder-for-hire, on the ground that prosecutors violated defendant’s due process rights by withholding potential impeachment evidence and knowingly presenting false testimony from the key prosecution witness; [...]

Swallowing Allows Search for Drugs

By Deborah Elkins
Published: May 15, 2012
Tags: Criminal, Judge Walter S. Felton Jr., Virginia Court of Appeals

Defendant is not entitled to reversal of his conviction for possessing cocaine with intent to distribute based on denial of his motion to suppress nearly four grams of cocaine spit from his mouth, the Court of Appeals says; the totality of the circumstances and the police officer’s knowledge and experience gave probable cause to detain [...]

New Trial on Specific Intent

By Deborah Elkins
Published: May 15, 2012
Tags: Criminal, Judge Randolph A. Beales, Virginia Court of Appeals

Defendant is entitled to a new trial on his charge for misdemeanor destruction of property under Va. Code § 18.2-137(B), the Court of Appeals says; the record does not support trial court’s finding of specific intent to damage a watch worn by a police officer attempting to restrain defendant from swallowing suspected contraband.
While defendant was [...]

Circumstances Proved Boyfriend Hit Mom

By Deborah Elkins
Published: May 15, 2012
Tags: Criminal, Judge Sam W. Coleman III, Virginia Court of Appeals

The Court of Appeals affirms defendant’s bench trial convictions for misdemeanor domestic assault and battery under Va. Code § 18.2-57.2; the circumstances prove defendant hit his seven-year-old son’s mother, cutting her above the eye, when he grabbed her cell phone and threw it into a glass picture.
Defendant lives with mother and their seven-year-old son. After [...]

Forgiving felons? Something new in the GOP playbook

By The Associated Press
Published: May 14, 2012
Tags: Criminal, Gov. Bob McDonnell

(AP) This is not in your grandfather’s Republican playbook: forgiveness toward felons.
But Gov. Bob McDonnell is on pace to restore the civil rights of more people who’ve done their time than any governor in modern Virginia history.
Republicans would scald a Democrat who did that as being soft on crime. But for McDonnell, a former attorney [...]

LPN Care Records Were ‘Forgery’

By Deborah Elkins
Published: May 9, 2012
Tags: Criminal, Judge Robert P. Frank, Virginia Court of Appeals

A licensed practical nurse at a skilled nursing facility who repeatedly logged performance of patient care procedures and medication administration on a patient’s chart, even though she had not done these tasks, as demonstrated by an FBI surveillance video, cannot overturn her forgery conviction in the Court of Appeals.
After the FBI investigation, a grand jury [...]

Alibi Instruction Not Warranted

By Deborah Elkins
Published: May 8, 2012
Tags: Criminal, Judge Larry G. Elder, Virginia Court of Appeals

Defendant is not entitled to reversal of his conviction for felony hit and run based on refusal of his proposed alibi instruction; the Court of Appeals says defendant can show no abuse of discretion in the ruling that record evidence fails to place him away from the scene of the crime at the relevant time.
One [...]

No Right to Mental Health Treatment

By Deborah Elkins
Published: May 8, 2012
Tags: Criminal, Judge Robert J. Humphreys, Virginia Court of Appeals

Defendant is not entitled to reversal of the revocation of his suspended sentences on the basis of the trial court’s failure to consider a psychiatric facility, the Court of Appeals says; defendant failed to present to the trial court his argument about his offenses preceding repeal of the Va. Code § 19.2-176 psychiatric sentencing alternative, [...]

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