The VLW Blog

Oops, silly me! Thinking Federal Express was just as good as, maybe even better than, registered or certified mail. Rena Lindevaldsen represents the biological mother in the celebrated custody case of Miller-Jenkins v. Miller-Jenkins. The Virginia Court of Appeals had ruled that Vermont courts have jurisdiction over the custody of the child the mother delivered [...]

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Since federal sentencing guidelines became “advisory,” defense lawyers may be trying to track even unpublished 4th Circuit cases, just to see how a particular federal judge applies the guidelines to a given defendant. The defendant in U.S. v. Trent will get another shot at sentencing. A Newport News cop pulled Hakim Trent’s purple Ford Escort [...]

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Defense attorney Jonathan K. Katz testified that he didn’t mean to ignore a trial judge’s admonition against calling witnesses “liars.” He was just so tired and stressed at the end of a 3 1/2-hour closing argument after eight days of testimony in a federal drug trial that he simply forgot the judge’s reprimand. U.S. District [...]

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Whether therapist testimony can come into a domestic relations court case – an issue that has pitted lawyers against therapists – appears to be settled enough to allow the Virginia Court of Appeals to shuttle decisions on the subject into its “Unpublished Opinion” file. Just last December, the appellate court said in a 2-1 decision [...]

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A Norfolk bar owner tried to justify his sans-permit construction of a second-story bar on the Ocean View Fishing Pier by calling it his “office.” After the pier was destroyed by Hurricane Isabel in 2003, the owner promptly began reconstruction. Along the way, he apparently decided better meant bigger, and added to his commercial pier, [...]

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Maybe the 4th Circuit panel thought the appellate court already had given enough guidance on how district judges should sentence criminal defendants in light of U.S. v. Booker.Or maybe it decided that it’s not a good time to be disparaging military veterans.In any event, the panel took the “Unpublished” route last week to order a [...]

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Gov. Tim Kaine wants the bill allowing judges to waive the fee caps on court-appointed pay to apply in all of Virginia’s trial-level courts. Compensation for court-appointed lawyers in Virginia ranks dead last in the nation. House Bill 2361, passed by the 2007 General Assembly, could alleviate that problem, at least partially. The bill would [...]

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A papa tried a gender reversal on that truism when he asked a divorce judge to switch custody from the mother to the dad, who wanted to relocate to Florida. The divorce judge said evidence showed the father’s response to a “strained relationship” with his daughter was to set ever stricter limits on the girl’s [...]

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The final chapter in the 25-year saga that began with the rape and murder of a Culpeper woman may be written soon. The Richmond Times Dispatch reports that the state has agreed to pay $1.9 million to Earl Washington Jr., the mildly retarded man who falsely confessed to the murder of 19-year-old Rebecca Lynn Williams. [...]

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To an experienced narcotics detective, a dollar bill folded in a certain way can only mean drugs. A defense lawyer tries to get the fact-finder to see other possibilities. In Snell v. Commonwealth, police found a folded-up dollar bill in the wallet of a runaway kid. Unfolding the bill, which contained cocaine, was an unlawful [...]

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