The VLW Blog

Here’s an item from the Tarheel State this a.m., courtesy of the Daily Alert from our colleagues at North Carolina Lawyers Weekly:
A lawyer down there has been suspended from practicing law in Wake County for a year, reports the Raleigh News & Observer. His offense: He cussed at a court clerk.
Lawyers here will [...]

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As noted in a post yesterday, the daily papers across the commonwealth are focusing on the new “civil remedial fees,” which provide hefty fines for bad drivers.
Here’s an update from today’s editions: Both The Daily Press and the Bristol Herald Courier have stories on the topic. And The Free Lance Star has an editorial. [...]

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A defendant who submits to a DNA mouth swab in one case can’t prevent prosecutors from using it to solve a cold case, according to a new decision from the Virginia Court of Appeals.
In Pharr v. Commonwealth (VLW 007-7-239), the court said that use of the DNA didn’t violate the defendant’s Fourth Amendment rights.
While [...]

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Rep. Bobby Scott, D-Va., has vowed to abolish federal mandatory sentencing guidelines, reports The Daily Press.
Scott, chair of the House Judiciary subcommittee on crime, held hearings in Washington this past week. The leading witness was a federal judge from Utah who noted that he was compelled by the guidelines to give a first-time offender [...]

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As we noted on this blog in a post last month, the 2007 General Assembly set up a system to whack bad drivers with new hefty fines in the transportation bill.
Most of the new-statute stories in the general press before the July 1 effective date have focused on the new fees. See, for example, [...]

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Yesterday the U.S. Supreme Court turned in rulings that, according to the pundits, indicate the court’s conservative five-justice majority is flexing its muscles.
Among other decisions, the high court voted to limit student speech in the “Bong Hits 4 Jesus” case, to toss an attempt by taxpayers to challenge the Bush administration’s grants to faith-based [...]

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Richard A. “Dick” Williamson, a longtime law professor at the College of William and Mary, died last Friday, June 15. He was 63.
Prof. Williamson taught law at the school from 1970 until his retirement three months ago. He also served for a number of years at the college’s coordinator of legal affairs. In that [...]

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The Virginia Association of Community Conflict Resolution, an organization for nonprofit community mediation groups, is trying to get the Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles to issue a state license tag that promotes “community peacebuilding.” (See picture).
Considering the commonwealth already has vanity license plates that promote everything from Parrotheads (Jimmy Buffett fans) to bowlers to Friends [...]

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The judge in the $54 million pants suit in the District of Columbia announced her decision this morning: The defendants won. In fact, the judge ordered the plaintiff, an administrative law judge, to pay the court costs of the defendants, the owners of the dry cleaners that allegedly lost his trousers.
The Washington Post has [...]

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The state Board of Medicine has a backlog of disciplinary complaints that has reached 2,000 cases.
To whittle it down, the board will streamline its disciplinary procedures, reports The Associated Press.
Many of the cases in the glut do not involve a substantial risk to patients, such as advertising complaints. The disciplinary staff has been [...]

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