The VLW Blog

The 4th US Circuit Court of Appeals, with an opinion by Judge Designate Sandra Day O’Connor, rejected the claim of a man who said his free speech rights were violated because his fellow members of the Fredericksburg City Council would not let him pray “in Jesus’ name.”
The opinion is here. The Associated Press has [...]

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Indictments returned this week against four people in a vote fraud case are only part of a long-running investigation of alleged corruption in the Wise County town of St. Paul. The Bristol Herald Courier has details.
Consider it a study in contrasts. In Gloucester County, where citizens protested a January clean sweep at the [...]

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The Los Angeles Times reports on a study that suggests that matches of DNA profiles may be more common than the one in more than 100 billion projected by the FBI and other crime labs.
The FBI responds that it is the methodology of the study itself that is flawed, and The Times says the [...]

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Highway 220, the road leading to and from The Homestead, was covered with campaign signs for Mark Warner and Jim Gilmore in preface to Saturday’s VBA debate. Advantage: Warner.  
The more recent ex-gov clearly won the sign war up and down the highway. A couple of completely anecdotal observations:
Warner was out earlier. There didn’t [...]

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Two ex-governors, Mark Warner and Jim Gilmore, met in the kickoff of the campaign for retiring U.S. Sen. John Warner’s seat July 19. The Virginia Bar Association held its traditional candidates’ debate at The Homestead.
The debate was delayed 15 minutes apparently due to audio problems: the feed to Gilmore’s campaign room wasn’t working. But that [...]

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Medical malpractice plaintiffs continued their string of wins in the Supreme Court of Virginia in an unpublished order issued today.
The case, Kraina v. Carman, stemmed from the removal of ruptured breast implants by Norfolk physicians in November 2001. In her original complaint, the plaintiff specified injuries that she alleged were caused by the failure of [...]

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A 28-year veteran of the Virginia Senate, Joseph V. Gartlan Jr. is dead at the age of 82.
The Richmond Times Dispatch reports that Sen. Gartlan died overnight. In a statement, Gov. Kaine said of Sen. Gartlan, “He was a tireless and effective advocate for the environment, the mentally and physically disabled, and for abused and [...]

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Roanoke neo-Nazi activist William A. White apparently has been allowed extra time to try to hire a lawyer to defend him in a criminal contempt of court action.
A hearing set for Friday was postponed indefinitely after Roanoke lawyer Harry Brown filed a motion indicating that he was hired for civil matters only and is not [...]

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President Bush has nominated Washington commercial litigation attorney Anthony J. Trenga to the U.S. District Court judgeship vacated by the resignation of Walter D. Kelley.
Trenga is a partner in DC’s Miller & Chevalier. An Alexandria resident, he has served on the Virginia State Bar Disciplinary Board and has been a member of the VSB Clients’ [...]

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It’s a sad story well-known to the legal profession — a law office victimized by a dishonest staffer.
In this South Carolina case, it was two separate law firms who had to scramble to make things right after Caroline Keys pocketed money by altering closing documents. As reported by The Sun News, one of the victimized [...]

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