The VLW Blog

A meeting of the U.S. House Democratic Caucus in Williamsburg next week is expected to feature an appearance by President Obama, reports The Virginia Gazette.  No details have been announced, but signals suggest a Thursday visit.
Posted by Peter Vieth

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Three justices of the Supreme Court of Virginia will enlighten law students at U.Va. on Friday.
Justices Barbara Keenan, Donald Lemons, and Bernard Goodwyn, all U.Va. law grads, will discuss court structure and appellate issues.
According to an announcement from Prof. Kent Sinclair, Justice Keenan’s remarks will include discussion of defamation and intentional infliction of emotional harm, [...]

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The Obama administration has tabbed U.Va. law professor David A. Martin for principal deputy general counsel of the Department of Homeland Security.
Martin will be the second-highest ranking lawyer among the 1,700 attorneys at the department, according to the U.Va. Web site.
Martin will take a two-year leave of absence from teaching.
Posted by Peter Vieth

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Some of the $19 million in settlement money from the maker of the painkiller OxyContin is going to drug treatment and education programs in Southwest Virginia.
As reported by the Associated Press, more than $650,000 is being distributed, most of it for treatment of residents dependent on opiate-based drugs such as OxyContin.
The money comes from settlement [...]

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Michael Vick’s lawyers say the pro quarterback serving time for dog fighting soon will be placed in a halfway house in Newport News.
Vick could be released “any day,” one of his lawyers told the bankruptcy judge today, according to the Daily Press.  Vick is currently serving his sentence at a federal prison in Leavenworth, Kan.
Posted [...]

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Prosecutors have been twice burned this week by apparent mishandling of their video evidence.
First we learned about a cross-examination that weakened the prosecution’s re-enactment video in a Chesapeake murder case.  Now comes word that video bungling has brought a mistrial in another murder case, this one in Henrico.
In the Chesapeake trial of a man charged [...]

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The ACLU of Virginia will add its voice to the Gloucester attorney fee case through a friend-of-the-court brief.
Forty Gloucester County citizens who sought removal of four county supervisors were chastised and sanctioned by the judge who rejected their recall petition.  The judge imposed an $80,000 attorney fee award.
L. Steven Emmert of Virginia Beach is handling [...]

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A couple of years back, we reported a speaker’s comments that trial judges are warming to the use of expert testimony to challenge eyewitness identifications.
But it’s a slow thaw, as evidenced by a 4th Circuit case upholding exclusion of a psychologist’s expert testimony at a defendant’s prosecution in Richmond federal court for an alleged car [...]

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Michael Vick’s lawyers return to bankruptcy court today with their revised financial disclosure statement. Last month, U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Frank Santoro ruled the first disclosure statement insufficient and ordered a new one.
The court will also consider issues related to the sale of some of Vick’s cars, his boats and his house in Georgia, reports the [...]

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Being linked to “developers” is not defamatory in Chesterfield County.
Chesterfield County Circuit Judge Herbert C. Gill has dismissed a local businessman’s $1.35 million defamation suit against residents who opposed a sewer line the businessman supported by saying the businessman was “being paid by developers.”
This claim and other statements occurred in letters the residents wrote protesting [...]

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