The VLW Blog

Virginia Tech has released the mental health records of Seung-Hui Cho with the permission of the killer’s estate and his family.  Cho was evaluated in December 2005 after indicating he was considering suicide, a comment he dismissed as “a joke.” The Richmond Times Dispatch has additional details of the contents of the records. The records [...]

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Interrogatory answers from the clinical psychologist who accidentally removed Seung-Hui Cho’s mental health records from the Virginia Tech counseling center have been released by his attorney. The discovery information from Robert Miller is posted online by The Roanoke Times .  The interrogatories were served pursuant to the lawsuits filed against state officials by families of [...]

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A blogger arrested for posting a police officer’s address will get some help from the ACLU of Virginia. The group says it will defend Elisha Strom, a Bedford County woman who is charged under a state law that makes it a felony to publish a police officer’s address “with the intent to coerce, intimidate, or [...]

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Former attorney Kristina M. Cardwell wept as she was sentenced Monday to 5½ years in prison for participating in a $1.3 million real estate fraud at the Norfolk law office of Troy Titus. Cardwell, 38, told U.S. District Judge Raymond Jackson her 2½-year-old daughter was all she cared about as she apologized for her crimes, [...]

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Yvonne McGhee, executive director of the Fairfax Bar Association , received the President’s Award from the National Association of Bar Executives (NABE) at a recent conference in Chicago. McGhee was honored for her work with the NABE Small Bar Conference that she has chaired for the past three years, as well as her work on [...]

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The federal government’s case against former Page County Sheriff Danny Presgraves is a “hodgepodge of charges thrown together,” according to his lawyers, who compare the case to a school cafeteria that serves green beans with spaghetti — “They don’t go together,” argued former Virginia Attorney General Jerry Kilgore. Kilgore is one of the small army [...]

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Roanoke Mayor David Bowers used a state of the city address today to float a proposal for a law school in the Star City. “Lynchburg has a law school. Greensboro has a law school. Grundy has a law school, and Roanoke should have a law school, too,” Bowers said, as reported by The Roanoke Times [...]

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Wythe County officials have promised to issue public apologies and reform handling of housing matters in order to settle a civil lawsuit filed by the state attorney general. When a group home for up to eight children with mental disabilities was proposed in the county, the supervisors told citizens they would do whatever it took [...]

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Legislators continue to hammer out language for their anticipated fix of prosecutors’ proof problems in light of the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Melendez-Diaz v. Massachusetts. That June 25 decision put in doubt the system Virginia uses to have laboratory technicians present testimony – on blood alcohol content and suspected drugs – through sworn reports [...]

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A Chesterfield County jury returned guilty verdicts this afternoon against 18-year-old Detavis King in the drug-related shooting death of 16-year-old Ryan Matko nearly two years ago.  King was found guilty of both first-degree murder and using a firearm in the commission of a felony. Prosecutors were able to link King to the gun used to [...]

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