The VLW Blog

Panelists at an open government conference today took shots from opposing directions at a proposal for anonymous juries in Virginia. A judge and a criminal defense lawyer were critical of the plan to make juror information confidential, while a prosecutor said the proposal doesn’t go far enough to protect jurors from harassment. Jurors fear retaliation [...]

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Freshly confirmed by the U.S. Senate, Tim Heaphy was sworn in this morning as U.S. attorney for the Western District of Virginia. Chief U.S. District Judge James P. Jones administered the oath of office at the Abingdon federal courthouse, according to a news release. “This office will continue to work with all of the diverse [...]

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A Buchanan County news reporter is trying to convince a jury that county school leaders improperly banned him from school property because they didn’t like his stories. Earl Cole, publisher of The Voice, claims that the school board defamed him and violated his First and Fourteenth Amendment rights, reports the Bristol Herald-Courier. The Buchanan County [...]

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The National Law Journal has a very detailed article about the prospects for a national bar exam, noting that as many as 32 states are giving serious consideration to standardizing lawyer credentials nationwide. Noticeably absent from the article is Virginia. W. Scott Street III, secretary to the Virginia Board of Bar Examiners, says the board [...]

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U.S. District Judge Robert Doumar sentenced a former Newport News mortgage broker to 20 years in prison for running a mortgage fraud scheme out of his house. According to the Daily Press, Richard N. Garries had been found guilty of 24 charges, including wire fraud, mail fraud, money laundering, making false statements and concealing transactions. [...]

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The Orange County Board of Supervisors says the lawsuit seeking to block construction of a Walmart in a historic battlefield area is no more than a policy disagreement and should be dismissed. The lawsuit, filed Sept. 25, claims that supervisors disregarded concerns about the negative impacts the store would have on the battlefield and park, [...]

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Roanoke County Circuit Judge Pat Doherty had them laughing at a recent VTLA 50th anniversary fete in the Star City.  In one story, Doherty recounted how – despite pleas for leniency from the defendant and her family – he gave some serious prison time to a woman with a record of 15 convictions for shoplifting. [...]

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U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema decided today not to sanction SPH America LLC, a Reston-based company that attempts to enforce patents on mobile phone technology, even though she said the suit it filed against the national law firm of Foley & Lardner LLP was groundless. SPH accused the law firm of disclosing confidential information that [...]

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A Norfolk Circuit Court has denied a prosecutor’s request for a DUI defendant’s hospital records from the night he was arrested at the hospital where he was taken after a traffic accident. In a case of apparent first impression, Norfolk Circuit Judge Mary Jane Hall in Commonwealth v. Parks quashed the commonwealth’s subpoena duces tecum [...]

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A property owners association may be powerless to collect assessments from community landowners to pay for road improvements, but at least it’s not liable for racketeering in the attempt, according to a ruling yesterday from the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The Dogwood Valley Citizens Association tried to make assessments against property owners in [...]

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