The VLW Blog

The Supreme Court of Virginia today unanimously turned away the appeal of Navy Seal trainee Dustin Turner, who sought a writ of actual innocence after a codefendant confessed to the murder of a young woman the two had met in a Virginia Beach nightclub in 1995. The high court found conflicts in the codefendant’s recantation [...]

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A defendant who spoke no English and relied on a telephone translation to explain the felony charges against him has been allowed to withdraw his guilty plea. Harrisonburg U.S. District Court Judge Michael F. Urbanski allowed Raul Tronco-Ramirez to withdraw his guilty plea to gun and drug charges after reviewing a transcript that revealed “numerous [...]

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Maybe she came to him with open arms. Maybe there was lovin’ touchin’ squeezin’. Maybe it was time for her and husband to go their separate ways. Faithfully? Maybe not. In any event, reports that White House party-crasher Michaele Salahi had been abducted turned out to be false. Politico reports she ran off with the [...]

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Two Virginia-based law firms have been named among the top 50 Best Law Firms for Women. McGuireWoods and Hunton & Williams, both based in Richmond, earned spots on the 2011 list. The survey, now in its fourth year, is published by the National Association for Female Executives and Flex-Time Lawyers. The 50 winning firms were [...]

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A Richmond jury has hit the city sheriff and his former chief jail doctor with a $2.4-million verdict for the 2008 death of an inmate from untreated bronchial pneumonia. The verdict may be a record in Virginia for the death of an inmate. Plaintiffs’ lawyer Mark Krudys of Richmond said he had not heard of [...]

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Editor’s note: Sharon D. Nelson and John W. Simek of Sensei Enterprises Inc. make their living going into law offices and offering advice on technology and information security. They often encounter lawyers who are otherwise careful in their practice of law make sloppy mistakes when it comes to protecting their electronic data. Here is their [...]

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The Virginia State Corporation Commission has taken a giant leap away from its kludgy web-based service of two years ago with the debut this month of streamlined processes for creating corporations and LLCs online. In what the SCC clerk calls the “crowning achievement” of the agency’s eFile project, online users now can pick one of [...]

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A veteran prosecutor may have to run for re-election as a write-in candidate after a judge rejected his bid for a court order to get his name on the ballot Thursday. Richmond County Circuit Judge Harry Taliaferro dissolved his temporary injunction and allowed the county registrar to report the names of qualified candidates to the [...]

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Just in time for President Obama’s visit to Richmond Friday, the 4th U.S Circuit of Appeals has delivered two opinions upholding the president’s healthcare plan against challenges from both the state and from Liberty University. The three-judge panel that heard the cases determined Virginia had no standing to speak for citizens subject to a healthcare [...]

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Update: (9/8/11, 3:50 p.m.) Judge Harry Taliaferro has upheld the local electoral board’s decision invalidating Wayne Emery’s petition. According to the Northern Neck News, Emery plans to file further injunctions immediately. A 16-year Virginia prosecutor could be unseated this year because his election paperwork was found to be defective after the registration deadline passed. Richmond [...]

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