The VLW Blog

The Supreme Court of Virginia has overturned summary contempt convictions and jail terms for two Virginia Beach lawyers and their law clerk.
The contempt findings arose during a felony jury trial in which law partners Claude Scialdone and Barry Taylor represented a client charged with offenses stemming from his online chats with a police officer [...]

[Read more →]

The Supreme Court of Virginia today exonerated two Hampton Roads lawyers held in contempt for presuming that Norfolk Circuit Judge Chuck Griffith would grant continuances in their clients’ criminal trials.
Both lawyers - Ken Singleton and Gordon Zedd - arranged with the prosecutor’s office for the criminal trials to be postponed.  Both lawyers then told their [...]

[Read more →]

The Supreme Court of Virginia will consider whether two Virginia Beach lawyers received proper due process protections when they were held in contempt in the course of a criminal trial.
A case that began when lawyer Claude Scialdone offered a document of questionable authenticity in defense of his client has wound through a Court of Appeals [...]

[Read more →]

The other shoe has dropped.
The Supreme Court of Virginia will hear the appeal of Norfolk lawyer Gordon Zedd, who was held in contempt for telling his client to stay home when a prosecutor agreed to continue a traffic case.
The high court last month agreed to take up the similar case of a Virginia Beach lawyer [...]

[Read more →]

The Supreme Court of Virginia has agreed to hear Virginia Beach attorney Kenneth L. Singleton’s appeal of his contempt of court citation.
Singleton’s sin? He didn’t show up for court and told his client not to come to court either after a Norfolk prosecutor had agreed to continue his case.
Then Circuit Judge Charles D. Griffith [...]

[Read more →]

The full Virginia Court of Appeals split sharply today on the precision required to preserve for appeal challenges to summary contempt convictions.
The result is that two attorneys and an assistant who was a third-year law student at the time may well be on their way to the slammer for 10 days.
Virginia Beach Circuit Judge Patricia [...]

[Read more →]

A defense attorney has a trial date for a client charged with drunken driving. The prosecutor agrees to a continuance, and the lawyers endorse a proposed order.
The defense attorney advises his client that he does not have to appear in court on the date and doesn’t show up himself. That probably isn’t much of a [...]

[Read more →]

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 [...]

[Read more →]

Former Petersburg Sheriff George Epps says that he was vindicated by a 2007 Supreme Court of Virginia decision that overturned his contempt conviction and he wants the city government to pay his legal fees. As reported by The Progress-Index, Epps made his request to the City Council, but received no answer.
Epps was convicted of [...]

[Read more →]

Lost in the flap about a white supremacist facing federal contempt charges was the substance of the opinion that brought the charges to the surface.
Now available on the Western District Web site, Magistrate Judge Michael F. Urbanski’s opinion explains why — even though the defendant filed for bankruptcy protection — his contempt-of-court proceedings [...]

[Read more →]