The VLW Blog

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 [...]

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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 [...]

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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 [...]

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Updating an April 30 blog entry, the Virginia Court of Appeals today granted rehearing en banc in Scialdone v. Commonwealth.
In its April 29 split panel decision, the appellate court reversed summary contempt, including jail terms, for two Virginia Beach lawyers and their law clerk. The lawyers, Claude Scialdone and Barry Taylor, were defending their client [...]

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Defense attorney Jonathan K. Katz testified that he didn’t mean to ignore a trial judge’s admonition against calling witnesses “liars.” He was just so tired and stressed at the end of a 3 1/2-hour closing argument after eight days of testimony in a federal drug trial that he simply forgot the judge’s reprimand.
U.S. District Judge [...]

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