The VLW Blog

Waivers on the fee caps for attorneys who represent indigent defendants will continue after all.
The Senate budget had proposed cutting $600,000 out of this year’s budget and eliminating the $4.2 million projected for each of the next two fiscal years.
The House budget maintained those amounts, and they survived negotiations among the budget conferees and have [...]

[Read more →]

The man charged in connection with the killings of eight people at a home in Appomattox County last week has hired two Roanoke lawyers.
C.J. Covati and Neil Horn have been retained to defend Christopher Speight, according to The News and Advance .
Horn won acquittal in June of a man accused of felony hit-and-run in the [...]

[Read more →]

Lawyers who asked the Supreme Court of Virginia to order a court clerk to process their court-appointed fee vouchers withdrew their petition for mandamus last week.
Matt Greene of Fairfax, one of the lawyers who claimed that more than $50,000 in fees were in arrears for work at the Fairfax County Juvenile & Domestic Relations Court, [...]

[Read more →]

A Chesapeake judge is considering a mistrial motion in a murder case after a juror failed to disclose her history as a crime victim.
James Boughton Jr. was previously found guilty for shooting a Mormon missionary to death. This past Friday, defense attorney Andrew Sacks told Chesapeake Circuit Judge Randy Smith that a woman known as [...]

[Read more →]

A Louisa County lawyer accused of threatening a witness will not face any criminal charge.
The sheriff’s department told the Richmond Times-Dispatch it found no evidence to support the witness’ claim that lawyer John Maus solicited perjury from a family member of a crime victim.
Posted by Peter Vieth

[Read more →]

The judge in the capital case of Freddie Hammer granted motions for experts to test the prosecution’s evidence and to evaluate the defendant.
Hammer faces five capital murder charges and 11 other felonies in connection with the 2008 killings of the owner of a Grayson County Christmas tree farm, the owner’s son and a farm employee, [...]

[Read more →]

The Virginia Fair Trial Project, an organization dedicated to improving criminal defense for the poor, will go out of business at the end of the month.
The  group had hoped to continue operations with $100,000 in grant money from the Virginia Law Foundation.  In an e-mail to members and others, VFTP director Betsy Wells Edwards explained [...]

[Read more →]

The video of Regent Law Professor James Duane’s 5th Amendment lecture - popularly known as “Don’t talk to the police!” - is enjoying widespread viewership on the Internet.
In the video, the loquacious professor advises potential criminal lawyers why their clients should never - ever - talk to the police. A police detective responds and [...]

[Read more →]

The Virginia Court of Appeals did some line-drawing yesterday, and let criminal defense lawyers know there is at least one case that should not have drawn a Rule 5A:18 argument.
Defense lawyers know the power of the contemporaneous objection rule, and how carefully the appellate court scrutinizes the record to make sure trial counsel hit all [...]

[Read more →]