The VLW Blog

Virginia Beach lawyer Claude M. Scialdone pleaded guilty yesterday to possession of cocaine.
Scialdone, 65, had disposition of the charge deferred for a year under the Virginia law that applies to first-time drug offenders.
The charge will be dismissed if he gets in no further trouble while undergoing probation and performing 100 hours of community service. His driver’s [...]

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The Virginia State Bar Criminal Law Section has presented its 2010 Harry L. Carrico Professionalism Award to retired Virginia Court of Appeals Judge Jere M.H. “Mac” Willis Jr. of Fredericksburg.
In presenting this year’s award at the group’s meeting in Williamsburg last week, section chair Richard E. Trodden, commonwealth’s attorney for Arlington County, said Willis embodies [...]

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Same song, only a slightly different verse.
Eddie Nelson Ray wanted to call his mother to testify in his trial on charges of obtaining money by false pretenses and uttering a false bank note. The judge said no, and there was no proffer as to what Momma might have said.
Not surprisingly, the Virginia Court of Appeals [...]

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We all complain, but at least one Virginia prosecutor is prepared to step up and throw the book at the weather gods for damaging public property and interfering with justice. You can read the indictment of Mother Nature at Ken Lammers’ blog .
By Peter Vieth

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Because of a forecast for a massive snow storm, the 40th annual criminal law seminar scheduled for tomorrow in Charlottesville has been canceled. It will not be rescheduled in Charlottesville but those who registered for it may transfer to the seminar on Feb. 12 in Williamsburg or sign up for a video replay. Further information [...]

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Gov. Bob McDonnell last night wrote to the U.S. attorney general in an effort to revoke former Gov. Kaine’s request for the transfer of convicted killer Jens Soering to a German prison.
McDonnell’s letter to Attorney General Eric Holder is here .
McDonnell said he consulted with law enforcement officials who opposed the transfer:
I believe that as [...]

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The live testimony of Joe Madison would have been devastating for Alton Nelson Wilder.
But fortunately for Wilder, Madison, a homeless man who said he saw two men wheeling away items from a stockyard in Norfolk, didn’t show up for trial and his observations came in through a 911 tape.
Madison’s statements were admissible under the present [...]

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We’ll never know if former U.S. Solicitor General Paul Clement had persuaded the U.S. Supreme Court to rein in the doctrine of absolute prosecutorial immunity.
But he was certainly persuasive to the defendants in a case in which two men contended that they had served 25 years in prison because prosecutors had doctored the evidence against [...]

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Franklin County Sheriff Ewell Hunt has been arrested and charged with mishandling paperwork at his office.
The Roanoke Times reports the accusation comes out of a grand jury investigation of claims that Hunt directed his office to pay his teenage daughter for hours she did not work.
Hunt apparently is charged with a violation of section 15.2-1722 [...]

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Justice comes with a big price tag for a group of ex-military types who sold 10 million gallons of U.S. fuel on the black market in Iraq.
U.S. District Judge Claude Hilton imposed a four-year sentence and a $66,500 forfeiture Friday for a former Navy officer convicted of helping to steal the fuel from a U.S. [...]

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