The VLW Blog

The Supreme Court of Virginia has posted the new Rules of Evidence online as a 27-page PDF file. The Virginia Rules of Evidence, approved in a stormy legislative session, take effect July 1. Because the rules reflect an effort to simply state existing Virginia law, no major change in practice is anticipated. An official set [...]

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After passing the full Senate Feb. 6, legislation to adopt Rules of Evidence for Virginia today moved from a subcommittee to the full House Courts of Justice committee. Some subcommittee members had doubts on Monday, and the subcommittee retooled the measure to firm up legislative control of the process for changing the rules over time [...]

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Some lawyer members of a House subcommittee studying proposed Rules of Evidence fear the proposed legislation would change the balance of power between the legislature and the Supreme Court. What happens to the body of common law the Rules codify, and what is the process for changing the Rules, going forward, subcommittee members wanted to [...]

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It’s a hard-fought, high-stakes trade secrets case, with scads of pretrial motions and some two-dozen lawyers involved. A jury trial is set to start this week in Richmond federal court in E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Co. v. Kolon Industries Inc. DuPont sued in 2009, alleging Kolon, a South Korean company, and its U.S. [...]

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A prosecutor can use a criminal defendant’s former lawyer to authenticate  previous incriminating court testimony when witnesses become forgetful, the Virginia Court of Appeals has ruled. It’s a common affliction for witnesses in tough neighborhoods. Even though they may have fingered an accused bad guy in a preliminary hearing, their memories grow foggy at the [...]

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Judges, including Chief Justice Cynthia Kinser, substituted for celebrities on Friday in the version of Hollywood Squares that the Young Lawyers Conference of the Virginia State Bar dubbed Judiciary Squares. The judges were given evidence-related questions and contestants – and the audience – had to decide whether the judge had given the correct answer. The [...]

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A Richmond federal judge has ruled a legislator’s emails to his wife about an expected new job are admissible in his bribery trial, even though the emails were sent before a privacy policy was enacted at the legislator’s workplace. U.S. District Judge Henry Hudson held the emails are admissible in the trial of former Del. [...]

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The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has turned back the habeas bid of former Carolina Panther wide receiver Rae Carruth who is serving time for orchestrating the 1999 murder of his girlfriend. Carruth argued his conviction was tainted by the improper admission of accusatory notes written by the victim just before she went into [...]

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A Virginia criminal case has become the focus of a national debate over the reliability of scientific evidence about shaken baby syndrome. A Court of Appeals panel this week will consider whether to hear an appeal based in part on whether a jury ignored critical medical testimony in the case of an imprisoned care giver. [...]

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In a victory for defense attorneys fighting discovery battles with prosecutors, the Supreme Court of Virginia has reversed a sharply split Court of Appeals, expanding the scope of material that the government must turn over to defendants in criminal cases. In Bly v. Commonwealth, the commonwealth conceded it withheld exculpatory evidence that undermined the trustworthiness [...]

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