The VLW Blog

In one of his last official acts as governor, Tim Kaine today requested the U.S. Justice Department approve a transfer of convicted killer Jens Soering to Germany, where he would be eligible for parole in two years. Soering is the former U.Va. honor student who plotted with his girlfriend to kill her parents at their [...]

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Gov.-elect Bob McDonnell has appointed three members to his cabinet, including two lawyers. Lisa Hicks-Thomas of the attorney general’s office will be his Secretary of Administration, reports the Richmond-Times Dispatch. According to a press release from the govenor-elect’s office, Hicks-Thomas has worked in the attorney general’s office since 2001 and was appointed deputy attorney general [...]

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Defense attorneys won’t have to spend any time drafting objections to the admission of affidavits and certificates of analysis in lieu of live testimony by analysts from the Virginia Department of Forensic Science. The Supreme Court of Virginia has conveniently put forms for making the objections on its Web site, ready to be printed and [...]

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Gov. Timothy M. Kaine conditionally pardoned three men today for their alleged role in the rape of an 18-year-old woman in Norfolk in 1997. The three – Derek Tice, Danial Williams and Joseph Dick Jr. – confessed to the murder, as did Eric Wilson, who was released in 2005 after serving an 8-1/2 year sentence [...]

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Supporters of the Bedford County National D-Day Memorial are being asked to push to make the site a U.S. monument. The memorial, which opened eight years ago, honors the heavy loss of casualties among Bedford soldiers who landed at Omaha Beach in June 1944, reports The News & Advance. But due to financial troubles, the [...]

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Three Virginia-based free speech groups have filed for dismissal of their federal court challenge to the Virginia Board of Elections’ ban on wearing political messages in polling places. In a joint press release, The Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression, The Rutherford Institute and the ACLU of Virginia said a law passed [...]

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Gov. Tim Kaine elevated two lower court judges today to fill circuit seats in Southside and in Chesterfield County and Colonial Heights. Kaine appointed Chesterfield J&DR Judge Harold W. Burgess Jr. to replace Judge Cleo E. Powell, who was named to the Virginia Court of Appeals, and General District Judge Judge Joel C. Cunningham to [...]

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Hookah lounges – where customers use water pipes to smoke flavored tobacco – could face extinction with Virginia’s new smoking ban, owners tell the Loudoun Times-Mirror. The smoking dens, operated out of restaurants, apparently are popular with students and Middle Easterners in Northern Virginia.  Nevertheless, the new law that goes into effect Dec. 1 will [...]

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Harold W. Burgess Jr., a juvenile  and domestic relations district court judge in Chesterfield County and Colonial Heights, appears to have the inside track on the circuit court vacancy created by the elevation of Judge Cleo E. Powell to the Virginia Court of Appeals. The General Assembly elected McGuireWoods partner John V. Cogbill III to [...]

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Gov. Tim Kaine appointed retiring Del. Ken Melvin, D-Portsmouth, today to the Portsmouth Circuit Court effective May 1. The appointment had been expected after the 12-term legislator announced his retirement earlier this year. Melvin, 56, is a sole practitioners specializing in criminal and personal injury law. A member of the Courts of Justice, Finance and [...]

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