The VLW Blog

Hoping to avoid prison reprisals, convicted DC sniper Lee Boyd Malvo asked a Wise County judge to legally change his name. The judge refused Friday, saying a circuit court name-change order would be futile. Malvo, along with his mentor John Muhammad, terrorized the Washington area in 2002 with a series of sniper attacks that killed [...]

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A federal complaint by a former state prison inmate claims he was tormented by a series of cruel pranks at the hands of a guard at a Botetourt County work camp. The lawsuit reads like a list of frat house jokes that went too far. The guard allegedly lit firecrackers nearby while the inmate was [...]

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Eleven long-term inmates of the Virginia prison system filed a class-action lawsuit today contending that the Virginia Parole Board violates state law by refusing to consider all the factors required by law when making parole decision. The board’s procedures violate their right to due process and amount to an ex post facto law, according to [...]

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DNA may be the most powerful personal identification tool available, but the due process clause of the U.S. Constitution does not require DNA testing for criminals after they are convicted, according to the U.S. Supreme Court. Thursday’s ruling in District Attorney’s Office v. Osborne may not have a dramatic effect on the wrongly convicted, according [...]

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Virginia is being cited for providing a good example on a subject that might not have occurred to you – providing kosher meals to Jewish prison inmates. Maryland says it is adopting Virginia’s policy – and apparently its recipes – to take effect on Passover, which begins April 8. The state is a defendant in [...]

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Two Western District federal judges say they support a proposal for a “re-entry court” where inmates returning to society regularly report on their progress in group meetings with the judges.  Both Chief U.S. District Judge James P. Jones and District Judge Samuel G. Wilson have asked the district probation office to set up a re-entry [...]

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Yesterday the U.S. Supreme Court turned in rulings that, according to the pundits, indicate the court’s conservative five-justice majority is flexing its muscles. Among other decisions, the high court voted to limit student speech in the “Bong Hits 4 Jesus” case, to toss an attempt by taxpayers to challenge the Bush administration’s grants to faith-based [...]

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