The VLW Blog

The Virginia Criminal Sentencing Commission has appointed Meredith Farrar-Owens as its new director, the Supreme Court of Virginia has announced. Farrar-Owens is the second person to serve as director since the Sentencing Commission was established by the General Assembly in 1994. A judicial branch agency, the commission develops discretionary sentencing guidelines for use by circuit [...]

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The case of North Carolina defendant Torrell Vann has spawned a weighty decision by a fractured 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, released yesterday. After a January 2008 “domestic altercation,” Vann was arrested and charged with handgun possession in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 922(g)(1) and 924. The indictment also charged three prior convictions that [...]

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The U.S. Sentencing Commission has given retroactive effect to its proposed permanent amendment to the federal sentencing guidelines for crimes involving crack cocaine. The action could make 12,000 federal offenders eligible to seek a reduction in their prison sentence. A dispropotionate number of those offenders were convicted and sentenced in the Richmond Division of the [...]

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Judges in Missouri now have access to details of the public cost as they weigh prison time versus probation. The state’s sentencing advisory commission began this practice last month, according to The New York Times. Proponents hope that this cost comparison will encourage judges to consider alternatives to prison time. But prosecutors and other critics [...]

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In the memorable 1998 flick, “The Parent Trap,” Lindsay Lohan starred as an innocent 12-year-old who embarks on a plot to make her parents fall in love again. However, Lindsay Lohan has greatly changed since 1998. Along with a new sense of fashion, ongoing partying, and a long rap sheet, the actress has found herself [...]

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An Abingdon federal judge has decided not to impose prison time for a dentist who wrote phony prescriptions for nearly a decade to feed his own drug habit. The decision by Chief U.S. District Judge James Jones provides hope for turning what one writer called a “harrowing story of addiction” to a tale of redemption [...]

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The late comedian Richard Pryor once performed at a prison. He later confessed he expected to feel a kinship with the oppressed inmates. After he actually met some of them, however, he exclaimed, “Thank God we got jails!” That expression comes to mind while reading about Christopher Allen Coates in this opinion from Chief U.S. [...]

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More drug defendants have had their sentences reduced under the crack cocaine amendment in the Eastern District of Virginia than in any other federal district court in the country. In 2007, the U.S. Sentencing Commission amended federal sentencing guidelines to provide for a downward adjustment by two base offense levels for crack cocaine offenses. The [...]

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A man accused of molesting his stepson 20 years ago has been allowed to withdraw his guilty plea to four counts of forcible sodomy. The Daily News Record reports that Circuit Judge T.J. Wilson reconsidered Friday his ruling the previous day that Timothy Linder had pleaded guilty of his own free will. Linder testified last [...]

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A ruling by the 4th Circuit means a third sentencing for a Roanoke County man convicted of possessing a gun as a felon. According to The Roanoke Times, Michael Ray Thornton was convicted in 2005 of being a felon in possession of a gun and body armor, and sentenced to 17 years, 15 of which [...]

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