The VLW Blog

A Buchanan County news reporter is trying to convince a jury that county school leaders improperly banned him from school property because they didn’t like his stories.
Earl Cole, publisher of The Voice, claims that the school board defamed him and violated his First and Fourteenth Amendment rights, reports the Bristol Herald-Courier.
The Buchanan [...]

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Richmond Circuit Judge Margaret Spencer gave environmentalists a victory by invalidating a permit for a major coal-fired power plant in Southwest Virginia.
In yesterday’s ruling, Judge Spencer said that the state Air Pollution Control Board erred in issuing the permit for the $1.8 billion Dominion Virginia Power plant and that the board must craft a revised [...]

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A special grand jury has been authorized to investigate possible time sheet padding at the Franklin County sheriff’s office.
Last week, Virginia State Police launched an investigation focusing on timesheets of the sheriff’s daughter.
The judge’s order does not detail what specific incidents the grand jury’s inquiry will probe, reports The Roanoke Times.
Sheriff Ewell Hunt said he [...]

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Two high-level deputies are fired and an investigation is focusing on timesheets of the sheriff’s daughter.
Sheriff Ewell Hunt said in a statement that the allegations against his daughter are not true, and that she was properly paid for work she did for the department, reports The Roanoke Times.
He also said the firings had no connection [...]

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U.S. District Judge James Turk said he was inclined to set aside some of the guilty verdicts against a woman convicted of money laundering in a major moonshine prosecution.
Phillip Lingafelt, the attorney for defendant Margaret Smith, argued that the government had presented insufficient evidence to tie his client to 10 counts of money [...]

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Rocky Mount lawyer Carolyn Furrow cuts through the jargon to offer legal advice for radio listeners in Franklin County.
In each half-hour of “Law Talk,” she fields listeners’ questions about legal issues of all sorts, reports The Roanoke Times, clarifying points of law to those unfamiliar with legalese.
The show airs at 9:15 a.m. each Wednesday on [...]

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The judge in the capital case of Freddie Hammer granted motions for experts to test the prosecution’s evidence and to evaluate the defendant.
Hammer faces five capital murder charges and 11 other felonies in connection with the 2008 killings of the owner of a Grayson County Christmas tree farm, the owner’s son and a farm employee, [...]

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A Wise County man pleaded guilty yesterday to burning down the High Knob observation tower.
According to the Bristol Herald-Courier, Nicholas Owens, age 23, was a volunteer firefighter when he and co-defendant Christopher Hyatt set the fires on Halloween of 2007.
The tower, which stood at an elevation of 4,162 feet, overlooked five states and was a [...]

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We are scratching our heads trying to understand the theory of liability in this bribery case arising from Buchanan County flood damage. It’s well-established that county officials solicited and accepted bribes, including a coon dog, from contractors in exchange for flood clean-up contracts. As reported by the Bristol Herald-Courier, it is undisputed that [...]

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Lawyers may be known by the conventions they attend, and conventioneering lawyers know well the Appalachian highland resorts known as the Greenbrier and the Homestead. Today, the Roanoke Times reports, labor troubles or the threat thereof have been cutting business for the Greenbrier, with the Homestead enjoying the benefit of relocated meetings.

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