The VLW Blog

The legal wrangling over visitation for 7-year-old Isabella Miller continues.
Isabella was the child born to Lisa Miller in April 2002 after she and Janet Jenkins had entered into a civil union in Vermont.
Miller subsequently sought to have the union dissolved, and Jenkins was awarded visitation rights as part of the dissolution.
However, Miller moved to Virginia [...]

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In a case that will take you back to your first-year criminal law class, the Virginia Court of Appeals splits 7-3 today in upholding the assault conviction of a school cafeteria worker who was irate that a school bus driver had suspended her son from riding the bus.
The case turns on whether the defendant engaged [...]

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The Supreme Court of Virginia has agreed to hear Virginia Beach attorney Kenneth L. Singleton’s appeal of his contempt of court citation.
Singleton’s sin? He didn’t show up for court and told his client not to come to court either after a Norfolk prosecutor had agreed to continue his case.
Then Circuit Judge Charles D. Griffith [...]

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The Virginia Court of Appeals will hear arguments next month in the case of a man seeking release from prison based on new testimony from his co-defendant.
Dustin Turner, a former Navy SEAL trainee, has been serving an 82-year prison sentence for murder in the 1995 killing of Jennifer Evans outside a Virginia Beach [...]

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The Virginia Court of Appeals today fined a Suffolk lawyer $1,000 and disbarred her indefinitely from practicing before the court because she repeatedly ignored the court’s orders.
The difficulties of Anne Marston Lynch began in March 2008 when she filed an Anders brief, the procedure used when a lawyer seeks to withdraw as counsel because she believes [...]

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The Virginia Association of Commonwealth’s Attorneys has canceled its forum for candidates for the Virginia Court of Appeals.
The forum had been scheduled for Monday at the University of Richmond law school.  In a news release, VACA president Joel R. Branscom said one of the expected participants withdrew, leaving only three of the eight candidates planning [...]

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The full Virginia Court of Appeals split sharply today on the precision required to preserve for appeal challenges to summary contempt convictions.
The result is that two attorneys and an assistant who was a third-year law student at the time may well be on their way to the slammer for 10 days.
Virginia Beach Circuit Judge Patricia [...]

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The Virginia Court of Appeals issued two published domestic relations opinions Tuesday, one involving attorneys’ fees and the other analyzing the classification of a personal injury recovery as separate or marital property.
The trial judge awarded attorneys’ fees to the mother for prevailing in her effort to have jurisdiction under the Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction and [...]

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A Manassas man may be re-tried after the Court of Appeals reversed convictions of capital murder and abduction, The News & Messenger reports.
Anthony Dale Crawford was convicted Feb. 9, 2007, of killing his estranged wife in 2004. In May 2007, he was sentenced to two life sentences plus 67 years for capital murder, abduction with [...]

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Same judge, different lawyer, still contempt.
The Virginia Court of Appeals today upheld a second contempt citation by former Norfolk Circuit Judge Charles D. Griffith Jr. for a lawyer who assumed that a continuance would be granted as a matter of course.
The unpublished opinion, Zedd v. Commonwealth, was hardly surprising in light of Singleton v. Commonwealth, [...]

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