The VLW Blog

Danville U.S. District Judge Jackson Kiser has ordered a new trial for a Martinsville contractor’s claims of racial discrimination, based in part on post-trial evidence that undermined testimony about the company’s damages. The decision undoes a jury’s $3.17-million award against the Danville housing authority in February. At trial, the owner of the plaintiff grading contractor [...]

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U.S. District Judge James Jones minced no words denying lawyer John Flannery’s claim that the judge had secret meetings with prosecutors in the Paul Thomson cocaine case.  “Mr. Flannery’s assertion is outrageously false and unfounded,” Jones wrote in an order Thursday. Flannery – who is defending the Winchester lawyer accused of buying cocaine from a [...]

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Complaints are plentiful about the 35-year-old Richard H. Poff Federal Building in Roanoke, but workers at the federal courts are not looking forward to a planned $51-million renovation project. At a Thursday hearing, Congressional critics grilled a General Services Agency official about whether the project was improvidently planned. Court Clerk Julia Dudley had a different [...]

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Rep. Bob Goodlatte, R-Roanoke, reports no movement in his effort to derail a $51-million renovation project at the federal building in Roanoke, headquarters of the Western District federal courts. Goodlatte, who has criticized the project as wasteful and ill-planned, told Roanoke lawyers he met recently with two of the federal judges who work at the [...]

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Roanoke U.S. District Judge Glen Conrad is now chief judge for the Western District of Virginia. A federal statute required the change when Judge James Jones reached the age of 70 this year. Conrad ascended to the chief judge’s post in time to preside over the traditional Monticello naturalization ceremony on July 4, according to [...]

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Former Roanoke County Sheriff Gerald Holt has been confirmed by the U.S. Senate as U.S. Marshal for the Western District of Virginia. Holt’s confirmation was hailed by Virginia’s two U.S. Senators, Jim Webb and Mark Warner. “I congratulate Gerald Holt on his confirmation. His decades of service in Roanoke County have well qualified him for [...]

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U.S. Magistrate Judge Mike Urbanski has picked up another endorsement in his bid to move up the judicial ladder at the federal courthouse. Urbanski Monday was recommended by the Salem/Roanoke County Bar Association for a seat on the U.S. District Court bench. The position will become available when Judge Norman Moon takes senior status in [...]

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Adoption of a first-time set of local rules in federal courts of the Western District will mean elimination of a long-standing strict order barring lawyers from disclosing details of criminal cases. The 1983 standing order prohibits disclosure of information about a pending criminal case “that is not part of the public records of this Court.” [...]

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U.S. District Judge Glen M. Williams will retire next week after 34 years on the bench, according to the Associated Press . Williams was appointed to the district court by President Gerald Ford in 1976. He took senior status in 1988, but has remained active as a judge in the Western District. By Peter Vieth

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The judges of the Western District of Virginia are inviting comments on the first-ever set of local rules proposed for federal courts in those parts. Among other things, the proposed rules would require attorneys’ fee requests to be filed within 14 days after judgment.  Judges would be authorized to impose jury costs when a case [...]

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