Virginia Lawyers Weekly VA Lawyers Weekly

Although the defendant raised multiple issues on appeal, including that his trial should have been delayed, an expert should have been excluded, he was denied a right to testify and there were errors during sentencing, each of his arguments was ...

Tagged with: 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Criminal Judge James A. Wynn Jr.

Although the district court erred in instructing the jury about the legal principles it was required to apply to determine the methamphetamine quantity attributable to the defendant, any error was harmless because it did not seriously affect the fairness, integrity ...

Tagged with: 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Criminal Judge Robert B. King

Although the defendant argued that a de novo standard of review should be applied to the district court’s intrinsic evidence ruling, the appellate court applied an abuse of discretion standard as required by its precedent. Background Defendant Donald Bush appeals ...

Tagged with: 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Criminal Judge Robert B. King

Where the government changed its position regarding the standard of review in a letter submitted the day before oral argument, this “eleventh-hour” submission was rejected. In a case of first impression, it was found that the district court had the ...

Tagged with: 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Criminal Judge G. Steven Agee

Where a police officer might have been negligent in not reviewing certain records before submitting an affidavit in support of a search warrant, because there was no evidence the error was knowing or intentional and because the affidavit was otherwise ...

Tagged with: Criminal Judge Henry E. Hudson U.S. District Court - Eastern District

Although the government argued that the defendant should be sentenced based on the amount of cocaine for which he was found responsible under the Presentence Investigation Report, or PSR, the defendant qualified for a sentence reduction under the First Step ...

Tagged with: Criminal Judge Michael F. Urbanski U.S. District Court - Western District

Where a magistrate judge in the Western District of Virginia ordered the defendant transferred to the Western District of Texas, after finding he was the person named in a warrant issued by that court, the defendant could appeal that decision ...

Tagged with: Criminal Judge Norman K. Moon U.S. District Court - Western District

Although the defendant qualified for sentence reduction under the First Step Act of 2018, the seriousness of his offense and his long history of drug dealing resulted in a reduction from 322 months to 216 months, instead of the 160 ...

Tagged with: Criminal Judge Michael F. Urbanski U.S. District Court - Western District

Where respondent concedes that petitioner’s plea-based convictions were the result of ineffective assistance of counsel, petitioner is entitled to habeas relief and a new trial is ordered. Petitioner pleaded no contest to felony obstruction of justice and felony eluding under ...

Tagged with: Criminal Order Supreme Court of Virginia

Even though there was no video evidence that appellant made an abrupt lane change without signaling, and the police officer who stopped him admitted the stop was “pretextual,” the trial court’s conclusion that the stop was valid and that drugs ...

Tagged with: Criminal Judge Wesley G. Russell Jr. Virginia Court of Appeals