Virginia Lawyers Weekly VA Lawyers Weekly

A Mexican citizen indicted for reentry of a previously deported alien cannot have his indictment dismissed on the basis that the prior removal notice was defective. Although the notice did not identify the date and time of the removal hearing, ...

Tagged with: Criminal Judge Mark Davis U.S. District Court - Eastern District

Where a defendant who was being held at a county jail admitted to distributing methamphetamine during questioning by his parole officer, it did not violate the Fifth Amendment to use that admission to prove that the defendant violated his supervised ...

Tagged with: 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Criminal Judge William B. Traxler Jr.

A court sidestepped the question of whether the trial court should have redacted the phrase “Status Post Assault/Manual Strangulation” from an autopsy report, in a case where the defendant was charged with strangulation, finding the inclusion was harmless when considering ...

Tagged with: Criminal Judge William G. Petty Virginia Court of Appeals

The statute of limitations governing habeas corpus petitions does not violate the Virginia Constitution’s Suspension Clause. Background Petitioner Brown seeks habeas relief from his 1970 murder conviction and the resulting life sentence. In 2016, Brown filed his habeas petition along ...

Tagged with: Criminal Published Order Supreme Court of Virginia

Where appellant’s Idaho conviction of sexually abusing a child under the age of 16 required him to annually register as a sex offender in that state, he was properly required, based on Code § 9.1-902(F)(ii), to register as a sexually ...

Tagged with: Criminal Published Order Supreme Court of Virginia

Defendant’s conviction for bribery was vacated even though he paid a former congressman to help advance his company’s interests because the actions taken by the congressman, including suggesting and recommending the defendant’s company to the Army and a Nigerian company, ...

Tagged with: Criminal Judge T.S. Ellis III U.S. District Court - Eastern District

Testimony from a Department of Homeland Security intern about how he extracted cellphone data was not improper opinion testimony, and did not require expert testimony for authentication purposes. And the district court did not commit plain error by concluding a ...

Tagged with: 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Criminal Judge Albert Diaz

A former lawyer who was prosecuted for his role as “consigliere” in a multi-state marijuana trafficking organization had his convictions for money laundering and obstruction of justice upheld. The convictions were based in large part on inculpatory recorded conversations he ...

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

Even assuming without deciding that an autopsy report was testimonial and that defendant had a right to confront the report’s author at the preliminary examination, any error caused by the author’s absence was harmless. The author of a forensic pediatric ...

Tagged with: Criminal Judge David W. Lannetti Norfolk Circuit Court Virginia Circuit Courts

A defendant who stole the victim’s purse is guilty of robbery, and not merely larceny, because a rational factfinder could have inferred the victim resisted the defendant’s attempt to take her purse and that he had to use some amount ...

Tagged with: Criminal Judge Glen A. Huff Virginia Court of Appeals