Virginia Lawyers Weekly VA Lawyers Weekly

Prosecutors have been twice burned this week by apparent mishandling of their video evidence. First we learned about a cross-examination that weakened the prosecution’s re-enactment video in a Chesapeake murder case.  Now comes word that video bungling has brought a ...

Tagged with: Criminal

The ACLU of Virginia will add its voice to the Gloucester attorney fee case through a friend-of-the-court brief. Forty Gloucester County citizens who sought removal of four county supervisors were chastised and sanctioned by the judge who rejected their recall ...

Tagged with: Elections

A couple of years back, we reported a speaker’s comments that trial judges are warming to the use of expert testimony to challenge eyewitness identifications. But it’s a slow thaw, as evidenced by a 4th Circuit case upholding exclusion of ...

Tagged with: 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals

Michael Vick’s lawyers return to bankruptcy court today with their revised financial disclosure statement. Last month, U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Frank Santoro ruled the first disclosure statement insufficient and ordered a new one. The court will also consider issues related to ...

Tagged with: Bankruptcy

Being linked to “developers” is not defamatory in Chesterfield County. Chesterfield County Circuit Judge Herbert C. Gill has dismissed a local businessman’s $1.35 million defamation suit against residents who opposed a sewer line the businessman supported by saying the businessman ...

Tagged with: Defamation

A Chicago federal judge declined to dismiss the charge of threatening a juror against Roanoke neo-Nazi Bill White. White’s lawyer had argued that posting the juror’s name on White’s “Overthrow” Web site should not subject him to prosecution.  U.S. District ...

Tagged with: Criminal First Amendment

The brothers of Sigma Chi told a 4th Circuit panel yesterday their fraternity was kicked off campus without due process. The fraternity’s lawyer, Christopher Aldo Porco, described the university’s disciplinary proceeding as “reminiscent of the kangaroo court that expelled the ...

Tagged with: 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals

An Easy button on his bench. A bobble-head doll in his office with a photo of Chesterfield Circuit Court Clerk Judy Worthington attached to its head. A campaign sign for a board of supervisors candidate on his property. None of ...

Tagged with: General Assembly Judgeships

A University of Richmond law school team took top prize at the National Labor and Employment Mock Trial Competition in Chicago last weekend, the school reports.  Sixty-nine teams competed. Team members Jeannine Panzera, Scott Jones, Kristen Wright and Hank Gates ...

Tagged with: Law Schools

Arlington Circuit Judge Joanne F. Alper is one of five candidates the House and Senate Courts of Justice Committees will interview on Feb. 4 for the Virginia Court of Appeals vacancy created by the retirement of Judge Jean Harrison Clements. The ...

Tagged with: General Assembly Judgeships