The VLW Blog

One of last year’s fiercest lobbying battles in the General Assembly has been one-sided so far this time around.
Domestic relations attorneys, with the support of the Virginia Bar Association and the Virginia Trial Lawyers Association, are determined to get Virginia Code § 20-124.3:1 repealed.
The provision bars use of the records or testimony of a […]

[Read more →]

This is a case from Maryland. But in light of the recent de-benching of a Southwest Virginia judge by the Supreme Court on a complaint brought by the Judicial Inquiry and Review Commission, one can’t help but wonder what would have been the result here in the Old Dominion.
In November, Scott County J&DR Judge […]

[Read more →]

The Virginia Judicial Council has recommended raising the mandatory retirement age for judges from 70 to 75. That’s fine with the Senate Courts of Justice Committee, which reported SB 19 on a 10-4 vote last week and referred it to the Finance Committee.
Yesterday, in HB 783 the House Courts of Justice Committee voted to raise […]

[Read more →]

We were a little off last week in describing the status of essentially identical bills in the House and Senate that would make it faster to terminate parental rights and get children adopted and out of foster care.
We correctly reported that House Bill 750 went down on an 11-10 vote in the House Courts […]

[Read more →]

A tourism PR director who says he was fired for sending e-mails to various state officials cannot sue those officials for his termination, the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said yesterday in ruling on the director’s civil rights suit.
Public relations director L. Meriwether German worked for the Shenandoah Valley Travel Association, a private non-profit […]

[Read more →]

A Roanoke general district judge has given 30 days in jail to a guy accused of ordering, then not paying for, a bowl of chili at the Texas Tavern.
The Texas Tavern is the only 24-hour restaurant in downtown Roanoke.
The tab for the chili was $1.66. The accused man, Charles B. Ogle, testified that […]

[Read more →]

Faster termination of parental rights is seen as a way to get children out of foster care and adopted more quickly.
The proposal in House Bill 750 and Senate Bill 394 is for terminations to be appealed directly from juvenile and domestic relations district courts to the Virginia Court of Appeals. Parents now have a right […]

[Read more →]

Virginians don’t trust our court system as much as they trust medical professionals. But they still trust the courts more than “the media.”
These are some of the findings of a telephone survey of 1,100 randomly selected Virginia residents released last week by the Supreme Court of Virginia.
Of those called, 600 had no prior experience with […]

[Read more →]

Two judges who were appointed when Republicans controlled the General Assembly appear to face an uphill battle for second terms.
Legislators insist, however, that performance, not politics, is the issue. Democrats took control of the Senate in the November election. Republican still have a majority in the House.
Norfolk Circuit Judge Charles D. Griffith Jr. has to […]

[Read more →]

Richmond lawyer E. Duncan Getchell Jr. has acknowledged the obvious and asked President George W. Bush to withdraw his nomination to the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
Bush nominated Getchell in September to fill the vacancy created by the death of Judge H. Emory Widener Jr., but he was not among candidates recommended jointly for […]

[Read more →]