The VLW Blog

Gov. Timothy M. Kaine named Court of Appeals Judge LeRoy F. Millette Jr. to the Supreme Court of Virginia and replaced him with Chesterfield Circuit Judge Cleo E. Powell on the intermediate appellate court.

Kaine also named McGuireWoods LLP partner James C. Dimitri to the State Corporation Commission. And he appointed two circuit judges in Fairfax County, Jan Louis Brodie, deputy county in Fairfax, and David S. Schell, a juvenile and domestic relations distrct judge, in Fairfax, and Charles S. Sharp, the commonwealth’s attorney in Fredericksburg, to a post in the 15th Judicial Circuit. Noticeably absent from the appointments were posts in Hampton, Norfolk and Virginia Beach where the delegations are bitterly divided over judicial vacancies.

Judges who accepted appointments to higher courts did so at some risk. Some Republicans had warned that no appointee could be assured of election to a full term when the General Assembly convenes next year, and the candidates have no assurance of returning to their former posts if the legislature rejects them.

Kaine appointed Millette, who has been a circuit judge in Prince William County, to the court of appeals in November, and sources close to the appointment said Powell was on the very short list for that seat. She will be the only black member of the court.

By Alan Cooper

Wytheville Juvenile and Domestic Relations Judge Michael Keith Blankenship pleaded guilty to a hit-and-run charge Friday in Powhatan County General District Court.

According to The Roanoke Times, Blankenship was fined $200 and must pay restitution for the damage caused when he ran off the road on April 27.

Blankenship pleaded guilty May 20 in Smyth County General District Court to reckless driving and refusing to submit to a Breathalyzer test related to a separate incident.

Defense attorney Michael Barbour has said Blankenship has chosen to go on leave from his judgeship indefinitely.

Posted by Peter Vieth

Gov. Tim Kaine will have to fill judicial vacancies because the General Assembly adjourned this morning without filling any seats, just as it failed to reach agreement on transportation policy and funding.

A deal that would have put Chesterfield County Circuit Judge Cleo E. Powell on the State Corporation Commission and Chief Court of Appeals Judge Walter S. Felton Jr. on the Supreme Court of Virginia failed when Democrats balked at Felton, whom they remembered as a top advisor to Republican Gov. Jim Gilmore.

The legislators apparently had no interest in filling vacancies on other courts when they were unable to start at the top, so Kaine will have to fill not only the Supreme Court and SCC vacancies but seats in Norfolk, Virginia Beach and Hampton where partisan divisions are bitter and strong.

The discord may limit the field because some judges and attorneys will be unwilling to risk their positions or practices for an appointment that is only good until February, when the General Assembly will have another opportunity to fill the seats.

Today, the Virginia Trial Lawyers Association became the final statewide bar group to send Kaine endorsements for the Supreme Court vacancy created by the appointment of Justice G. Steven Agee to the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

The trial lawyers found Fairfax Circuit Judge R. Terrence Ney and Roanoke Circuit Judge Clifford R. Weckstein to be highly qualified and Arlington Circuit Judge Joanne F. Alper; Felton; Circuit Judge Colin R. Gibb, who sits in Pulaski and Giles counties; Loudoun County Circuit Judge Thomas D. Horne; Court of Appeals Judge Leroy F. Millette, Jr.; and Chief Deputy Attorney General William C. Mims to be qualified.

By Alan Cooper

A Virginia judge can pass the collection plate at church, but the judge may not want to preach during the stewardship campaign, according to a new ethics advisory opinion for judges.

Virginia’s Canons of Judicial Conduct clamp down on fund-raising activity for fear the prestige of the judge’s office will be perceived as leverage to solicit funds.

Virginia’s Judicial Ethics Advisory Committee, in its May 28 Opinion 08-1, said a regular religious service is not a “fund raising event” merely because it traditionally includes collection of small donations.

But it’s clear, the committee said, that a religious service is a “fund raising event” if it involves soliciting money for a special purpose, such as a building fund, or if it includes a call for a pledge of future contributions at a certain level.

The facially neutral ethics rules limit judges’ involvement in religious organizations in the same way as other organizations. It’s the nexus of public activity and fund raising that causes concern. Judges can help plan fund raising and help manage an organization’s funds, but generally they may not personally participate in the solicitation of funds.

Judges can speak of their personal religious faith, but a judge should not act as a pastor or minister at a regular church service, or take a position during a religious service on issues of public controversy, such as abortion, the environment or criminal sentencing matters, the committee opined.

Evangelically inclined jurists may want to study the advisory opinion, which examines whether a judge when preaching may encourage others to become Christians or to become a member of a particular church.

A judge may engage in one-on-one solicitation only if the solicited persons or those affiliated are not likely ever to appear before the court on which the judge serves, the committee concluded.

Judges probably understand better than anyone the committee’s admonition that they are “the subject of constant public scrutiny.”

Four of the nine committee members dissented from the majority’s conclusion that a judge should not act as a pastor at a regular church service, saying the majority went too far, making Virginia the “only state whose ethics advisory committee would prohibit judges unequivocally from acting as ministers.”
By Deborah Elkins

The war of words is escalating over the General Assembly’s failure to appoint judges to fill vacancies in the Hampton courts. In this Daily Press op-ed piece apparently penned by two Democratic senators from Hampton, the writers accuse Delegate Tom Gear, R-Hampton, of holding up the appointments because of his insistence on getting his sister named as a judge.

There are three Hampton judgeships open, one each on the circuit court, district court, and J&DR court. According to the disgruntled senators, Gear is holding out for appointment of his sister, Kathy Gear Owens, to the J&DR court bench, despite opposition from within Gear’s own party.

“Until Gear stops holding the judicial system hostage and drops his insistence on his sister, the people of Hampton will suffer,” huffed the senators.

The Daily Press, for its part, calls for binding arbitration by the Hampton Bar Association.

Roanoke Bar Association president George “Al” McLean gives a measured response to the recent comment by Roanoke state Senator Ralph Smith that lawyers have too much influence in the judicial selection process. McLean’s comments appear in a Sunday op-ed piece in the Roanoke Times.

UPDATE: We are advised that the McLean essay was approved by the board of directors of the Roanoke Bar Association. It is intended to voice the views of the association.

Thanks to politics and posturing in the General Assembly, three judgeships in Hampton were left unfilled when the legislature last left Richmond, leaving the locals to clean up the mess.

Lawyers and judges in Hampton have been muddling through, but they wonder when politics will take a vacation – it’s been four long years since things were normal in the courts there. The Daily Press provides a piece on how justice continues to be meted out on the Peninsula – with retired judges, substitute judges and temporary judges.

No sign of duct tape or baling wire. Yet.

Pleading guilty to reckless driving and refusing a breath test, J&D Judge Michael Blankenship of Wytheville will not face a charge of driving under the influence. But Blankenship still has a hit-and-run charge from a separate incident, and he has been suspended from the bench by the Judicial Inquiry and Review Commission. The Bristol Herald Courier has the report.

Fairfax Circuit Judge David Stitt died Saturday after suffering a heart attack while on vacation in North Carolina. Even if you’re a Fairfax lawyer and familiar with his Texas drawl and direct manner, The Washington Post obituary has information about him that you probably didn’t know.

State police have charged J&D Court Judge Keith Blankenship with hit-and-run after an accident last month in Powhatan County, according to the Wytheville Enterprise. Blankenship is already facing DUI and refusal charges from a traffic stop on March 1. Blankenship, a former Wythe County Commonwealth’s Attorney, sits on the J&D court bench in Galax and in Carroll and Grayson Counties.