The Times-Dispatch has an article on its Web site about the much-delayed plan for getting the two criminal general district courtrooms out of the deteriorating Public Safety Building.
The plan now is to move them to a renovated Manchester Courthouse, with construction to begin in June and be completed in early 2010.
Michael Vick could play professional football in 2009, but he would have to shake off two years of rust and miss much of the pre-season training for whatever team is willing to accept bad publicity and uncertain performance.
U.S. District Judge Henry E. Hudson sentenced Vick today to 23 months in prison on a federal dogfighting conspiracy charge. Because Vick began serving his sentence early on Nov. 19 and federal prisoners serve 85 percent of their nominal sentence, he probably will be released in mid-July 2009.
Vick appeared in black-and-white-striped prison garb and apologized to the judge, his family and his children. Hudson responded, “I think you should have apologized also to the millions of young people who look up to you.”
The sentence was above the 12- to 18-month term that defense attorneys and prosecutors mentioned when Vick pleaded guilty, but Hudson said Vick’s initial lack of candor in acknowledging that he participated in the hanging of two dogs and in the circumstances that he smoked marijuana while awaiting trial were factors in the higher term.
Court documents suggested that Vick bought property in Surry County and built a house and outbuildings on it largely for dogfighting. Those documents said that Vick paid for the “Bad Newz Kennels” operation and divided all his winnings from gambling on the fights among his colleagues without keeping any of the money himself.
One of three people arrested with Vick was sentenced to 18 months, another to 21 and the third will be sentenced Friday.
The Washington Post has the details of the court proceedings.
The idea of naming the new federal courthouse in downtown Richmond after Judges Spottswood W. Robinson III and Robert R. Merhige Jr. has been circulating for about two years, with a push from local bar groups.
Last October, Sens. John Warner and George Allen introduced legislation to secure the name, but it went nowhere.
Allen lost his seat to now-Sen. Jim Webb.
Warner’s office has issued a press release with much ballyhoo that he will introduce a bill next week to name the courthouse for Robinson, who served on the D.C. Circuit, and Merhige, a longtime U.S. District judge in Richmond.
The release doesn’t mention Allen or the failed prior effort. But it does tout that Webb has signed on. Warner and Webb have worked together on judicial nominees for the Old Dominion, with mixed success and cooperation from the White House. Stay tuned to see if they can jog their colleagues into passing the name bill.
A lawyer’s former secretary, charged with stealing from a dead woman’s estate, is scheduled to plead guilty today under an agreement with federal prosecutors.
Shelia Mae Boone, who worked for Richmond lawyer Harvey Latney Jr., is charged with forging checks totaling more than $272,000, reports the Richmond Times-Dispatch.
A California court consulting firm will help Richmond Circuit Court judges develop a new case management system.
Chief Justice Leroy Rountree Hassell Sr. recently wrote Richmond Chief Judge Walter W. Stout III that he has selected Christopher Crawford of Justice Served for the work.
The Richmond circuit has been the only one in the state in which judges specialized in civil or criminal cases.
Few of the judges appointed recently to the court have had a criminal practice, and some judges have insisted on a different method of handling cases and took their complaints to Hassell.
After a contentious meeting between Hassell and the circuit judges, Stout told Hassell that he would attempt to develop a system in which each judge would be randomly assigned civil and criminal cases.
After that suggestion drew a complaint from two judges that the caseloads are inequitable now, Hassell decided to bring in the consultant.
