The VLW Blog

The Virginia State Bar and Suffolk lawyer Johnnie Mizelle were preparing for a disciplinary hearing before a three-judge panel next Monday when they reached a deal: Mizelle would consent to a five-year suspension of his law license to settle charges that he groped and solicited a number of female clients.

But the judges in the case did not accept the agreement immediately.

Only two of the seven women involved knew about the agreement with Mizelle, who is the former mayor of Suffolk. After a teleconference yesterday, the panel gave the bar additional time to contact the others. A different panel rejected a deal in February which would have suspended Mizelle’s license for three years.

The Virginian-Pilot has details.

A Suffolk general district judge has delayed the verdict in an assault case after getting assurances from the defense attorney, a member of the General Assembly, that lower court judges can do so, The Virginian-Pilot reports.

Judge James A. Moore delayed judgment for a year in a case brought by a church secretary against a minister. The secretary claimed the minister, unhappy with her leaving early one day, came around her desk and choked her. Her mother, who works at the church, backed her story. The minister’s wife, also present that day, said her husband never went around the desk and didn’t touch the secretary. A total of nine witnesses appeared, including Sen. L. Louise Lucas, D-Portsmouth, who was a character witness for the defendant.

According to the account in the Pilot, Moore said “he wished the General Assembly gave lower court judges the power to delay verdicts.” Del. Kenneth Melvin, D-Portsmouth, represented the defendant. He told Moore that “judges have the power inherently” to delay verdicts.

The Virginia Court of Appeals offered a different point of view three weeks ago. In Gibson v. Commonwealth, the appeals court found that in the absence of explicit legislative authority, judges can’t defer judgment in a criminal case. In the Gibson opinion, Judge Jean Harrison Clements listed the offenses in which judgment can be deferred; assault was not on that list.

Moonshine has a place in the popular imagination. There was Snuffy Smith, the outdated cartoon hillbilly who fought off “revenooers.” Then, there was “Thunder Road.” Not the Bruce Springsteen song off the “Born to Run” album – the 1958 Robert Mitchum movie in which a Korean War vet came home to the mountains to run the family moonshining business.

Truth is, moonshine is pretty much a thing of the past. The Virginia Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control reports that during the past year, they investigated only 13 stills in Virginia. But as The Virginian-Pilot reports, authorities have an active moonshine case going in Suffolk. Last Friday ABC agents and Suffolk cops busted two elderly friends, ages 84 and 78, and accused them of running a “shot house,” also known as a “nip joint,” a place where untaxed whiskey is served. Among the items seized in a raid: Three gallons of moonshine, some shotguns and many bottles of commercial alcohol.

But the elderly friends didn’t make the illegal hooch. An ABC agent said it likely was from North Carolina. More “Tobacco Road” than “Thunder Road,” in other words. The investigation is continuing.