The VLW Blog

A few entries from the notebook after a couple of days in New York City, Gotham, The Big Apple…

The American Bar Association started its annual meeting in New York on Thursday and they say 10,000 attendees will be here at some point during the week-long do. In the early 1990s, the ABA was roundly criticized for taking political positions, virtually all with a leftward tilt. Take a look at this year’s schedule of meetings and you’ll notice they’re not shying away from politics, they just now include rightward-leaning speakers, even Republicans.

The long-running Brett Favre saga finally came to a close last week, and he’s heading from Green Bay to…here. He’s now “Broadway Brett” of the New York Jets.

Headline I wish I’d written, in the New York Post on the day the trade was announced: “Jet Favre!” Maybe it’s obvious, but I liked it.

Heroes come easy here. Went to the NY Mets-Florida Marlins game at Shea Stadium last night, and there was a guy with a green-and-white Number 4 jersey bearing the newest Jet’s name. If you kind of ignore the green-and-gold Green Bay striping, it really _could_ be Favre’s Jets jersey. Some guy with a table along 42nd Street probably has them available this morning.

Shea is a kind of a dump, but there is a gorgeous new ballpark, Citi Field, rising just next to it. Its brick facade and entrance are built on the model of old Ebbets Field. Some guy told me you have to pay $5,000 for a seat license just to get the right to buy season tickets. Guess that’s how you pay for all those bricks.

It was a beautiful night for a ball game. The Mets beat the Marlins, 3-0. David Wright and Carlos Delgado went yard, bringing up the so-cheesy-it’s-great Home Run Apple twice. Wonder if that Apple is moving next door.

Some stereotypes need to die: New Yorkers are not rude. In three days here, I’ve seen the following scenario at least three times. Obviously lost tourists look at their map or guidebook, then at the street names, then back at the map. Local approaches lost tourists and provides helpful directions and a friendly smile. That’s the way to kill ‘em, I’d say.

By Paul Fletcher

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

A soldier who prevailed in a dispute with his Arlington landlord won a significant victory for members of the armed forces in Virginia.

According to a news release from the George Mason University School of Law, the soldier was ordered to move to military quarters, but his private landlord was not cooperative when the solder sought to terminate his lease. The landlord not only failed to return the soldier’s security deposit, he counterclaimed for the balance of the rent due under the full lease term (as well as damages and attorneys’ fees).

Although Virginia’s Residential Landlord and Tenant Act protects service members when they are ordered on base, the landlord claimed that the protection provision did not apply because the soldier helped to arrange for the order to move on base.

GMU’s Clinic for Legal Assistance to Servicemembers (CLAS) took up the cause for the service member. At a hearing this week, Arlington District Judge Karen Henenberg rejected the landlord’s argument that the soldier’s involvement in obtaining “orders” to move into base housing was disqualifying under the statute.

According to the GMU release, Henenberg refused to read into the statute language that was not there. She noted that, especially where the landlord was aware of the statute, early termination is a risk the landlord assumes.

Henenberg also observed that if a tenant’s involvement in obtaining orders to move on base should make the statute inapplicable, that would be an issue for the General Assembly to address.

Henenberg ordered the landlord to pay damages under the Consumer Protection Act.

Avoidance of the landlord’s claim for rent, damages and fees, and the award of the security deposit and tenant’s damages, resulted in a victory for the CLAS client in excess of $13,000, according to the news release.

Posted by Peter Vieth

The Virginia State Bar Disciplinary Board has revoked the law license of Christiansburg attorney Gerard R. Marks.

Marks, who faces trial on 21 felony counts related to his law practice, consented to the revocation, according to a VSB news release. The release says Marks admitted accepting client money without performing the work, issuing a purported settlement check to a client when no settlement had occurred, and forging the signatures of judges and other officials on legal documents.

Retired Circuit Judge Ford C. Quillen has been appointed to hear the criminal case against Marks. A jury trial is scheduled for September 25, according to the Montgomery County Circuit Clerk’s office.

By Peter Vieth

A Roanoke government gadfly who was tossed from a city council meeting after shouting from the back of the room has been granted an appeal by the Supreme Court of Virginia.

E. Duane Howard was convicted of disorderly conduct under a city ordinance and the Court of Appeals affirmed. Now, the Supreme Court has agreed to hear Howard’s appeal based on, among other things, the argument that the “decision creates an unconstitutionally vague standard whereby speech can be determined to be disorderly conduct based purely upon the volume of the speech.”

By Peter Vieth

The Virginia Forensic Science Board has decided against turning to private attorneys for help in locating and notifying felons of old biological evidence in their cases that could be retested, the AP reports.

Board members reportedly decided instead to make the notification by certified letter because of questions of the legality of involving nongovernment entities in the process.

Virginia’s unique DNA notice project began in 2005 when then-Governor Mark Warner ordered examination of all case files from 1974 through 1988 after evidence from old files cleared five men of rape.

Posted by Peter Vieth

Arlington County Circuit Judge Joanne Alper ruled that there was no 4th amendment violation when, without a warrant, police attached a GPS tracking device to a suspect’s van and followed his travels around the community.

According to the Arlington Connection, the judge will allow the GPS tracking data as evidence against a man charged in a series of sexual assaults in Fairfax County.

Defense lawyer Chris Leibig argued that the police violated the defendant’s rights against illegal search and seizure when they placed the GPS device on his van without a warrant and without any predetermined limitations on what type of information they were looking for.

Judge Alper said, however, “The defendant has failed to show that there has been any actual invasion of his privacy.”

A jury trial is scheduled this fall.

By Peter Vieth

The Virginia Department of Forensic Science has obtained its 5,000th hit to Virginia’s Offender DNA Databank, according to a news release from the governor’s office.

A “hit” occurs when a DNA profile developed from any biological fluid, tissue, or hair recovered from a crime scene is matched to a DNA profile from an individual or a forensic case in the Commonwealth’s DNA databank.

The 5,000th hit involved evidence retrieved from an April 2008 burglary in Northern Virginia. The offender sample for the hit was submitted to the databank in the mid-1990s, and came from a female with several prior burglary and larceny convictions, according to the governor’s office.

Under Virginia law, all convicted felons must submit a DNA sample for the database. Since 2003, all individuals arrested for a violent felony after a finding of probable cause must also submit a sample. The number of distinct samples in Virginia’s DNA databank now exceeds 277,000.

“The more people included in the databank, the more chances a criminal case can be resolved,” DFS Director Pete Marone said. “In the end, it is also important to note that the databank not only helps us identify perpetrators but also exclude the innocent.”

Posted by Peter Vieth

Federal authorities have accused an inmate in a Virginia federal prison of identity theft, possibly for the purpose of filing false claims for benefits intended for Holocaust victims and their descendants.

According to an indictment, John Kenneth Leighnor Jr., 49, used his time at the Federal Correctional Institute in Petersburg to carry out an elaborate ongoing identity theft scheme. The news release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office provides details.

By Peter Vieth

Michael Vick’s dogfighting activities have been a godsend to animal rights organizations. Animal Planet is the latest group to use his federal conviction as a vehicle to promote its activities. This press release describes its documentary on the case as the first installment of a new series called “Animal Witness.”

By Alan Cooper