Category: Courts and law
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What Is Going on in Portsmouth?
by Kerry Dougherty Are there cities that are more dysfunctional than Portsmouth, Virginia? Yes, of course there are. There’s always San Francisco where you can get an app for your phone called “SnapCrap” to allow you to report piles of human feces to city sanitation workers. There’s Chicago. The Windy City was recently designated the…
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Herring Intervenes to Protect Hospital Competition… in Pennsylvania
by James A. Bacon It’s encouraging to see that Mark Herring has taken a forceful action against an “anticompetitive hospital merger” in his final days as Attorney General. Too bad the targets of his judicial intervention are in New Jersey, not Virginia. Herring has joined a bipartisan coalition of 26 attorneys general filing an amicus…
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The Loudoun Way — School Rapes by a Member of a Progressive Protected Class
by James C. Sherlock Any time you think there is only one system of justice in America, consider these two stories I offer below, one a progressive dream and the other true. The true story will show some progressives care more about their dogma than kids. And any time you think only big city progressives…
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Who Will Guard the Guards?
by Michael Fruitman and Jim McCarthy Emily P. Newman is a member of the Virginia State Bar (VSB), admitted, i.e., licensed to practice, in 2012. Publicly available information reveals that Ms. Newman was a staffer in Congress and in the administration of Donald Trump up to the time of the election of Joe Biden. It…
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Convicted, But Innocent–Emerson Stevens
by Dick Hall-Sizemore In August, Governor Northam granted a full pardon to Emerson Stevens. Stevens had been convicted of killing a young mother of two in 1985 in a small fishing village on the Northern Neck. The pardon was based on evidence that “reflects Mr. Stevens’ innocence.” Stevens maintained from the beginning that he was…
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Former Norfolk Sheriff Convicted of Fraud and Bribery
by Dick Hall-Sizemore Here is another name to add to the list of corrupt public officials — former Norfolk Sheriff Bob McCabe. Earlier this week, a federal jury convicted him of all 11 counts of fraud, conspiracy and money laundering. The charges covered actions committed over a 22-year period. They included accepting gift cards to…
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Supreme Court Refuses to Block Vaccination Mandate; Judicial Review Generally
by Dick Hall-Sizemore The U.S. Supreme Court has flatly turned down a request for an injunction against the enforcement by Indiana University that all students and staff be vaccinated against COVID-19. This request was an appeal of a unanimous decision of the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit denying the request. The order was…
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Return to Autocracy in Virginia
by James C. Sherlock. Updated Aug 13, 12:15 PM It was so easy to predict that I can claim no special prescience. I wrote a week ago: “The Governor’s 15-month emergency powers expired June 30, and, God, does he miss them…. (H)ow long (will the) governor put up with the lack of emergency powers?” If…
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Oyez, Oyez. The Virginia Court of Appeals is Changing.
by Dick Hall-Sizemore One of the General Assembly’s most cherished prerogatives is the election of judges. When one party controls both houses of the legislature, that power is particularly relished. The Democrats had the opportunity in this special session to exercise its prerogative in a big way by electing eight judges to the Virginia Court…
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SCOTUS: Give Rochelle Walensky Something to Cry About
by Kerry Dougherty It won’t be long before the U.S. Supreme Court smacks down CDC Director Rochelle Walensky’s order that revived until October 3rd a glaringly unconstitutional eviction moratorium. I can’t wait. They’ll give the woman who was blubbering about her feelings of “impending doom” last winter something to cry about. In fact, the judiciary…
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Delta – 8 THC and the Government’s Marijuana Plans Go “Up in Smoke”
Is cannabis legal in Virginia? Most followers of this blog are aware of the recent legislative efforts in Virginia to decriminalize and then legalize the possession of intoxicating marijuana by adults. Most followers of this blog believe that Virginia is presently in a twilight world where recreational possession of intoxicating marijuana is legal while the…
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Time for Amputation: NoVa Merging with “New D.C.”
D.C. Statehood. There has been a long running chorus of cries for D.C. residents to have full representation in Congress. From “Taxation Without Representation” slogans on D.C. license plates to the Biden Administration’s calls for DC to become the 51st state … this debate has gone on for a while. Most discussion devolves into pure…
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Recidivism: The Rest of the Story, Part 3–Who Comes Back to Prison?
by Dick Hall-Sizemore Prior posts (here and here) discussed the increase in the Commonwealth’s recidivism rate and the possible explanations for that increase. This post, the last in the series, will examine the characteristics of recidivists, or which offenders are most likely to commit new crimes upon their release from prison. Despite what is depicted…
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Three More Proposals to Reduce Gun Violence in Virginia
by James C. Sherlock There was extensive commentary on my post yesterday that recommended expanded use of stop and frisk in an attempt to reduce gun violence. Given the demonstrated interest in the subject, I offer three suggestions that go further. Increase federal prosecutions. Federal laws, penalties, detention hearings and prosecutions are a far more formidable deterrent to…
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Understaffed Police Departments, Skyrocketing Gun Violence and “Stop and Frisk”
by James C. Sherlock The print edition of The Virginian-Pilot today ran the story we commented on yesterday on the surge in gun violence killing children in Norfolk. The headline in the online version: Nearly a dozen children were shot in July in Norfolk. Communities are hurting, and activists want change. None of the nearly 2,200…