Category: Courts and law
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A Gun Owner’s Suggestion for Virginia Gun Laws
By James C. Sherlock I was a career military man. I am a conservative and a gun owner. As a younger man, I won competitive awards for marksmanship with both rifle and pistol. I own a semi-automatic Glock for home protection. I train regularly and at almost 77 can still hit what I aim at.…
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The Mercy Seat
Author Dale M. Brumfield’s new book chronicles the abolishment of Virginia’s death penalty. by Peter Galuszka Style Weekly In 2015, Dale M. Brumfield, a veteran journalist and author, was finishing a masters degree in fine art in writing at Virginia Commonwealth University. He learned of a prison inmate who escaped from Virginia to Florida, lived…
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Miyares Wins Partial Transparency Victory
by Steve Haner Attorney General Jason Miyares (R) was partially successful in his efforts to challenge much of the secrecy shielding key data in Dominion Energy Virginia’s application to build its planned offshore wind facility, with some useful precedents set for the future. Just before the hearings on the application began last week, a State…
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Virginia Supreme Court Gives Hope to Competitors of Regional Healthcare Monopolies
Is the Virginia Antitrust Act now in play? by James C. Sherlock There is good news this morning for those of us hoping for more competition to regional healthcare monopolies in Virginia. The Virginia Supreme Court (the Court) overturned the decision of the State Health Commissioner to deny the application of the Chesapeake Regional Medical Center…
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Silence of the Trumpets
by Jim McCarthy Criminal justice at the local level in Virginia is the province of the 120 Commonwealth’s attorney offices funded primarily by the state, with some also receiving local supplement. Indigent defendants may avail themselves of the Sixth Amendment right to counsel through 28 public defender offices. Many other indigent defendants will be represented…
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Bad News For Deadbeat Dads: Virginia’s Coming For You
by Kerry Dougherty One of the first things Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares did after arriving in Richmond was meet with various departments in the AG’s office. “I asked, ‘Do you have all of the tools to do your job with excellence?” Miyares recalled Wednesday morning on the “Kerry and Mike” morning radio show on…
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A Lot of Unanswered Questions
by Dick Hall-Sizemore Painting racial slurs on the face of an unconscious Black teenage boy is wrong. That being said, a recent incident in the Richmond area leads to a lot of questions, including concerning the quality of reporting done by the Richmond Times-Dispatch. According to an RTD on-line story Friday by reporter Mark Bowes,…
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What are We Doing to Ourselves with the Criminal Justice System?
by James C. Sherlock I will share a press release this week from the Justice Department. Convicted Felon Pleads Guilty to Fraud, Identity Theft, and Firearm Offenses We’ll try to figure out at what point we lost our minds about law enforcement.
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The Latest Wrinkle in the Law-Enforcement-for-Rent Saga
by James A. Bacon The Office of Attorney General (OAG) under former AG Mark Herring failed to adequately conduct a search for documents requested under the Freedom of Information Act by climate-change skeptic Christopher Horner, a Richmond Circuit Court Judge has found. The court ordered the OAG, now under Attorney General Jason Miyares, to conduct…
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Fix the Virginia Department of Health
by James C. Sherlock Governor Youngkin and his new administration have an opportunity to fix crucial problems in the Department of Health that have been festering for decades. The issues: How can Virginia regulate effectively its state-created healthcare monopolies? In a directly related matter, how can we fix the failures, famously demonstrated during COVID, of…
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Paying for Miscarriages of Justice
by Dick Hall-Sizemore The 2022 General Assembly appropriated $6.5 million to compensate seven individuals who had been wrongly incarcerated. The men had been convicted of crimes which it was later determined they did not commit. They were: Eugene Stevens–$1.7 million. (HB 394) Stevens was convicted of murder in 1986 in Lancaster County and sentenced to…
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NOW They Sue
by Kerry Dougherty They’re so dang proud of themselves. My former employer, The Virginian-Pilot, is so delighted with itself for joining with other corporate news outlets to sue Gov. Glenn Youngkin that they’ve Tweeted about it six times and even put it on the front page for the ever-dwindling number of people who still subscribe.…
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Criminal Charges Against Conservative School Activist Dismissed
by James A. Bacon A General District Court judge has dismissed criminal charges leveled by against Harry Jackson, a conservative parent active in the Thomas Jefferson High School of Science and Technology admissions controversy. A Fairfax magistrate had charged Jackson, who had alleged in tweets and a YouTube video that a political antagonist had engaged…
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Steve Descano: Will “Not Prosecute” Harry Jackson
by Asra Nomani FAIRFAX COUNTY, Va. — An attorney from the office of Fairfax County Commonwealth Attorney Steve Descano has filed a motion to nolle prosequi, Latin for “not prosecute,” Harry Jackson, a former U.S. Naval intelligence officer and father who has been a strong parent advocate against the war on merit education in this…
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Prosecutor “Evaluating the Facts” in Virginia v. Anti-Woke Dad
by Asra Q. Nomani FAIRFAX, Virginia – A spokeswoman for Fairfax County Commonwealth Attorney Steve Descano says the prosecutor’s office is “evaluating the facts” of four criminal cases that accuse a black father, Harry Jackson, of “slander and libel” for raising concerns that a local woke activist was engaging in “grooming behavior.” I have evaluated…