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Southwest Virginia Law Blog

Items of interest to lawyers in Southwest Virginia and beyond.
By Steven R. Minor

Post Frequency: 3.6/day

Last Entry: May 21, 2013 at 14:44:00

On FOIA and the Attorney General

Posted on May 21, 2013
My old blog friend Waldo Jaquith has been in the news lately in connection with the claim stated on a response he received from the Virginia Attorney General that Virginia's Freedom of Information Act may not apply at all to the Attorney General, citing the 2011 decision by the Virginia Supreme Court in Christian v...

The memorial for Judge Williams

Posted on May 14, 2013
Thanks to Judge Pam Sargent and all others who made possible the memorial yesterday afternoon for Judge Williams, and to Chief Judge Conrad, Judge Sargent, Judge Birg Sergent, Ronnie Montgomery, Joe Wolfe, David Harless, Randy Ramseyer, Jack White, and Don Williams for their words...

What the Supreme Court said about whether a tomato is a vegetable

Posted on May 08, 2013
Last night I caught the tail end of the seed library presentation at the library in Abingdon and one of the seed people said that a tomato is botanically a fruit but the Supreme Court has ruled that it is a vegetable. So, of course, I had to look up the case, which is Nix v...

On joining up with Bearing Drift

Posted on May 06, 2013
Norm Leahy has included me in the latest crop of new contributors to Bearing Drift, describing me as "[o]ne of the grand old men of the Virginia blogosphere." As long as I have been a blog writer, I have been a blog reader, and the Bearing Drift contributors include several grand old men and women of the Virginia blogosphere whose words I have pondered for many years...

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On the black dog syndrome

Posted on May 03, 2013
I have read from time to time of the Black Dog Syndrome, which is probably a myth. It is interesting to think about why would there be a preference for or against a dog of a particular color, and how could it ever be proven. This topic is also of interest because of the three dogs I have owned since 1991, Ladybug (2010 - present), Chrissy (1991 - 2006), and Jenna (2007-2008).

Comparing law and science

Posted on May 03, 2013
I have been studying this article titled "The Law of Physics & the Physics of Laws," by Judge Kelsey, published in 2012 in the Regent University Law Review, in which he endeavors to "rake through the ashes of science (as well as some of its hot coals)" in the pursuit of "symmetries that reinforce our understanding of the law...

On launching out into the deepest waters

Posted on May 01, 2013
A few days ago, Mitt Romney gave the commencement address at Southern Virginia University, as shown here, and advised the graduates to go out into the deep waters, like Jesus instructed Peter and the other fishermen. In particular, he told them to get married and have children...

On whether a man be an idiot or not

Posted on April 23, 2013
In Ingram v. Com., the Virginia Court of Appeals in a published opinion by Judge Kelsey, joined by Judge McCullough and Senior Judge Haley, disposed of Mr. Ingram's claim that he was entitled to a jury trial on the claim that he should be required involuntarily to undergo psychiatric treatment...

Today Provo, tomorrow the world

Posted on April 22, 2013
This article explains how Google plans to take over wireless internet access from the telcos, one Google Fiber home at a time.

On Judge Lynn Brown

Posted on April 22, 2013
The Johnson City paper has this entertaining story on the retirement of Judge Lynn Brown from Northeast Tennessee.One of those stories told was this: "Another memorable case was the two murder trials of Steven Allen Jones, who was convicted both times ...

On backdating

Posted on March 13, 2013
I heard of a case not too long ago where someone raised a fuss about a transaction where documents were "backdated." Backdating is surely neither good nor bad in itself without more facts, such as the intent to deceive or the opposite. Dealing broadly with this topic is this interesting article published in the ABA's Business Lawyer in 2008, which you can download for free from SSRN.

On appeals from district court to circuit court

Posted on March 12, 2013
With the elimination of the Circuit Court's removal jurisdiction and the increased jurisdictional limit for actions in General District Court, it seems like more complicated cases get tried in District Court than was the case when I was a young lawyer and anything with much complexity was removed...

News of the General Assembly session

Posted on February 04, 2013
I can't say that I was paying too much attention to this year's session of the General Assembly, before the redistricting maneuver in the Senate and the proposed electoral college bill sponsored by our own Senator Carrico became part of the national discussion that percolated down to my attention...

No foolish consistency required

Posted on January 30, 2013
In Farmer v. Commonwealth, the Virginia Court of Appeals in a decision by the panel of Judges Humphreys, Kelsey, and Beales rejected the argument made by a criminal defendant that the Commonwealth violated his constitutional guarantee of Due Process by prosecuting him on a theory that was inconsistent with the Commonwealth's theory of the same crime in an earlier case against someone else that resulted in a conviction...

Fun fact of the day

Posted on January 23, 2013
"Coal-fired generation in the United States increased 6.2 percent compared to November 2011. This was the first year-over-year increase since coal-fired generation increased 0.5 percent from December 2009 to December 2010." - U.S. Energy Information Administration, monthly update for January 2013.

Opinions like this are worrisome

Posted on January 18, 2013
Here, the Supreme Court dismissed an appeal on finding a failure to preserve error, where the defendant at the trial argued that the search violated the Fourth Amendment, making some argument about whether the stolen property in his backyard was in "plain view," but the Court concluded his argument to the trial court did not match his argument to the appeals courts and he did not "cite any cases" in the trial court that dealt with the particular aspect of the "plain view" doctrine that he sought to raise in the appeals court...

More on "pleaded" v. "pled"

Posted on January 18, 2013
The ABA Journal had this piece on whether the preferred usage is "pleaded" as opposed to "pled." In 2008, I wrote this post, noting that one local judge frequently goes both ways in the same opinions.

On the need for more discovery in criminal cases in Virginia

Posted on January 17, 2013
The Washington Post had this recent editorial, which concluded that Virginia law should be changed to allow for wider rights of discovery for defendants in criminal cases. It says in part: "A proposal by Virginia defense lawyers would compel prosecutors to grant defendants and their attorneys readier access to police reports following indictments, including witness statements in the aftermath of alleged crimes...

Subsidizing NASCAR?

Posted on January 17, 2013
This article in the New York Times reports on the continuation of a statute allowing accelerated depreciation of investments in NASCAR and other auto racing tracks.

On Judge Williams

Posted on January 17, 2013
This post contains the text of a speech I gave about Judge Glen Williams in 2002. I went to his funeral a few weeks ago and did nothing really to comfort anyone, absorbed instead with my own thoughts about how my own life has been affected by having him as an employer, mentor, and friend...

Latest in a long line of wrongful wrongful discharge cases

Posted on January 16, 2013
In VanBuren v. Grubb, the Supreme Court in a 4-3 decision held that individuals other than an employer can be liable in tort for wrongful discharge. The decision makes a major change in Virginia law for the purpose, it seems, of making sure that bad apples like Dr...

He said it

Posted on October 09, 2012
?You kind of expect your soldiers to go home at night and play Xbox and drink beer ? which they do ? but I?ve heard them talk about [the election] quite a bit,? the Army captain said. ?They?re more dialed in than some might think.?Military Times, "Military Times Poll: Romney bests Obama, 2-1," October 7, 2012.

On having Mitt Romney at Exit 13

Posted on October 08, 2012
Last Friday, I went with the girls to the Coal Country rally for Mitt Romney, and spotted my dad on the other side of the walkway. In this picture, my dad is taking a picture of Mitt Romney. Romney gave his standard stump speech, modified only to add emphasis on coal and to take out the reference to the unemployment rate as more than 8 per cent, on account of the new figures that came out that day...

On the Rules of Evidence

Posted on October 03, 2012
The Charlottesville paper has this article on how the adoption of the Virginia Rules of Evidence was a long-term project for law professor Kent Sinclair.It begins: "A University of Virginia law professor spent 18 years sorting through centuries worth of case law to develop the Virginia Rules of Evidence, a comprehensive guide to govern the admission of evidence in civil and criminal trials across the state...

On getting the lower court to do what the higher court decided

Posted on October 01, 2012
A traditional office of the writ of mandamus is to "'confine an inferior court to a lawful exercise of its prescribed jurisdiction or to compel it to exercise its authority when it is its duty to do so.' " Will v. United States, 389 U.S. 90, 95 (1967) (quoting Roche v...

On second depositions

Posted on October 01, 2012
Back in the day, I had a case that got tried a couple of times, various weird things happened in between the trials, and the magistrate judge ruled that my client had subject himself to a third deposition. While the case was going on, in 1993, Rule 30 of the Federal Rules of Procedure was amended to provide that leave of court was required to take a deposition if the deponent had already been deposed in the case...

On Bullitt Park

Posted on September 28, 2012
The other weekend, I went to the football game at Bullitt Park in the company of my oldest step-daughter, who realized what an odd character I am for the umpteenth time when I explained to her that the park was named for a lawyer, Joshua Fry Bullitt, Jr...

On Judge Joe Tate

Posted on September 28, 2012
In today's e-mail was a letter circulated to members of the Bristol Virginia Bar, from Judge Tate, indicating that he would retire in January after more than twenty years as General District Court Judge for the 28th District.When I was a brand new lawyer, Judge Tate came around to the law firm to talk about the judgeship he was then seeking, and I asked him why would he want to be a general district court judge...

On Bill Poff

Posted on September 07, 2012
I read in today's Roanoke paper of the passing of William B. Poff, the distinguished lawyer from Roanoke. I had only a few professional dealings with him, but he knew who I was (he knew a lot of things), and he was a big friend of my partner down the hall, Lucas Hobbs, one of his many proteges...

On Judge Chafin's investiture

Posted on August 17, 2012
I enjoyed seeing the crowd and hearing the speeches at the event for Judge Teresa Chafin in Lebanon yesterday. The local legislators on the program directed their remarks to the long and difficult process that ended with her selection from among a group of well-qualified candidates in a late-night vote...

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