Local Law Blogs

Wise County mountain lion?

Posted on April 04, 2008
Somebody sent these to my dad, with this note:"This lion was hit between Cherry Reservoir Road and High Knob area (near Wise, VA) by a car. Game and Fish had to come and put him down.He charged at the Fish and Game guy in the process. Look at his PAWS!"I don't know whether this is true, or just one of those Internet deals...

He said it

Posted on April 03, 2008
"Mr. Jay, is the government running with the fox and chasing with the hounds?"Justice Scalia, at the oral argument in U.S. v. Clintwood Elkhorn Mining.

Death penalty moratorium?

Posted on April 02, 2008
When I wrote this post, one of my auditors declared that Governor Kaine would not stop executions in Virginia.But, he has now - for a while - and for a pretty good reason.

On the future of the federal courthouses in the W.D. Va.

Posted on April 01, 2008
In March, the Danville paper had this article, speculating on the future of the federal courthouses in Danville (and Big Stone Gap).The article quotes Libby Sharp from the clerk's office in Big Stone Gap.The article says in part:"In 2007, a congressional committee conducted a comprehensive study of U...

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Daniel Gilbert's series on judicial selection

Posted on April 01, 2008
Here are the articles, worth reading:Virginia Legislators Have Major Role In Judge Selection, March 30Virginia Judge Selection Process Dates To Reconstruction, March 30Political ties often key for attaining position on the bench, March 31Virginia judge-selection process linked to politics, March 31Data Will Help Lawmakers Determine Judges Qualifications, April 1 Local Bar Associations Felt Neglected Over Endorsements, April 1This group of articles is pretty well-done, and quotes many people, including me...

The Lawson girl who wasn't born when I started with the firm

Posted on April 01, 2008
MML's youngest is the new Miss Abingdon. Well done, Maggie.

He said it

Posted on April 01, 2008
"The qualities of a good prosecutor are as elusive and as impossible to define as those which mark a gentleman."Robert H. Jackson, in his famous speech on The Federal Prosecutor.

The book of Minors

Posted on March 30, 2008
I eventually did receive the reprint of The Minors of Virginia, published in 1926, by John B. Minor. Of course, that is not the John B. Minor, who died thirty years prior.But, he is in there, along with Virginia Minor, William Lewis Herndon, Matthew Fontaine Maury, John Minor Maury, William Andrew Quarles, James Minor Quarles, Charles Minor Blackford, and William Minor Lile...

On broadband in Rose Hill and elsewhere

Posted on March 27, 2008
This article about the coming of broadband to Rose Hill in Lee County features my sister, Joan.The article says in part:"The nuts and bolts of how broadband came to Rose Hill is a story of leveraging local funds?cash from the state Tobacco Indemnification and Community Revitalization Commission charged with developing Virginia?s tobacco country?to draw in federal grant monies from the U...

Another book

Posted on March 27, 2008
I've been reading Chief Justice: A Biography of Earl Warren, by Ed Cray.The funniest thing in there, I thought, was the statement attributed to Justice Brennan upon his selection to the Supreme Court, likening himself to a mule at the Kentucky Derby: "I don't expect to distinguish myself, but I will benefit by the association...

More on pleading fraud with particularity

Posted on March 24, 2008
Last year I wrote this post.So, what good is it?Look at this opinion and then this opinion. To my own way of thinking, that's how you want to use Rule 9 of the Federal Rules, which rule Middleditch and Sinclair says matches what Virginia law requires...

Chief Judge Jones on the U.S. Attorney's blanket approach to crack resentencings

Posted on March 23, 2008
This VLW post notes this footnote in U.S. v. Herndon:"This district is reported to have the fourth largest number of defendants who qualify for a reduction in sentence under the U.S. Sentencing Commission?s policy on retroactivity of the amended crack cocaine guidelines...

More books

Posted on March 22, 2008
Last weekend, at the in-laws, I read The Hills of Tuscany by Ferenc Mate, an easy and fun book, and, I must confess, a recent offering from Maeve Binchy. To paraphrase Donald Rumsfeld, when you go to the in-laws, you read the books they have.In the mail this week came The Other Venice: Secrets of the City by Predrag Matvejevic, a sort of mystical work with great photographs, and, inevitably, Chow Venice: Savoring the Food and Wine of La Serenissima, Second Edition...

"A horrible embarrassment to the profession"

Posted on March 22, 2008
The Washington Post writes here on the funny thing that might happen because court-appointed lawyers in Virginia are too slack to apply for all that cap-waiver money: it will disappear.It says in part:"The General Assembly established the fund so Virginia could shed its label as the country's lowest-paying state for criminal defense lawyers...

On lawyer poets, including Virginia's own

Posted on March 20, 2008
This article is about lawyers who are poets.Virginia had a notable one in Armistead C. Gordon, who was among other things a president of The VBA. You can download free from Google Books some of his work, including this book and this book.

Cousin Mara in Africa, Mark II in soap opera

Posted on March 20, 2008
My cousin Mara, daughter of Dad's sister Lois and step-daughter of Bristol coal lawyer Tim Lowe, has this blog of her experience in Africa, working at a pediatric HIV clinic.Unrelated to this, MML's son Mark II has landed a role in One Life to Live.

On Florida and Michigan

Posted on March 14, 2008
Watching the events unfold in the campaign, I have had cause to recollect that the Supreme Court has already ruled in Cousins v. Wigoda, 419 U.S. 477 (1975), and Democratic Party of U.S. v. Wisconsin ex rel. La Follette, 450 U.S. 107 (1981), that the Illinois state courts got it wrong "in according primacy to state law over the National Political Party's rules in the determination of the qualifications and eligibility of delegates to the Party's National Convention" with respect to the dispute over the seating of the Illinois delegation to the Democratic National Convention and, with respect to the Wisconsin delegation to the 1980 Democratic National Convention, that Wisconsin could not "compel the National Party to seat a delegation chosen in a way that violates the rules of the Party...

Death penalty verdict here in Abingdon

Posted on March 14, 2008
Here from the Roanoke paper, here from the Virginia Tech paper, and here from the Richmond paper, are stories about the Washington County jury's recommendation of the death penalty in the case of William Morva. The case was moved for trial from Montgomery County, and tried by the Montgomery County prosecutors...

Boo, hiss

Posted on March 14, 2008
The Virginia House of Delegates and the Senate of Virginia adjourned sine die last night without picking any more new judges for the year. Sine die means "without any future date being designated (as for resumption)." They might come back for a special session in April, or they might not...

It's . . . Agee

Posted on March 14, 2008
President Bush has nominated Virginia Supreme Court Justice G. Steven Agee for the seat vacated by Michael Luttig on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, following the failed nomination of Richmond lawyer Duncan Getchell. Unlike Getchell, Agee is on the list to which both Senators Webb and Warner agreed, of names for the position...

Wednesday with Judge Turk

Posted on March 12, 2008
I went to Roanoke today for a conference with Judge Turk, he was in good humor and there were no great issues at stake, and so it was a good day.And, while I was there, I drove by that new museum, for the first time. What a spectacle it is.

Another book

Posted on March 08, 2008
I've been reading Lightning Man: The Accursed Life of Samuel F. B. Morse, which is full of interesting stuff.Morse was a flighty, depressed and most often broke artist, deeply affected by religion, patriotism, and anti-European and anti-Catholic sentiment, who had little to do with his children...

Trying to channel the spirit of an old Big Stone Gap lawyer

Posted on March 05, 2008
I've got a case where the dude I need to call is Joshua Fry Bullitt, Jr.Unfortunately, he died in 1933.I thought his story was pretty interesting, but as you can see, some others disagreed and tried to whack that article about him.If you didn't know it, counting Bullitt there are 13 past presidents of The Virginia Bar Association on Wikipedia, including 9 former Virginia Supreme Court justices, 5 former members of the House of Delegates, 4 former members of the Senate of Virginia, 3 former members of the U...

The Larry Sabato of Pennsylvania

Posted on March 05, 2008
Up in Lancaster County, where I went to high school and worked one summer in a law firm, there is Franklin & Marshall College, which has its own Center for Politics and Public Affairs, headed by this guy. Instead of being called Larry, he is Terry - Terry Madonna, can that be his name, really?I'd say he will be busy for the next two months until people get bored of talking about the primary in that particular Commonwealth, set for April 22.

More books read in 2008

Posted on March 05, 2008
1. The Colonel: The Life and Legend of Robert R. McCormick, 1880-1955, by Richard Norton Smith.2. Mornings on Horseback: The Story of an Extraordinary Family, a Vanished Way of Life and the Unique Child Who Became Theodore Roosevelt, by David McCullough...

On the need for weaker medicine

Posted on March 03, 2008
I've been mulling over the 53 pages of the Virginia Supreme Court's decision in Jaynes v. Com.There were two opinions. The majority opinion written by Justice Agee concluded that the spammer's conviction should be affirmed, for reasons including his lack of standing to complain about the potential overbreadth of the criminal statute...

Another LeClairRyan merger

Posted on February 27, 2008
Here it says that LeClairRyan is merging with Wright Robinson Osthimer & Tatum.Just in case you were wondering if that sort of thing was still going on.

What did the ABA say about those other Fourth Circuit nominees?

Posted on February 26, 2008
It says here that the ABA gave the well-qualified rating to Fourth Circuit nominees Robert Conrad and Rod Rosenstein, but Steve Matthews got the dreaded "Q/NQ," as in there was a split vote, and the minority thought the rating should be "not qualified...

On Boucher, Superdelegate

Posted on February 26, 2008
This commentary by Paul Goldman reports that somebody has been complaining that Rick Boucher ought to vote for Clinton, since she carried the Ninth District.Sure, as soon as Jennifer McClellan and the rest of the Virginia supers where Obama carried the vote change their endorsements - which they say they will not.

Is this one for Bill O'Reilly, Michael Savage, or Lou Dobbs?

Posted on February 26, 2008
The Bristol paper reports here that an illegal immigrant from Mexico was sentenced by Judge Lowe of the Washington County Circuit Court to 26 life terms in prison, one for each month that he molested a young girl.The article does not say which Southwest Virginia employer or employers had been paying him, right here in Washington County...

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