Category: Courts and law
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The Issue of Guardianship and the Contribution of a Newspaper
On Sunday, the Richmond Times-Dispatch ran a remarkable article. It was remarkable both in the amount of space the newspaper dedicated to it, 5½ whole pages, and its subject, guardianship, a subject about which little is known by the public, but that could affect anyone. The publishing of this series of articles illustrates the continuing…
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Virginia Judges, 1; Artificial Intelligence, 0
by James A. Bacon It sounded like such a good idea: Develop a criminal-sentencing algorithm to help judges identify felons least likely to reoffend and either give them shorter jail sentences or divert them to probation or substance-abuse treatment programs. Virginia created just such an algorithm in 2001. Minimizing the subjective element in sentencing, it…
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More Craziness: Now “Second Amendment Sanctuaries” Are a Thing
by James A. Bacon The Campbell County Board of Supervisors has voted to declare the county a “second amendment sanctuary.” It’s not clear from this WDBJ article exactly what that entails, but Wikipedia defines a second-amendment sanctuary as a jurisdiction that does not expend resources to enforce gun control measures perceived to violate the Second…
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Omega Protein Exceeds ASMFC Catch Limit of Menhaden
by Don Rippert What, me worry? Omega Protein has admitted exceeding its menhaden catch limit for 2019 in the Chesapeake Bay. Omega Protein, a Houston-based company and wholly owned subsidiary of Cooke, Inc, a Canadian firm, operates a fishing fleet based in Reedville, Va. Employing about 300 Virginians, Omega Protein has been mired in controversy…
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Bacon Bits: Of DNA and Electrons….
Getting 39,999 right out of 40,000 not too shabby. After 18 years the Virginia Forensic Science Board has wound up its review of 530,000 cases in which DNA evidence was available. The effort identified 13 men who were wrongfully convicted, including the highly publicized cases of Earl Washington Jr., and Thomas Haynesworth, reports the Richmond…
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Disregard that Law
by Dick Hall-Sizemore Well, Virginia made the national headlines again last week and over the weekend. This time it was over the requirement that couples applying for a marriage license list their race on the application. And Attorney General Mark Herring was the hero, saying that, despite what the law said, the couples did not…
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Marijuana legalization in Colorado: the good, the bad and the ugly
High there! As Virginia politicians scramble to stake out positions on reforming marijuana laws in the Old Dominion ahead of this November’s elections, it is useful to look at the actual experience in Colorado after five years of legal recreational marijuana sales. There is no universally accepted source of truth regarding the success or failure…
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Court Backs Little Debbie In Tax Dispute
Don’t underestimate Little Debbie – the spunky tyke took on the Augusta County tax collectors and won. But the county still has her money. The Virginia Supreme Court has sided with manufacturer McKee Foods Corporation, which makes the Little Debbie snack products, in a dispute over the tax assessment on its 828,000-square-foot factory in Augusta…
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Differences in Arrest Rates for Marijuana Offenses across Virginia Localities
Data exhaust. In a relatively recent BR post “Marijuana arrests and racism in Virginia (especially Arlington County)” I examined the disparity between black and white Virginians when it comes to arrests for marijuana possession. My conclusion that African-American Virginians are disproportionately arrested for marijuana possession came from data generated by a VCU Capital News Service…
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Illinois to Legalize Recreational Pot: Implications for Virginia
Legal tokin’ in the Land of Lincoln. Illinois governor J.B. Pritzker is expected to sign Illinois’ recreational marijuana legalization bill tomorrow. Illinois, America’s sixth most populous state, will become the 11th state to legalize the recreational use of marijuana. The District of Columbia has also legalized the possession of ganja. This has implications for Virginia.…
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Give Fairfax a Chance to Clear His Name
Lawyers for Lieutenant Governor Justin Fairfax have formally requested prosecutors in Suffolk County, Mass., and Durham County, N.C. to open criminal investigations into the sexual assault allegations made against Fairfax in February, reports WJLA. The allegation of Meredith Watson, who accused Fairfax of raping her in 2000 when they were students at Duke University, should…
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Giving Slumlords a Bad Name
I tend to be sympathetic to renters and landlords in their disputes with problem tenants, many of whom can be irresponsible and exasperating. Some renters are deadbeats. But then I run across a shocking case like the one documented by renter Winter Whittaker and published on the Virginia Mercury. Whittaker, a Richmond resident, called her…
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Bacon Bits: Boomtowns, Amazon, and Rent-a-Tribe
Pockets of prosperity. America’s big metropolitan regions may be sucking up most of the growth and prosperity of the current business cycle, but they’re not sucking up all of it. In crunching data measuring economic prosperity, population growth and rising incomes, GOBankingRates found numerous “cities” (not metros) that qualify as “boomtowns.” One region stood out…
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Judge Rules Virginia’s Confederate Statues Protected by State Law
Court case. Circuit Court Judge Richard E. Moore has ruled that the City of Charlottesville cannot remove statues of Robert E. Lee and Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson. The judge determined that these are war memorials protected under Virginia state law. Articles describing the decision can be found here, here and here. As the Roanoke Times writes…
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Courts Authorizing “Reverse Location” Warrants in Virginia
Big brother Google is watching you. Back in October, 2018, Forbes reported that a Virginia court had authorized the FBI to use a “reverse location” warrant to try to solve a series of crimes in Henrico County, Va. This warrant, also known as a geofence warrant, allows police to compel Google to provide all cellphone…