Category: Courts and law
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How Government Creates Poverty: Fines and Fees
Government is much better at creating poverty than at curing it. Yesterday the General Assembly voted to end the practice of suspending driving licenses for non-payment of fines or restitution or both and ordered Department of Motor Vehicles to restore driving privileges for hundreds of thousands of Virginians. If you need to do business at…
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Virginia’s “Secret” Medical Marijuana Program
The doctor who should be governor. State Sen. Siobhan Dunnavant is a Republican from Henrico County. She is also a practicing physician. In this year’s General Assembly session she put forth SB1557 which expanded last year’s so-called “Let Doctor’s Decide” legislation (HB1251). What’s new? The 2018 legislation (HB1251) authorized licensed medical providers to prescribe CBD and…
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Yes, Let’s Restore Drivers Licenses. But…
The General Assembly spiked bills in the 2019 session that would have ended the practice of suspending the drivers licenses of Virginians who fail to pay court fines and other obligations unrelated to driving. Without some kind of repercussion, foes of the bills argued, those obligations often would go unpaid. Now Governor Ralph Northam is…
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When Hate Crime Equals Thought Crime
Today the Washington Post tells us that James A. Fields, Jr., the neo-Nazi who plowed a car into a group of counterprotesters at the infamous white-supremacist rally in Charlottesville in 2017, is scheduled to appear in federal court for a hearing on “hate-crime” charges. Interestingly, the article neglects to tell us specifically which “hate crimes”…
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Bad Analysis, Legislative Gamesmanship, Misplaced Priorities
In 2016, Keith Harward was released from Virginia’s prisons after serving 33 years for a crime he did not commit. Harward was convicted of a 1982 rape and murder largely on the basis of the testimony of forensic dentists that bite marks on the victim matched his teeth. Many years later, following improvements in DNA…
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Unraveling the Ralph Northam Infanticide Controversy
Background. The past several weeks have been full of controversy for three of Virginia’s leading Democratic politicians – Ralph Northam, Justin Fairfax and Mark Herring. The local, state and national media have been focused on allegations of racism against Northam and Herring and sexual assault against Fairfax. However, prior to the media onslaught regarding racism and…
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Sorry, Mr. Bloomberg, You Can’t Pay for Virginia Justice
Earlier this year I described how Attorney General Mark Herring had applied for funding from the Michael Bloomberg-funded New York University School of Law to hire a special assistant attorney to pursue climate-change and clean-energy initiatives. (See “Following the Dark Money.”) NYU had agreed to provide the funding but, for reasons as yet unclear, Herring’s…
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Fairfax Dons Mantle of Victimhood. It Does Not Fit.
About a month ago Lieutenant Governor Justin Fairfax came under a barrage of criticism after being accused of sexual assault by two seemingly credible women. Elected Democratic officials across Virginia called for his immediate resignation. He said, wait just a minute, let’s not rush to judgment. Give me a “full, fair, independent, impartial, and non-political…
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Fifteen Months Later and Still No Answers on the Bijan Ghaisar Killing
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3OXvXQqZE8g&w=500&h=315] 463 days. November 17, 2017 was the date that U.S. Park Police gunned down / assassinated Bijan Ghaisar on a street in Fairfax County. That was 463 days ago. n all that time there has been no comment from the U.S. Park Police or the FBI (assigned to investigate the case) regarding this killing.…
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Being a Self-Righteous Pain is Not a Crime
Michelle Renay Sutherland, a New Yorker who traveled to Richmond to demonstrate in support of Virginia’s passage of the Equal Rights Amendment, is an annoying individual. Frankly, I find her sanctimonious posturing to be a pain in the ass. Maybe she violated the law for baring her breast when posing as the goddess Virtue in…
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What? You Want Us to Be Consistent?
by Richard Hall-Sizemore In 2014, Sen. Philip Puckett, a Democrat from far Southwest Virginia, was in a quandary. His daughter was vying for a juvenile and domestic relations court judgeship, to which she had already been appointed as a substitute judge. However, Republicans in the Senate, led by Sen. Tommy Norment, R-James City, were holding…
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Mob Justice for Justin Fairfax
Wow, that was fast. One day Justin Fairfax was measuring the drapes for the Governor’s Mansion, now the grandees of the Virginia Democratic Party say he should step down as Lieutenant Governor. The sexual-assault charges against him are serious and his accusers deserve to be heard. But can we give it just a little bit…
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Finally, The SCC Is Full Strength
Former Chief Deputy Attorney General and Circuit Court Judge Patricia West is heading to the State Corporation Commission and the only question it raises is, why did the Republicans feel compelled to ram her election through with such speed? Was the coalition that fragile? West apparently has not practiced law in front of the Commission…
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State Database Missing 55,000 Felons
The Virginia State Crime Commission is asking why 750,000 conviction records — including those for 300 murder and 1,300 rape convictions — are missing from the state database used to run background checks for gun purchases, court sentencing and employment, reports the Washington Post. It turns out that conviction records are entered into the database…
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Northam Plans to Curtail License Suspensions
A huge victory for the drive-to-work movement: Governor Ralph Northam has announced plans to halt the practice of suspending driver’s licenses as a way to collect unpaid court fines and fees, reports the Washington Post. In Virginia more than 276,000 licenses were suspended in 2017 alone. The practice creates a Catch-22 for the people, mostly…