There are No Fourth Circuit Opinions Today

That's what the e-mail says.

A few election notes

Among the races I noticed:

Ex-mayor of Roanoke Ralph Smith got into the Senate.
VBA Board member Robert Hurt got into the Senate.
Bill Carrico and Anne B. Crockett-Stark stayed in the House.
Poindexter beat Ferguson, in that wacky race.
Neo beat Tolliver for Commonwealth's Attorney, as Buchanan County entered the Matrix.
The incumbent Short beat the challenger Short for Commonwealth's Attorney in Dickenson County.
In Lee County, everyone who testified for the plaintiffs in the Chadwell and Laster (not Lester) trial lost - D.J. Barker, Pete Sumpter, Robin Robbins - but Bill Willis and Ty Harber got back in, and John Marion was re-elected, so three-fifths of the 2000 school board will be reunited in 2008.
The clerks of court in Russell County and Montgomery County got voted out.
Sheriff Broadwater got voted out in Scott County.
Here in Washington County, Mark Graham lost to Tricia Phipps by a wide margin in the race for clerk of court.
In Wise County, only one D. Mullins was elected, and Rocky Cantrell did not get in for School Board.

The most provocative result was for Dickenson County School Board - William A. "Bill" Patton 496, Write-in 496.

Worth 1,000 words

I told Jina Sauls that this picture would be popular.



Here are Stephen Armstrong, Whitney Caudill, The Honorable Robert J. Humphreys, myself, and Lindsay Brubaker. The story is here.

Bloggables

Here's a story from the Norfolk paper on the plethysmograph case, out of Tazewell. It quotes Steve Emmert, who wonders, how will Judge Vanover forget the bad evidence on remand? The case is Billups v. Com., an opinion by Senior Justice Russell, reversing the Court of Appeals. Justice Kinser wrote a separate concurring opinion, joined by Justice Agee. My post about the panel decision of the Court of Appeals is here.

Here's a story from the Lynchburg paper on the DUI case, which says you can't be under the influence of drugs if they weren't "self-administered." The case is Jackson v. Com., an opinion by Chief Justice Hassell, reversing the Court of Appeals..

Mr. Gibson at the Charlottesville paper had this piece on why using bad drivers as a fund-raising tool is bad policy. Here's the full research report. The Media General story was published in the Bristol paper next to an article about how Sheriff Newman in Washington County uses bad drivers as a fund-raising tool - but the paper endorsed him anyway.

This story from the Roanoke paper says a writ panel declined the petition for appeal of MeadWestvaco in a $7 million suit against Buena Vista.

Here's a great profile of a former mayor and state court judge from Alexandria, who decided after he got married at age 76 that he should have tried it sooner.

Here's an opinion from the D.S.C. that says a blogger is not liable for calling someone a "yes man", but the yes man's lawyer is liable to the blogger for filing a bogus lis pendens on his real property.

This article from the Fredericksburg paper says a panel of the court of appeals is going to have a session there, while this article says the court of appeals affirmed the conviction in a pit bull case. The pit bull case is Large v. Com.

Here's a funky story on the mud in the Wise County clerk's race.

Here's somebody's alternative take on the Judge Shull case.

E.D. Va. order of acquittal in money laundering case reversed

In U.S. v. Hoffler-Riddick, the Fourth Circuit in an unpublished per curiam opinion for the panel of Judges Traxler and Shedd and District Judge Moon of the W.D. Va. reversed the District Court's order directing an acquittal on the money laundering charges against a former local government employee from Norfolk, whose financial advisor boyfriend set up a transaction to help a drug dealer with no credit history.

Worth reading, every word

The most recent edition of the VBA Journal contains the remarks of Supreme Court Justice Robert H. Jackson, delivered to the Summer Meeting of The Virginia Bar Association in 1947, about the Nuremberg trials, in which he was a prosecutor for the United States. He concluded: "We have given the world an example of a trial and hearing instead of executing people in cold blood."

Other speeches made by Robert H. Jackson can be found here.

The Virginia Holocaust Museum in Richmond has been working on a Nuremberg trials courtroom exhibit.