Ex-judge Shull speaks out

Daniel Gilbert had this lengthy article, with Mickey Shull's thoughts on what happened to him, that he lost his judgeship.

There are some parts of the article I don't like, but it is definitely worth reading, to ponder the many ironies.

Previously, I posted my thoughts here.

On T. Keister Greer

The Roanoke paper reports here on the interesting life and times of the Rocky Mount lawyer, who wrote about the Franklin County moonshine case, as described here, tried in Harrisonburg before Judge John Paul.

Why quit before November?

Senator Clinton cites the example of the assassination of Robert Kennedy as a reason why she should not stop her campaign.

Following this same logic, perhaps after the convention, she will continue to campaign, citing the possibility that Obama has not disclosed prior hospitalization for mental illness, as in the case of the vice-presidential nominee in 1972.

Back out of prison

Yesterday at the Ashland, KY, prison camp, we deposed Ray Blankenship, who is the former chairman of the board of supervisors from Buchanan County, and we had a court reporter, and videographer, and they were two women from Lexington, and on his way out, the witness/inmate gave them a nod and told them he was particularly glad they came by to see him.

Sprung from the prison, I rolled on down to Paintsville, to draw on the good karma (hey, we're undefeated in Johnson County) and the good company of Roger Massengale, who had many tall tales, then went on to Norton and got the latest BBQ from Elsey Harris. It was a full day.

The 25th reunion year

This is, I am reminded, the 25th year after graduation from high school, and I've heard there will be a reunion.

Those who knew me then might say, as some have, that my life has proceeded according to plans that were made in junior high, more or less. I might say the same thing, more or less, by the bare preponderance of the evidence. There's a handwritten essay in the archives from Mr. Sieber's 8th grade English class, or was it 7th grade, in which I wrote how I was going to become a lawyer.

Next door to Mr. Sieber's room, more or less, was Mr. Feiler's room, where he taught 8th grade civics. In his class I first learned the case of Marbury v. Madison. Indeed, in his classroom, there was an old stash of books, soon to be trashed, called Constitutional Analysis, and I took one home (by extraconstitutional means?) and still have it. That would have been more like 30 years ago. I saw Mr. Feiler at a baseball game in 1988, the summer spent clerking at the Barley Snyder firm, and he said he knew all along that I would become a lawyer.

The last time I was in contact with any of my old teachers (other than Ed Stout) was Coach Borden, who taught 9th grade English. "You people don't know how to edit," he declared in those days, "you look at the page and think, 'These are my words, I love them.'" When I saw that he was retiring from coaching basketball, I e-mailed him and told him that I have recalled his admonition many times since, since writing is mainly what I do, and good advice on writing never grows old. He wrote back that he could well recall that I was never at a loss for words.

I saw a piece on the Golf Channel the other day where the question before the panel was would you rather play a pro-am with Tiger Woods or with your mom, and one guy answered his mom, since she had been dead for some years and his dad in particular would like to see her. If I could play a pro-am with one of my high school teachers, it would be the old grey-bearded English teacher with whom I conspired for a couple of years, and who died before his daughters married, two sisters who were both cheerleaders and who both were cursed with the same unfortunate nose and who married on the same day - and I would skip the golf and send him on to see them.

I guess the teachers, particularly those no longer of this earth, don't come to the reunions, and since my tale would hold no mystery to my friends, I won't be at the reunion of the Conestoga Valley class of '83. Besides which, my dad got food poisoning at his 25th reunion.

Stuff I've missed

Justice Agee was confirmed to the Fourth Circuit, as reported here and elsewhere.

Julie Dudley took over as head of the United States Attorney's office, reported here.

All this while I've been driving back and forth to Grundy, and plotting my next trip which is to a federal prison.

Just in time for the election

Here's the decision from the California Supreme Court, in which the divided Court declared that the state's ban on same-sex marriage violates the Equal Protection clause of the state constitution - notwithstanding the statewide referendum on the definition of marriage from only eight years ago.

I am reminded of my post from Election Day, 2004, relating a discussion I had with a guy I know as he was driving to vote, and "[h]e said he would flip the switch for Bush, even though he is mostly a Democrat, and even though he mostly aspires to Christian charity and good will, because there are two things he can't abide, and those are gay marriage and Arab terrorists. (Actually, his phrasing was somewhat more colorful, and it made me recollect the comedian who declares, there are three things I can't tolerate: bigotry, intolerance, and midgets.)"

And this post on the eve of the election in 2006, explaining my "no" vote, and offering this view - "I think most of the claims of both the "yes" and "no" advocates in Virginia were completely bogus, and that many of the people engaged in such advocacy knew full well that were they were saying was bogus but said it anyway to try to get votes for their side."

There's much that's bogus in that California Supreme Court opinion.

More on West Virginia

According to CNN:

Logan County - Clinton 84%, Obama 11%
Mercer County - Clinton 72%, Obama 21%
Mingo County - Clinton 88%, Obama 8%
Raleigh County - Clinton 66%, Obama 26%

All that seems about what you'd guess based on Buchanan and Tazewell counties in Virginia.

She said it

"From potheads to prostitutes to public urinators, they get it all in General District Court.

I highly recommend a few hours there, especially if you can no longer afford movie tickets. Shoot, sometimes there's even nudity."

Kerry Dougherty, in the Norfolk paper.

I have discussed with some people who know that the same is true on the Virginia Court of Appeals, that all manner of human activity passes through there.

What to expect from West Virginia

I haven't been to West Virginia in a while, but I recall that in the Virginia primary back in February, there were these results in some Southwest Virginia counties that border on West Virginia:

Buchanan County - Clinton 89.91%, Obama 9.09%

Tazewell County - Clinton 78.32%, Obama 19.22%

I don't expect Obama to do much better in Logan County or Mingo County, but maybe he will in Raleigh and Mercer counties. That's as far as my crystal ball goes.

My link went bad, but this is still a great story, about the county official who supposedly asked for $3,500 for the 1960 West Virginia primary and got $35,000 from the Kennedy campaign. Another version of the same tale is told here.

Cert granted in Bell case from Virginia

An order came down from the U.S. Supreme Court today granting certiorari on the first issue in what is now called Bell v. Kelly, the post-conviction appeals of the Winchester murder case.

The AP has this report, and SCOTUSBlog has this post with links to the court filings.

The first issue in the petition is this: "Did the Fourth Circuit err when, in conflict with decisions of the Ninth and Tenth Circuits, it applied the deferential standard of 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d), which is reserved for claims 'adjudicated on the merits' in state court, to evaluate a claim predicated on evidence of prejudice the state court refused to consider and that was properly received for the first time in a federal evidentiary hearing?"

So, a plunge into the savage heart of standard of review jurisprudence.

On Jennifer McClellan

I read here and elsewhere that superdelegate Jennifer McClellan switched over to Obama, which is good because I'd think her otherwise incomprehensible support for Ms. Clinton would be an albatross around her neck for the rest of her career.

I mean, if a couple of old timers like Rick Boucher and Tim Kaine figured that one out months ago, you'd think that Ms. McClellan would have been quicker to do the math. How super can a delegate be who wasn't supporting the likely (and history-making) nominee, who carried the Virginia primary (and the precincts of her own district) by a landslide, had the support of the old school Governor and the senior Congressman, raised $300 million, and was never married to Bill Clinton?

Wow, President Bush nominates SW Virginia's own Judge Conrad for Fourth Circuit

It is reported here and elsewhere that President Bush has nominated Judge Glen Conrad of the W.D. Va. to a vacancy on the Fourth Circuit.

The article says in part:

"The White House announced Thursday that Bush had nominated Glen E. Conrad to the Richmond, Va.-based appeals court, which has handled some of the country's biggest terrorism cases.

Conrad has been a judge on the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Virginia since 2003.

If confirmed by the Senate, Conrad would fill the seat of H. Emory Widener Jr., who died last year."

The Roanoke paper has this story, which notes: "With the Conrad nomination, the president has five nominees pending for the five vacant seats on the 4th Circuit."

As noted here, "There are now two Conrad nominations pending for the Fourth Circuit, the other being that of Judge Robert Conrad." As reported here, Judge G. Conrad has been approved by Senator Webb, and so his nomination might proceed apace in the manner of Justice Agee.

One of the Confirm Them commenters notes: "The confirmations of Agee and G. Conrad, though, will likely doom the nominations of R. Conrad and Matthews."

I wonder if this news has Magistrate Judges Urbanski and Sargent maybe snapping their fingers and shuffling their feet.

No kidding

Not too long ago, I was arguing about something and invoked the goose and gander rule, of which I have previously written here. I have heard Magistrate Judge Sargent say that the goose and gander rule "is good law" in the Western District.

The state court judge in ruling on the point declared essentially this: "I won't invoke cliches like Mr. Minor, but I've decided to give him another bite of the apple."

Interesting

Hunton & Williams lawyer Tom Slater is the new president of the VMI board of visitors. I often tell stories of a case I had with him long ago. Every experience I ever had with a Hunton & Williams lawyer has generated a few stories, going back to the first one I ever met, a fellow named Jim Farnham who did an amazing job trying a products liability case about a riding mower, before Judge Williams when I was a law clerk. I can remember it like it was yesterday.

This article deals with the interesting and recurring issue of litigation between a local government and its board of zoning appeals. I guess it means that Staunton is catching up to Fairfax County.

This article says some watchdog group gives Virginia a D for judicial accountability, based on criteria that are not entirely clear. The article says: "The researchers rated each jurisdiction on the degree of public access to complaints against judges; the severity of sanctions; the availability of online information about disciplinary proceedings; the percentage of non-lawyers involved in the sanctioning process; the level of financial disclosure required of judges; whether people are free to speak publicly about complaints they file; and the strictness of limits on reimbursements, compensation and honoraria for privately sponsored trips by judges."

This story says a Christiansburg developer has sued some people over what was said about him on a blog, which I checked out and it led me eventually to this page with an interactive map of the Falling Branch industrial park, and if you scroll on the map down to the big water tank and keep going you can see the little house with the big bushes where Grandma and Grandpa Conrad lived, and their barn, and Uncle Joe's house, all of which seems like a safer topic for a blogger than the lawsuit of the guy suing the bloggers.

This article on one of the lawyer boards says the Virginia Tech shootings may lead the General Assembly to increase the $100,000 cap under the Virginia Tort Claims Act, and links to this Washington Post story. Of course, at common law, the de facto cap was $0, I suspect, as it still is today in some respects and for some defendants, such as counties.

The Daily Press had this interesting report about the status of desegregation orders that required school busing in Newport News, still in place after 37 years.

The online ABA Journal has picked up on the locally-notorious federal court disciplinary case against a Knoxville lawyer, calling him the Lawyer Who Wouldn’t Stop Talking.

New magistrate judge to serve in Southwest Virginia

This order says that in recognition of the caseload coming out of the Cumberland Gap park, a magistrate judge shall be empowered to handle cases from Tennessee, Kentucky, and Virginia - and it will be any full-time magistrate judge from the Eastern District of Kentucky.

Grad student's suit fails to pass

In Brown v. Rector and Visitors of the University of Virginia, Judge Moon granted the motion to dismiss from the defendants in a case filed by an ex-graduate student.

And, it is a case study of the hurdles to stating a claim against a state school: (1) there is some talk about Bell Atlantic v. Twombly, which provides cover to district courts wanting to move on lame complaints at the pleadings stage; (2) the Eleventh Amendment bars relief against the University as an agency of the Commonwealth - (query, why doesn't the same rule apply to local school boards?); (3) qualified immunity protects individuals in all but the clearest cases of constitutional violations; (4) on a Due Process claim, what procedural process is due is not much, at least not for academic dismissals, or even disciplinary dismissals; and (5) you can't actually rely on representations in a student handbook that are qualified by the customary disclaimer.

He said it

"When Justice Agee is confirmed as a federal circuit judge, the Fourth Circuit will have fewer vacancies than at the end of the Clinton administration."

Sen. Patrick Leahy, on the occasion of last week's Judiciary Committee hearing for Justice Agee's nomination to the Fourth Circuit. His comments are taken to mean that Justice Agee will be confirmed this month, as suggested here and here, even though he will be cutting line ahead of others less fortunate.

With Justice Agee's apparent success in Washington, behind him begins the speculation over his successor, such as this piece by Jeff Shapiro, which says that maybe there can be a big political deal involving Agee's seat on the Supreme Court and the vacancy on the State Corporation Commission - the one that would have been filled already, says Shapiro, but for internecine bickering among the Republicans.

And, this committee may have to meet, which is excellent, because I enjoy listening to lawyers like Glenn Pulley and Taz Ellett, every chance I get.

Max and Gina

Max Lawson and his girlfriend Gina, who both have worked here off and on, have this website about their wedding, coming up next month.

They mailed the invitations with postage bearing their photo and web address, made here.

Chief Judge Jones rejects liberty interest claim

The Constitution protects against deprivations of life, liberty, and property without due process of law.

Somewhere along the way came the notion that the concept of liberty includes freedom from being bad-mouthed by the government, but there's more to it than that, as evidenced by the ruling in April by Judge Jones in Etter v. Spencer.

The only such claim that I can recall getting anywhere was in the case of the NCAA compliance officer thrown under the bus by Marshall University, and even in that case there was a dissent from Judge Widener.

Voice of Cavaliers quits

This piece by Doug Doughty says that Mac McDonald has resigned.

Maybe they will rehire Warren Swain away from the Ohio U. Bobcats.

Oops, someone on the boards has already suggested this.