The Church where I was married

When I got married at the Holy Trinity Church in Georgetown, the Jesuit priest (who is no longer a priest) suggested privately that he would not be too strict about who took Communion.

The same church is where the funeral mass for Tim Russert was held. The Post reporter Sally Quinn has drawn fire for taking communion there on that occasion.

Before our wedding I told one of my relatives, who was concerned about alcoholic beverages, that not only were the Southern Baptists not required to drink wine at a wedding mass, but they weren't allowed to have any.

More pro se litigants?

The Norfolk paper has this article on the perceived rise in the number of litigants representing themselves.

On the voters of Appalachia

Here is a pointless piece from Newsweek, a guy named Steve who grew up in Western Virginia and later was a student at the College of William & Mary. (If you can imagine such a person.) Is some of it missing, or is it sort of a parody? I wonder.

It says in part, "In a close election come November, the difference between President McCain and President Obama could come down to me and my people: a bunch of ornery, racist, coal-minin', banjo-pickin', Scots-Irish hillbillies clinging to our guns and religion on the side of some Godforsaken, moonshine-soaked ridge in West Virginia."

The ruling on the constitutionality of Va. Code 57-9

Here is the opinion by Judge Randy Bellows of the Circuit Court of Fairfax County, 49 pages on the constitutionality of Va. Code 57-9 as applied to the Episcopal church cases.

That thing adjudicated

In the latest VBA Journal, Judge Kelsey of the Court of Appeals has a somewhat provocative article on res judicata and Rule 1:6 as a response to the perceived defects of the Supreme Court's analysis in Davis v. Marshall Homes, Inc., 265 Va. 159, 576 S.E.2d 504 (2003).

And, I'm not sure that I entirely agree with it, which usually means that it doesn't fit with some cockamamie theory that I have been cooking up about a particular case.

Peer-to-peer network administrator convicted in W.D. Va. for pirating copyrighted material

The United States Department of Justice issued this press release detailing the conviction on Thursday in Big Stone Gap of a peer-to-peer network administrator for pirating movies and such.

The press release says: "The case is the first criminal conviction after jury trial for P2P copyright infringement. Dove’s conviction is the eighth conviction resulting from Operation D-Elite, a nationwide federal crackdown against the illegal distribution of copyrighted movies, software, games and music over P2P networks employing the BitTorrent file distribution technology."

President Bush to attend session of W.D. Va.

The Charlottesville paper reports here that President Bush will attend the naturalization event at Monticello on the 4th.

The insignificance of Miller-Jenkins

This article on Findlaw, titled "The Virginia Supreme Court Enforces Vermont's Custody and Visitation Order Regarding a Same-Sex Couple's Child: Why an Anti-Same-Sex-Marriage State Recognized a Same-Sex Union For This Purpose", points out that the recent Supreme Court case was decided on technical grounds, and even so came with a warning from the Chief Justice in his separate opinion that might be a preview of how he (if not others) would decide future cases on the merits.

On the right of the people to keep and bear arms

The Supreme Court decided today by a 5-4 vote in the D.C. v. Heller case, that the "people" in the Second Amendment include "all members of the political community, not an unspecified subset" and to "bear arms" was used back in the day to "refer to the carrying of weapons outside of an organized militia.

One for Kurt Pomrenke fans

Here are the father of the bride and the bride, his daughter Sarah, whom I think of as the little blonde Pomrenke girl.

Most places I go, from Grundy to Norfolk, somebody knows Kurt.

The vice of moderate legislation

Justice Kennedy's opinion for the majority in Kennedy v. Louisiana might inspire some legislators (like the ones we read about from Virginia and Tennessee) to reject moderation in matters governed by the Eighth Amendment.

The legislators might say to themselves, we all need to take the extreme view on this, otherwise the Supreme Court will get the wrong idea the next time it surveys the views of "society."

Papa Joe Smiddy documentary

It says here that U.Va.-Wise has released a documentary on DVD of the life and times of Joe Smiddy.

Here is one of the best Joe Smiddy stories.

Here is one place where you can buy a "Butter Beans" CD, which is mainly what I like to listen to when I am riding in Dad's truck. This bean story has the lyrics.

Using the VLW archives

In last week's Virginia Lawyers Weekly, Paul Fletcher posed this hypothetical:

"My client just got served with papers filed by a lawyer named Steven R. Minor with the firm of Elliott, Lawson & Minor in Bristol. I don’t know this guy. How can I get some information about him and his practice?"

One of his answers was to check the archives on VLW.

That could work, evidently those archives include my name in connection with 26 opinions.

A fellow I know in Charlottesville told me a while back that he often sees my name in Lawyers Weekly. I said yes, but not all of those cases are worth bragging about, such as the one where the Virginia Court of Appeals held that I didn't miss that deadline, after all.

Fourth Circuit rejects claim to school district's information distribution system for issue advocacy

In Page v. Lexington County School District, the Fourth Circuit in an opinion by Judge Niemeyer, joined by Chief Judge Williams and Judge Duncan, affirmed the entry of summary judgment on the section 1983 claims of a citizen who sued for equal access to the school district's "information distribution system" that the district had used to oppose legislation the plaintiff favored.

The amici supporting the appellee include the Virginia School Boards Association.

If you do Virginia appeals, you must read this

Steve Emmert has an article up these days on his site that I take to mean that the Virginia Supreme Court is cracking down on procedural defaults. Similarly, VLW Blog has this post quoting Justice Keenan, who acknowledged that more Virginia appeals are getting sunk on procedural defaults.

Norfolk paper comes to Wise County

This article about the power plant in the works at Virginia City quotes one side talking about the other as saying this: "wrong on so many levels." Actually, all sides say that about their opponents all the time.

Some of the discourse reminds me of my grandmother's opposition to the federal prison in Lee County - she didn't want a bunch of escaped federal inmates running up and down Route 58.

Vote on him, I dare you

The Asheville paper has this recap of the status of the nomination to the Fourth Circuit of Judge Conrad from North Carolina, who is not to be confused with the Judge Conrad from Virginia or the tough-guy actor.

Who leaked the Ahmad Bradshaw story?

The Bristol paper and others have discovered that Ahmad Bradshaw is in jail here in Abingdon, which prompted his old football coach at Bluefield to denounce whoever it was that caused this to get into the newspapers.

The Bristol paper reported this:

"Graham football coach and athletic director Doug Marrs adamantly stood by Bradshaw, calling the player’s legal troubles the direct result of a concerted attempt by 'individuals who build themselves up by making other people look bad.'

'It’s an attempt by an anonymous mole to discredit [Bradshaw],' Marrs said. 'I bet you cannot find out who released [the information to the police]. Have you seen anywhere where he violated his parole? It doesn’t make sense. It’s extremely complicated.

'All I can tell you is ... there’s animosity. It’s just … there are people who make it, I guess, their job to try to ruin to other people’s lives. That’s the way I see it.'

. . .

'I promise you this: Graham High School would not have retired [Bradshaw’s] jersey if we had thought he’d have done something that would discredit [Graham],' Marrs said.

'He truly does not deserve this. He doesn’t deserve this. And you know what? I did stuff when I was 12 or 13 years old [that] I could probably still be in jail for. But I never played in the Super Bowl. I don’t get people wherever jealous of me.'"

The Carbon Capture and Storage Early Deployment Act

This post considers the Carbon Capture and Storage Early Deployment Act, H.R. 6258, introduced by Rick Boucher, which provides for an industry-funded, non-government "Carbon Storage Research Corporation."

He said it

"So Mr. Obama, if you're going to call for 'the highest-speed broadband access' can you please stop pussyfooting around like just about everyone else and start acknowledging that that means getting a fiber strand strung to every building in America?"

Geoff Daily, Apprising

Santos, Santos, Santos

The Bristol paper reported here that Chief Judge Jones is trying to figure out the Supreme Court's decision in U.S. v. Santos, before deciding what to do in the case of the Lee County dentist.

Maybe the dentist's lawyer will sign up for this seminar, the ad for which says of Santos and Cuellar v. U.S.: "The Court's opinions vindicate the criminal defense bar's long and loud criticisms that money-laundering charges were being 'tacked-on,' 'added-on,' and threatened in order to induce pleas and rack up higher sentences."

On the late Harry Hall

This morning, Dana spotted a brief notice in the morning paper that Harry Hall has died.

Harry Hall is just about the best guy from Bristol I ever met. The deacon at St. Anne's, he was part of our marriage preparation, way back when, and a good friend of mine ever since. When he ended a mass, it sounded like the voice of Moses. He worked all the time, even when he was sick, like when there was a fire at the church and he just laughed at the idea that he should just be a cheerleader on the sidelines. He laughed at most everything, and made everyone else laugh with him. Seeing him in the church or out and about always lit me up.

I'll miss him.

Best U.S. Open story

I still like the story reported here and here and elsewhere about Tony Romo, Matt Lauer, Justin Timberlake, and a fellow from Nebraska with cancer, trying to break 100 on Friday at Torrey Pines. The dude from Nebraska shot 114 and savored it all, sounds like.

I probably can't break a hundred anywhere that doesn't have plastic grass and windmills. The last round of golf in May, though, playing captain's choice in Nancy Dickenson's Relay for Life tournament we made a lot of lengthy par putts and finished 10 from the back and 10 from the front (i.e., next to last at +1). Tim Hudson from over on the Tennessee side was playing behind us and said he thought we were going to break out the champagne when we got up and down for par on our first hole (from the wrong side of the creek).

And, the horse you rode in on

Here and elsewhere it says that Andrea Mitchell, from the gang of happy idiots at MSNBC, has apologized for her characterization of the people of Bristol, Virginia, on the occasion of the visit by Obama last week.

Another of that sorry bunch, Chris Matthews, will be at the Bristol library a few weeks before the election. His rant this morning, as I understood it, was that the United States is like the sinking Titanic, and voters will have to decide whether to stay on the ship with McCain or jump into the life boats with Obama.

The Fourth Circuit: fewer judges equals fewer arguments

Here is the take of one of the Volokh Conspirators on the state of the Fourth Circuit, still missing too many judges, and the subject of the cover story in this month's ABA Journal.

Sell assets, not stock?

In Andrews v. Browne, the Virginia Supreme Court held that the sale of 100% of the stock of a closely-held corporation is subject to the Virginia Securities Act.

That other Buchanan County case

The Supreme Court decided on Friday in Levisa Coal v. Consolidation Coal that Consol's lease did not give it the right to "store excess water" on the leased premises from coal mining on other property, reversing the Buchanan County circuit court.

The case was argued for the appellant by Scott Sexton from Gentry Locke, with Monica Monday and some lawyers from the Street Law Firm on brief. Well done.

On the Tennessee side

The Kingsport paper has this disturbing story about a good lawyer who made one or more bad mistakes.

It begins:

"A former Johnson City attorney who pleaded guilty to attempted forgery for signing a client’s name to a probation hearing waiver ended up losing his law license, his practice, his home and cars."

Judge Weckstein a candidate for Virginia Supreme Court

The Roanoke Times has this article that says Judge Clifford Weckstein is a candidate for the vacant position on the Virginia Supreme Court.

The article cites Steve Emmert who bemoans the circumstances that might reduce the field of candidates, but if Judge Weckstein is in the running, that's evidence that there may be quality if not quantity.

The same circumstances cited by Steve might prevent anyone from being selected as the juvenile and domestic relations district judge to succeed Judge Farmer in the 29th district - rare is the lawyer willing to chuck in his or her practice for what may be a very temporary judgeship.

No kidding

I just saw this picture that my dad posted somewhere.

Some people are (still) surprised to learn that the proprietor of Appalachian Resources, also the Rose Hill blogger, is my sister.

Last week's case

Here are the stories from the newspapers:

Daniel Gilbert, Bristol Herald-Courier -

Buchanan County Seeks To Recover Money It Says It Lost Due To Bribery Scandal

Federal Jury Is Deciding Liability In Buchanan County, Va., Bribery Case

Contractors To Pay $500,000 To Buchanan County In ‘Coon Dog’ Case

Laurence Hammack, Roanoke Times -

Big Coon Dog lawsuit trees little cash

The big case

Well, the jury verdict was $500,000, and not on the RICO counts. That's less than I had hoped, but better than nothing.

It was pretty exciting, I'll write more about it one of these days.

Head games

On Friday night, opposing counsel sent me a note that said quit working so hard.

I laughed and told some people about this note, and one of them asked me about that other lawyer, and I said he's a bulldog.

And, the reply was, then he's in trouble, because he's a bulldog but this is a coondog case.

That might be my swing thought for the week, or maybe this.