Friday, September 17, 2004

Ouch, did sniper Malvo's lawyers miss appeal deadline?

The Washington Post reports here ("Teen Sniper's Lawyers Miss Deadline for Filing Appeal," 9/17/04) that counsel for convicted sniper Lee Malvo missed the extended filing deadline for his appeal to the Virginia Court of Appeals.

This week's Virginia Supreme Court opinions

Here is the synopsis from Virginia judiciary website of the Virginia Supreme Court opinions that came out today.

There are a few on the list with trial practice implications, on which I'll write some more later.

CD says Virginia Republicans have better candidates this year

The Cavalier Daily has this column that says the Republicans in Virginia have the better candidates this year.

What Virginia college students need to know about the law

The Virginia Tech paper has this column ("Legal survival skills are needed by Tech students," 9/16/04) on what college students in Virginia need to know about the law.

More on the fight for the soul of the Republican Party

Earlier this week, the Richmond paper published this article ("Kilgore rejects Norquist's attack plan," 9/16/04) that says there is a plan afoot by some activists to oust all Virginia Republican officeholders who ever voted for any tax increases, but none of the party leadership supports it.

Thursday, September 16, 2004

Gentry Locke shifts away from insurance defense

The Roanoke paper has this article ("Law firm announces job cuts," 9/16/04) which says that Roanoke's second largest firm has split ways with seven lawyers in connection with a shift away from insurance defense work.

Tuesday, September 14, 2004

Trial this week, not much blogging

I have a bench trial on Thursday, in a case that's been kicking around for a while.

I represent the plaintiff, a real live person. This is the defendant, and this is defendant's counsel, an excellent lawyer.

So, I have a lot to do, and hope to do well.

John Marshall expert comes to ASL

According to this press release, the editor of the papers of Supreme Court Justice John Marshall is coming to the Appalachian School of Law.

Sunday, September 12, 2004

The weekend's wildest football game

Fanblog has this account of Georgia Tech's stunning reversal of fortune over Clemson at Clemson.

It is up there with the fumble that cost Arkansas against Tennessee with UT's championship year, and the Peach Bowl where Virginia ran back a kick-off for a touchdown in the final minute to win the game after Georgia went ahead on an interception return.

From Tigerpundit: "That's the kind of loss that has the potential to haunt us for the rest of the season, if not the rest of our lives."

More on truth, from a reader's mother

As a first for this blog, I offer a link to this essay, which relates somewhat to the earlier post full of editorials about what is truth, and strangely, it was written by the mother of an actual sometimes reader of this blog.

She writes:

"It's easy to find truth in what someone else has written and then pass it on as an expression of our own opinion. The trouble is, one click on 'forward' at a time, shades of gray tend to fall away, and pretty soon the opinions of other people­ those who craft these apparently irresistible nuggets of propaganda­ become my own."

Ah, so the fault lies not with Fox News, but with e-mail? Perhaps so; my own e-mails are notoriously abrasive, and that's accordingly to the people who send me notes about things like fresh donuts in the office kitchen. The son might say no, it is Fox News.

Decals cause uproar between cities

In this absurd article from the Charlottesville paper, it says that Virginia Beach residents get ticketed in Charlottesville for not having a city sticker. The same thing happened to me several times during my last year in Williamsburg, where the police failed to notice the Abingdon town tag on the front of my car. (Abingdon gave up town tags in the mid-90s).

McSweeney explains the vast gay conspiracy

Just as Al Gore speculates on a conservative moment triggered by a memo written by Lewis Powell, Patrick McSweeney traces the "gay agenda" to a particular writing in this column, which among other things says this:

"Gay activists have now launched a campaign to dig into the personal lives of all legislators who supported Virginia's 2004 law banning civil unions. They are looking for any rumor or suggestion of questionable private conduct so that these despised lawmakers can be outed - whether the allegations involve homosexual conduct or other behavior that might prove embarrassing."

Somehow, this makes me think of the famous story of Claude Pepper from Florida:

"It was the 1950 Florida primary campaign for the U.S. Senate when George Smathers challenged incumbent Claude Pepper. In his campaign, Smathers targeted Pepper's unrestrained liberalism—before liberalism became a dirty word—and the fears of uneducated voters.

In a classic campaign speech in rural northern Florida, Smathers told his audience that Pepper was 'a shameless extrovert' who was known to have engaged in 'nepotism' with his sister-in-law, 'whose sister was once a thespian' in wicked New York City, and who was acknowledged to have 'practiced celibacy' before his marriage."

Yeah, and I bet his brother was a philatelist.

Wondering what the judge in the Muhammad case thought he was doing

In this Washington Post article ("Judge's Probe in Sniper Case Debated," 9/12/04), speculation about the Commonwealth's motion to recuse the trial court judge for the second sniper Muhammad trial includes whether it is directed at unusual judicial misconduct or whether it is just an attempt to boot an uncooperative judge.

Truth? what truth?

This Marsha Mercer column sums up the essence of how nobody can seem to agree on the facts any more, not in a presidential campaign. This commentary from the Richmond paper points out that by the numbers, the economy was better in 2003 than in 1996, but the media can't agree whether that's true.

The Washington Post has this letter to the editor that says: "The degree to which cable news outlets can saturate our minds with half-truths or fallacies threatens our democracy." The Post also has this commentary that claims: "the journalism of verification . . . is gradually yielding place to a journalism of assertion."

In the Norfolk paper, Margaret Edds speaks of the truth in this column, and opines: "When it comes to the Bush administration, so far, the consequences for fudging the truth on such matters are zilch."

Tommy Denton from the Roanoke paper likewise assails the truthfulness of Republicans in this column. Showing fairness and balance, the Roanoke paper also has this reader commentary about how the Roanoke paper is not telling the truth in its editorials about the Swift Boat veterans - an assertion that may or may not be true.

Speculations on the Richard Burrow re-trial

In this story ("New trial, more twists," 9/12/04), the Roanoke paper wonders what the trial of former National D-Day Memorial Foundation president Richard Burrow will be like. The main difference, the article says, is that the lawyer for the Foundation will testify for the government against Burrow.