U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the longest-serving member of the court's liberal minority, died Friday night after a struggle with pancreatic cancer, touching off both tributes and a war of words about filling her seat in a fraught election year.Virginia Sens. Tim Kaine and Mark Warner, both...
It was early July and Virginia prison officials thought they had the coronavirus pandemic pretty well under control.Gov. Ralph Northam’s secretary of public safety, Brian Moran, told lawmakers that they were down to 16 active cases among 28,000 inmates --- a result, he said, of extensive prevention measures undertaken...
WASHINGTON — Transgender teen Andrew Adams used the boys bathroom, which aligned with his gender identity, when he enrolled as a freshman in 2015 at Allen D. Nease High School in Ponte Vedra, Fla.Then two girls lodged a complaint and school authorities ordered Adams to use a gender-neutral or...
For the third time in two weeks, lawmakers in the General Assembly voted down a measure aimed at rolling back qualified immunity for police officers.The bill, which died twice in the House only to twice be revived days later, hit what appears to be a more permanent dead end...
The Virginia House of Delegates narrowly passed legislation Tuesday rolling back qualified immunity as a defense against lawsuits alleging police misconduct, reviving the measure just four days after voting it down.The bill, which now heads to the Senate, has followed a rocky path through the General Assembly and it’s...
The Virginia House of Delegates passed a wide-ranging package of police reform legislation Friday that would establish a blanket prohibition on choke holds and create criminal penalties for officers who fail to intervene in a colleague’s unlawful use of force.The bills, which drew strong opposition from Republican lawmakers and...
Some Virginia inmates could see their sentences cut nearly in half under legislation aimed at rewarding good behavior and participation in prison rehabilitation programs.Bills advanced by Democrats in the House and Senate would dramatically expand the state’s existing earned sentence credit program, which currently caps sentence reductions tied to...
Lawmakers on Virginia's House Appropriations Committee revived a bill aimed at making it easier to sue police officers for misconduct, voting Tuesday to send the measure for a vote before the full chamber.The decision came less than 24 hours after the same panel voted the bill down, with two...
A Virginia House of Delegates panel voted down legislation Monday aimed at making it easier to sue police officers who abuse their authority.The bill, proposed by Del. Jeff Bourne, D-Richmond, would have allowed people to sue in state court --- an effort to side-step the judicial doctrine of “qualified...
A federal judge’s impassioned comments about police overreach provide powerful evidence for Virginia legislators who want to weaken something called “qualified immunity.” The legal doctrine makes it nearly impossible for citizens to win certain civil suits claiming wrongdoing by police officers — often in excessive force incidents. Here’s how the...
