The judge was conflicted.The woman appearing before him seeking bond on a felony larceny charge had a long history of petty crimes and a terrible record of following court orders: six failure to appears, four probation violations and two contempt of court citations.But she also suffers from a disease...
In a Sunday briefing, state officials said that there have been no cases of COVID-19, the disease caused by a new strain of coronavirus, among inmates at Virginia’s 40 state-run incarceration facilities.But Brian Moran, the commonwealth’s secretary of public safety and homeland security, also said that no inmates have...
Virginia officials delivered a small measure of relief to low-income residents Monday, ordering electric, natural gas and water companies to suspend service disconnections until the spread of COVID-19 is contained.Meanwhile, eviction and debt collection lawsuits are being continued temporarily under a broader “judicial emergency” declared by the Supreme Court...
Gov. Ralph Northam will have the chance to make interim appointments for two judicial seats after lawmakers failed to agree on nominees for vacant positions on the Virginia Court of Appeals and the State Corporation Commission.Democrats in the House and Senate said they simply couldn’t reach agreement between the...
Possession of small amounts of marijuana will no longer be punishable by jail time in Virginia under decriminalization legislation lawmakers sent to Gov. Ralph Northam on Sunday."This means close to 30,000 people a year will no longer be labeled as criminals and no longer will suffer the negative repercussions...
Lawmakers voted this week to tighten the state’s anti-prostitution laws to include illicit massage parlors, but not before attaching a last minute-amendment to assuage concerns the legislation might unintentionally outlaw an annual beach-front Latin dance festival.“We had a little bit of a challenge working with how to incorporate Latin...
A Republican senator is accusing Democratic leaders in the House of Delegates of blocking a bi-partisan pick to fill a district court judgeship because the candidate opposed former Gov. Terry McAuliffe’s blanket restoration of felon voting rights in 2016.LaBravia Jenkins, the commonwealth’s attorney of Fredericksburg, was one of dozens...
A Senate bill aims to re-introduce transparency to Virginia's execution process, declassifying the sources of lethal injection drugs and ensuring that the names of facilities are subject to Freedom of Information Act requests.
Virginia will extend parole eligibility to people convicted of felonies they committed when they were under the age of 18, prompting convicted sniper Lee Boyd Malvo to drop a resentencing request that had been pending before the U.S. Supreme Court.The bill is the second to be signed into law...
Until this year, if prison inmates in Virginia needed to see a nurse or a doctor for anything other than an emergency, the state charged them a $5 copay — a modest amount in the context of ballooning health care costs nationwide but a huge sum behind bars, where...
