The Virginia Appellate Lawyer’s Court of Appeals of Virginia Blog

Editorial Comment: Today we have a classic example of how the American Criminal Justice System can ensnare people — both the guilty and innocent — in a web of contrived evidence, pressure to convict, and grossly ineffective assistance of counsel — and then fails to provide any kind of real relief to those whose lives were destroyed in the process — or closure for the victim’s family and friends. I urge you to read the entire post, because it’s important that everyone, not jus

When testimonial evidence is excluded by a trial court, it is essential that the party who want to introduce that evidence makes a “proffer” of what the evidence would have been.  Without a proffer, an appellate court will rarely consider reserving a judgment based on the trial court’s decision to exclude the evidence as there is no way of knowing how it would have impacted the trial.  Perhaps the witness would have claimed ignorance, or perhaps would have said the exact oppo

Today I second-chaired a criminal trial.  Why was an appellate lawyer doing real lawyer work?  Well, primarily because in this case (and in a related case that will be tried in about 2 months) there was initially a concern that there would be a significant appellate issue.  As it turned out today, we never even reached that issue and got an appropriate result. For reasons of confidentiality (although this was a public trial, I do not wish to bring any more attention to the ca

Having just last week participated in the first ever VaCLE Virginia Appellate Academy during which one of my roles was to advise some of the participants on the subtle art of brief writing, I found the appearance on the one published open from the Court of Appeals issued today to be very gratifying.  I know the photo below is a bit small and grainy, but the text is irrelevant to the point I am about to make. Look at the bottom of the page.  See all that white space? The reaso

As we enter the Dog Days of Summer, the Court of Appeals has three published opinion to kick off August. Let’s start off with a Worker’s Compensation appeal where the pro se employee appellee gets a win!  Hooray for the little guy — or in this case gal.  The case has a really interesting twist in that Ms. Casie O’Neil is a sheriff’s deouty and her on the job injury was caused by another law enforcement officer during a training exercise. County of Henrico and PMA Management C